1. The connotation of process innovation Technical innovation can be divided into two categories according to its content: product innovation and process innovation. Product innovation refers to the enterprise providing a certain new product or new service, while process innovation refers to the enterprise using a certain method to produce and transmit new products and new services. It mainly refers to the enterprise researching and adopting new or significantly improved production methods. Ways to improve labor productivity, reduce raw material and energy consumption or improve existing product production, thereby ultimately achieving innovation activities that maximize corporate output. Both process innovation and product innovation are aimed at improving the social and economic benefits of enterprises, but they have different approaches and methods. Product innovation focuses on the results of activities, while process innovation focuses on the process of activities; the results of product innovation are mainly reflected in physical products, while the results of process innovation can not only penetrate into workers, labor materials and labor objects, but also It can penetrate into the combination of various productivity factors, that is, the integration of many productivity factors.
Process innovation is determined based on product innovation, but is subject to the laws of the process environment. Starting from the source and timing of innovation activities, process innovation is divided into three levels:
(1 ) Process pre-innovation derived from corporate development strategy. It includes three aspects: first, the key processes necessary for the development of future product models; second, the technologies that must be developed from the perspective of technological development trends (such as CAD, CAPP, FMS, CMS), etc.; third, the needs to improve the technical level of products Solve some key processes. The source of its innovation is the enterprise's development strategy, which aims to enhance the enterprise's technological innovation capabilities and mainly serve future product innovation.
(2) Real-time process innovation stemming from product innovation. That is, process innovation in the product development stage. Its innovation originates from the technical bottleneck of the current product design and production in the product, and mainly serves the product being developed. The process innovation at this stage makes more use of existing technologies for secondary development.
(3) Batch process innovation derived from economies of scale. That is, process innovation in the mass production stage. The source of innovation is economies of scale. The purpose is to make trial products meet the quality and efficiency requirements of mass production. Its essence is the engineering of scientific and technological achievements.
2. The importance of process innovation in enterprise development. The tendency and behavior of attaching importance to product innovation and ignoring process innovation is common not only in our country, but also in developed countries. This is a phenomenon related to the development of market economy. In order to make their products enter the market as soon as possible and obtain greater economic benefits, enterprises must first invest resources in product innovation, especially when resources are insufficient. However, focusing too much on product innovation and ignoring process innovation will bring a series of negative effects. First, the product market cycle is shortened. Many new products have not yet gained a firm foothold after being launched, and are eliminated due to quality, performance, price and other issues, and do not achieve the benefits they deserve. Continuously switching products also increases business costs. Secondly, the most important negative impact is the decline in product quality, high energy and material consumption, and the decline in corporate efficiency. Due to neglect of process innovation, once import substitution, that is, after localization, the quality of certain imported goods has dropped significantly, product competitiveness has been reduced, and some have quickly withdrawn from the market. Therefore, process innovation is particularly important in the process of enterprise technological innovation.
2.1 Process innovation is an objective requirement to continuously improve the economic benefits of enterprises. The level of process technology not only has a vital impact on the quality of an enterprise's products, but also affects the material consumption, energy consumption and efficiency of the enterprise's production. In other words, the technological level of an enterprise directly determines the conversion efficiency of various input resources in the production process, and determines the economic benefits of the enterprise. As long as the enterprise's process technology remains unchanged, although the economic benefits of the enterprise can be improved to a certain extent through strengthening management and other means, this possibility is limited. A certain level of process technology determines the approximate range of an enterprise's economic benefits. To continuously improve an enterprise's economic benefits, it is necessary to continuously carry out process innovation.
2.2 The development of process innovation activities is conducive to improving the product innovation capabilities and market competitiveness of enterprises. In the process of technological innovation of enterprises, there is a certain dependence and interaction between product innovation and process innovation. Advanced Advanced production equipment and production technology can help reduce production costs and improve the labor productivity of enterprises. At the same time, they can improve the quality of products of enterprises, and can better promote the industrialization and commercialization of product innovation results and realize product innovation benefits. On the contrary, if the process innovation capability is weak, the company's production equipment is outdated, and the production technology is backward, it will cause the company's product innovation to be unable to be realized due to the "bottleneck" of the production process, or it will lack the market competitiveness due to poor efficiency. For example, in the field of medical biotechnology, my country's upstream basic research may be only 3 to 5 years behind the international level. In some areas, such as genetically modified technology and stem cell technology, it is still at the world's advanced level. However, the downstream process level is at least 15 years behind. years and above. Very few upstream research results are converted into biotechnology products, and according to reports, the ratio between the two does not exceed 0.5%. Therefore, process innovation is an important way to improve the technical level and product innovation capabilities of enterprises, and is a necessary means to improve the competitiveness of enterprises.
2.3 Process innovation can extend the leading time of innovative companies. New products are a double-edged sword. On the one hand, they open up new markets and companies gain high returns; on the other hand, they also attract a large number of people. imitator. Companies generally use patents to resist such rapid attacks, but patent protection is time-sensitive. After the patent expires, the product no longer has a monopoly in the market. At the same time, the process from some patented technologies to technology commercialization takes a long time (such as the development of new drugs), and many patents have expired in the early stages of the new product life cycle. But process innovation can provide longer-term protection. Because the process of process innovation enterprises is relatively complex and the production efficiency is high, imitators cannot match it in the short term. Objectively, there is a time lag for imitation, and the diffusion speed of manufacturing technology is slower than that of product technology.
3. Issues that should be paid attention to in promoting process innovation. As my country joins the WTO, Chinese enterprises have more frequent trade exchanges with foreign countries and will participate in international competition on a broader scale. Partners and competitors are no longer limited. They are not only domestic enterprises in surrounding areas, but also a large number of modern enterprises from foreign countries or regions. These enterprises have advanced technology, advanced production equipment and advanced production processes. Under this circumstance, our country's enterprises must first carry out concept innovation, establish and enhance the awareness of process innovation, fully realize the importance and time urgency of process innovation for the survival and development of enterprises, pay attention to and strengthen the process innovation capabilities of enterprises, so as to This will improve the enterprise's labor productivity and reduce production costs, and overall improve the enterprise's comprehensive market competitiveness. On this basis, increase capital investment in process innovation, strengthen internal management, and improve the utilization rate of limited process innovation funds. And establish effective talent and incentive mechanisms. In addition, the following points are also issues worthy of our attention in promoting process innovation.
3.1 Maintain the continuity of process innovation Compared with product innovation, process innovation is usually not completed through some major leap steps and breakthroughs, but through stable, continuous and incremental innovation. In the process of process innovation, it is sometimes possible to take some major change steps, such as adopting a new production system or improving the organization's information processing system. But in general, a company's long-term success in process innovation comes from continuous incremental change. If an enterprise lacks continuity and a long-term perspective in the process of process innovation, it will eventually lead to the disconnection between the technology adopted by the enterprise and the specific environment of the enterprise, thus reducing the overall efficiency of the enterprise.
3.2 Pay attention to distinguishing between the elements in process innovation and the elements related to process innovation. There are two categories: structural elements and basic elements. Structural elements include some specific process elements: the number, location, size, quality, etc. of production facilities; the type and production capacity of production equipment; the basic organizational form of the production process; the status of production supporting services, such as water, electricity, sewage facilities, etc. ;The status of external supply and distribution networks. Basic elements mainly include: production control system; quality management system; production flow management system. At the same time, basic factors also include human resources factors, the quality, age, experience of production personnel, etc.; the organization method of production tasks; the cooperation tendency of different functional departments; the communication model of the enterprise and the overall control and management model.
Finally, basic elements also include cultural factors, such as the values ??and traditional behavioral patterns generally recognized by employees in the production department. Compared with the former, the basic element is slightly abstract, but it also has a great impact on process innovation. Grasping these elements has certain guiding significance for the implementation of the process innovation process.
3.3 Pay attention to the development and protection of intellectual property rights in the process of process innovation. Intellectual property rights have been increasingly valued by enterprises. It is one of the core elements for enterprises to maintain competitive advantages. In the process of process innovation, new technologies and methods generated during the process of process innovation are protected by patents, while special methods to solve the "bottleneck" problem can be protected as technical secrets. This way of fixing process innovation results as intellectual property assets can, on the one hand, transform the results from tacit knowledge status to explicit knowledge status, provide timely and effective protection, form exclusive possession rights, and extend the product life cycle. On the other hand, It is helpful for enterprises to convert personal intellectual capital in human resources into corporate intellectual capital, promotes more effective control and utilization of intellectual capital by enterprises, and can reduce the loss of intellectual capital caused by talent flow.
3.4 Strengthen process innovation and product innovation combination Technology innovation combination was proposed by Professor Xu Qingrui of Zhejiang University in the 1980s. Many examples illustrate that it is difficult for pure product innovation to maintain its competitive benefits in the long term, and must rely on process innovation. In the process of product innovation, the existing process foundation must be fully considered. There is an obvious interaction between product innovation and process innovation, and product technology and process technology develop alternately. The basic reason for the formation of this alternating conversion model is the dependence and interactivity between the evolution of product technology and process technology. Therefore, in the implementation process of technological innovation, it is necessary to correctly understand the interaction between product innovation and process innovation to ensure the coordinated development of the two, so as to enhance the competitiveness of enterprises.
3.5 Companies should strengthen management of process innovation from a strategic perspective. When companies only focus on short-term process applications and lack preparation for future process models, companies will spend a lot of money to develop advanced process systems, but In the end, it happened that it could not be integrated into the company's original production system. When process innovation lacks unified planning, the company's products will be in a state of uncertainty. Due to this instability, the company may eventually lose its market competitive advantage. Therefore, process innovation must serve the overall strategy of the enterprise.