Foreword

It’s hard to believe that this remarkable book is actually 11 years old and going into its second edition. It has been widely influential, having been used by many companies, universities, and other organizations in multiple countries. Such diverse leaders as Procter & Gamble, Kraft, Boeing, and Navistar have productively applied its concepts and approaches. So have other businesses, in countries ranging from Belgium, Finland, and the U.K. to China and Singapore. In fact, in Singapore, the ideas in the book were an influence that contributed to the design-driven innovation initiatives by its government-sponsored Design Council. Creating Breakthrough Products also plays a major role in the curricula of Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Cincinnati, and other leading institutions of higher learning around the world.

As the book’s precepts are being proven in practice, Jonathan Cagan and Craig Vogel have refined them based on their resulting new insights and expanded them to address the growing importance of the service economy. This new edition includes new discussions of service design and interaction design, as well as product design in the United States and abroad.

These updates are welcome, but the book’s essential message remains the same and is as timely as it was on its initial publication: Collaboration and integrated innovation is an essential process for creating successful new products and businesses.

Integration is an overused word, and few do it well. But it also is the secret sauce, by design or default, of most successful enterprises...Apple being the obvious exemplar. In the integrated, user-centered new product development approach Cagan and Vogel espouse, the disciplines of product design, engineering, and marketing blend to enable the creation of products that are both aesthetically appealing and functionally compelling.

I personally have been privileged, through my discussions with the authors, to see these ideas develop and grow—and also to advocate them at Navistar. Their practical value is summed up by the term pragmatic innovation, reflecting the continuous drive to understand customers’ evolving requirements and deliver solutions that are beautifully packaged and delightfully functional.

This has been vividly brought to life at Navistar in our classic long-haul vehicle, the International LoneStar. As this new edition of Creating Breakthrough Products makes clear, this book’s authors had a significant influence on the process by which this product was developed. Students under the authors’ direction contributed many worthwhile ideas as well—and, beyond that, Navistar’s product design, engineering, and marketing teams worked more closely together as a result of the authors’ insights and delivered a much more compelling result than could have been produced using traditional product development practices.

Navistar also has taken the principles of integration and pragmatic innovation to heart by re-potting the essential execution elements of vehicle engineering, power train engineering, design supplier operations, and manufacturing, previously dispersed, into a new integrated product development center in Lisle, Illinois, that opened in 2012.

I happen to believe, along with many others, that the wealth and well-being of nations, including ours, the United States, rests on manufacturing complicated, consequential products that benefit commerce as well as provide good-paying jobs that raise standards of living. This book provides insights on how to do that. In no small way, when the President of the United States stresses the critical nature of manufacturing, he is, in essence, endorsing the integrated, multidisciplinary processes that lead to manufacturing leadership—processes for which Cagan and Vogel serve as strong advocates.

—Dee Kapur
President, Truck Group
Navistar, Inc.