The Nature and the Significance of Innovation for Engineers - Coursework Example

Innovation Name: University: Date: Executive Summary Innovation engineering, as evidenced in the report, changes innovation from unsystematic event into a, a scientific and reliable system, for cost-effective growth.   It achieves this through creation of a boundless culture of innovation in organizations, which delivers increased speed of innovation and reduces risk. Innovation is very essential to a company, given that it is closely associated with productivity, and even though there are numerous ways of increasing productivity, innovation provides the best channel. Without sustained innovation, the growth rate in economies that are labour-constrained will eventually drop to zero. Basically, engineering innovation steer improvement of productivity across every sector and scores of industries crucial to the country’s economic growth like manufacturing, mining, construction, and telecommunications need substantial engineering innovation. By concentrating on innovation in engineering-based industries, it is likely to boost productivity as well as facilitate the economic success of both the industry and country in large. At the present time, engineering practice needs wider skills: not just technical, but as well knowledge of innovation, entrepreneurship, and leadership. Normally, engineers appreciate the worth of these skills when they become employed. This paper critically reviews the nature and the significance of innovation for engineers; also demonstrate how engineering innovations have impacted environments in factories, and will also profile latest innovative achievements at Mintrex. Table of Contents Innovation 1 Executive Summary 2 1.0 Introduction 4 2.0 Recent Innovative Achievements of Mintrex 4 3.0 Engineering Innovation Credited To Mintrex 7 4.0 Aspects of Diffusion and Entrepreneurship Related To the Innovation 9 5.0 Organization’s Cross-Cultural Awareness Policies 10 6.0 Engineer Functioning As an Innovator at Mintrex Environment 11 7.0 Circumstances That Hindered and/or Facilitated Innovation at Mintrex 12 To facilitate innovation at Mintrex, the company has created a playground culture that has three vital factors: first is offering an environment wherein risk-taking is harmless, and this can be achieved by creating a working setting where it is okay to bring up innovative ideas. Second factor is assembling a team that is dedicated and has high probability of creating a solution to a problem. Mintrex innovation team is empowered so as to solve various engineering problems devoid of outside influence. Last factor is designing a physical work environment, which is favourable to innovation, and assist in having a physical environment, which has collaboration spaces as well as offers other tools of collaboration for multidisciplinary teams. Previous studies on successful organisations on innovations has pointed out that to be innovatively successful, the company must concentrate on investing and managing the principal innovation assets: first is information, Mintrex in this case has invested in information systems for achieving current, reliable information concerning research, technologies, markets, and so forth in the field of engineering. Another innovation facilitator is skills; informal and formal learning for multiskilling, reskilling, and skilling of engineers has been a key innovation facilitator at Mintrex. Intellectual property has been a hindrance to innovation because engineers are not able to protect their knowledge base through copyright, design registrations, trademarks, or patents. Other factors that can facilitate or hinder innovation include funding, organisational networks, and reputation. 13 8.0 Diagrammatic Model of Mintrex Innovation Process for Engineering Innovation 14 9.0 Conclusion 15 10.0 References 16 Appendices 17 1.0 Introduction As argued by Drucker (2014), innovation is an entrepreneurship tool, and creativity is demanded by both innovation as well as entrepreneurship. Creativity can be defined as a process through which a symbolic cultural domain is transformed. New machines and ideas are all rooted in creativity, and so creativity in engineering is the ability to make or something novel, whether a new device or method, new resolution to a problem, or a new product (Okpara, 2007). Creativity is defined by Drucker (2014) as useful and new, and is the process of making things that everyone knows whilst making improvements that have never been made before (Drucker, 2014). So, all engineering innovation starts with creative ideas, and innovation is the establishment of creative motivation. The report will mainly focus on Mintrex, a project management, an engineering consulting, as well as asset management organisation that offers solutions that are cost effective to the global mineral extraction industries. Mintrex utilises a matrix structure, and the project teams are made of engineers, project managers, and drafters. Basically, Mintrex engages in various innovative engineering practices such as Mineral Beneficiation, Underground Mining, among other projects (Mintrex, 2010). 2.0 Recent Innovative Achievements of Mintrex The first innovative engineering achievement of Mintrex is improving gold recovery with recycle crushers. Considering that the gold producers operating costs are under intense pressure, companies through Mintrex have improved their gold recovery from the circuit by means of economical verified solutions. Basically, installing recycle crusher usually acknowledged as a scats or pebble crusher, into the milling circuit is according to Mintrex the best technique of improving gold recovery. Recycle crusher innovated by Mintrex is crucial because ball milling and Autogenous (AG) circuits build up scats or pebbles, and these are ore lumps normally 25 to 50 millimeters that are exceedingly hard to break down in a milling circuit. Basically, the pebbles are very small for breaking other rocks or exceedingly large for grinding media to break them down. Recirculating pebbles buildup leads to a reduced efficiency of the mill and consequently, a mill throughput reduction. Normally, pebble circuits are set up when there ore type change, and the circuit includes a screen attached to the mill discharge for separating the pebbles, a magnet for removing small grinding media, a recycle crusher, as well as a series of conveyors. Recycle crushers innovated by Mintrex are characteristically cone crushers and have the ability to reduce the size of pebble to -15 mm; thus, allowing the mill to ground them. Mintrex is exceedingly experienced in the design as well as installation of retro-fit and new pebble crushers. Another successful innovative engineering project is the Degrussa Copper Project; whereby the project delivery team was tasked with developing the copper project in line with the plan that was defined during various study phases. In this case, Mintrex assisted Sandfire in developing the project through compilation and preparation of a prefeasibility study (PFS), as well as a definitive feasibility. This as a result, enabled the copper-gold producer to deliver its project successfully on budget as well as on time (Mintrex, 2010). Given that Sandfire’s execution strategy was mainly rooted in its desire to accelerate the project, Mintrex innovation ability enabled the company to commence the detailed engineering as well as major procurement contracts preparation together with the last phases of the PFS and before the commencement of the DFS. This innovative strategy needed a profound PFS detail as compared to what would routinely be used in minimising the changes extent during both the DFS as well as detailed engineering. Mintrex managed to complete the following tasks in parallel with the DFS study; plant site bulk earthworks, access road and drainage, HV power distribution, and infrastructure services. In 2014, Mintrex managed to design a pebble crushing circuit that had a 10tph nominal throughput so as to facilitate high plant throughput. In this case, a Metso HP100 cone crusher as well as Sanki conveyors were utilised in the circuit that was rooted in the Tabakoto Pebble Crusher Design. Besides that, Mintrex utilized Pebble Crushing circuit that was designed for Tabakoto in the Nzema project, but was modified for specific conditions at the site (Mintrex, 2010). Both design and engineering were performed for a fixed price without extras or variations and within the time frame. Besides that, Mintrex helped Excelsior Gold Ltd to prepare a pre-feasability study for the North Gold Project. The scope of Mintrex work involved preparing an operational cost and capital estimate for the processing plant. In this case, a flow sheet was designed by Mintrex reflecting minimum requirements leading to a plant that was robust and easy to run requiring less manpower to work. In 2013, $360 million was approved by the Northern Territory Government for the MRM expansion investment. In this case, the capacity was increased in the MRM Phase 3 Development Project to 5.5 million tons of ore annually from 2.5 million tons. Altogether, an average of 93kt of lead, 383kt of zinc, as well as 110t of silver in concentrate was anticipated to be produced yearly. In this case, Mintrex was tasked to prepare the novel primary crushing station design at McArthur River Mine. So, the plant comprised of a grizzly screen, an apron feeder, as well as a Metso C160 jaw crusher that had a 350 ton ROM bin. Besides that, Mintrex as well successfully prepared designs for the mill installation (11 MW as well as doubling of the concentrates storage shed size (Mintrex, 2010). 3.0 Engineering Innovation Credited To Mintrex A noteworthy engineering innovation that can be credited to Mintrex is the Pebble Crushing Circuits. Basically, the crushing plants are an essential part of majority of the traditional comminution circuits. At Mintrex the key goal of their crushing circuits is to allow for the effective use of energy in decreasing either the critically sized fraction or the top size material so as to balance and optimize the general capability of comminution between the grinding as well as crushing circuit operations. It was realised during the interview process that the sustainable management of the quality and yield of crusher product need utilisation of computerised control strategies. Mintrex’s control schema for crusher circuit uses a layered approach, which entails supervisory control as well as basic control (sequences, interlocks, in addition to regulatory control) and involving model predictive control. So, the control schema layered approach offers a holistic as well as robust approach to optimization, and control schema layers contribute uniquely to the general performance of the control system, all having their own related benefits. Mintrex’s control schema constitutes a hierarchical control layers and successful operation of all layers are reliant on the layer performance that feeds into it (Mintrex, 2010). The control strategy complexity according to the interviewed engineer is reflected in the final schema complexity, which basically is the process complexity function, the number of considered process variables, the process equipment disturbance rejection capabilities, as well as the dynamics of the process. Besides that, Mintrex’s primary gyratory crushers are strong crushers with contemporary features, and they are particularly created for offering optimal primary crushing capacity, improving the mining crushing process total capacity. In this case, the crushers are prepared with a grooved mantle and large feed opening making them appropriate for crushing big boulders. The crushing chamber’s optimized nip angle leads to maximized ability, wear life, as well as output. In the crusher working process, the screening as well as crushing process is combined. Prior to the process of crushing, the engineers at Mintrex ensure that the materials to be crushed have some small-sized particles, so as to improve the efficiency of crushing. With regard to crushed materials, because of different principles of crushing, there always exist particles that are big-sized, which do not meet the required requirement; thus, creating the need for screening for multiple crushing convenience. Therefore, to reach crusher’s better performance effect, engineers at Mintrex always ensure there is a close screening system combination. In general, the combination of various screening systems and a crusher mostly involves two operational modes: closed circuit as well as open circuit. In this case, the closed-circuit system utilises the screening system for checking and controlling the final products’ size, in order that the crushed products granularity is even. On the other hand, in the open-circuit system, the material that is crushed normally has materials having big granularity. The crusher circuit energy efficiency is defined by the energy consumption, considering that the key objective of the crushers is to reduce the power consumption and to achieve the needed rate of production. There are a number of factors that can impact the specific energy consumption, and they include feed’s particle size distribution, crusher performance, ore hardness, undesired equipment break downs, and other factors such as wet feedstock material because of rain. As mentioned by the engineers during the interview process, designing a successful crusher circuit needs a clear comprehension of the equipment features and process dynamics and importantly, creativity. Moreover, a tight combination between the supervisory control layer and basic control layer is needed so that the techniques for optimization functions efficiently, and engineers at Mintrex clearly understand how to design a crusher circuit that can offer optimal performance. Mintrex’s two-stage crushing circuit often consists of closed-circuit and open-circuit, and they are usually utilized for small mineral beneficiation plant. On the other hand, the three-stage circuit is divided either into closed-circuit and open-circuit with the closed circuit having a robust adaptability when the content of mud in the raw ore is low. This makes it suitable for the ore grinding process preparatory work in numerous ore plants having diverse sizes. The workshop equipment configuration of the three-stage open-circuit crushing process is moderately simple, and reduces infrastructure cost, but the final products created by this circuit is exceedingly coarse, and is mostly utilized for processing argillaceous ores that have low water content in addition to in the working procedure that lacks strict feeding granularity requirement. To sum up, Mintrex’s crushing circuits, especially pebble has been utilised widely in mineral beneficiation in various mining sites. Mineral beneficiation can be defined as the procedure through which valuable ore constituents are concentrated through a physical process of separation. 4.0 Aspects of Diffusion and Entrepreneurship Related To the Innovation Entrepreneurs’ roles in diffusing technological innovations into the global marketplace as well as inspiring the advancement of completely new industries close to such innovations, exhibits why they play a crucial role in innovation diffusion. Still, research in diffusion has not been successful in offering a clear synopsis on how entrepreneurs facilitate innovation diffusion at global level. According to Miller and Garnsey (2000), innovative entrepreneurship is a particular mechanism whereby growth in productivity is introduced in developed economies, conflicting underdeveloped economies where diffusion of past technology and innovation promote productivity growth. So, innovation is diffused through generation of new knowledge manifested in production by entrepreneurs in advanced economies, but largely is steered driven by capital investment directed by reputable companies. Technological interdependence existence between nations has enabled entrepreneurs diffuse innovations from developed economies to developing economies, consequently, accelerating productivity amongst stragglers. A crucial role is played by entrepreneurs in diffusing innovations and promoting development of new innovative companies. But importantly, the process of innovation diffusion relies heavily on the innovation itself, communication process utilised, time, and affected persons in the society. Recently, rapid global innovations diffusion and manufacturing processes have developed into a crucial economic attributes. Owing to entrepreneurship, developing countries that previously were barely developed have presently developed into a major market hub of industrial products where innovation has been crucial to the development processes. 5.0 Organization’s Cross-Cultural Awareness Policies Mintrex endeavours to Working for sustainable, healthy, and safe outcomes. The company acknowledges the fact that most of its operations are situated in the traditional territory for Aboriginal people. The company in its policy endeavors for responsible development that considers the interests of the Aboriginals in addition to their current and traditional uses of resources and lands. Mintrex development policy creates both impacts on and opportunities for communities, and the company strives to minimize the former and maximize the latter. Besides that, Mintrex works to create relationships that are mutually strong and beneficial to Aboriginal communities living close to the company’s operations in Australia. Mintrex Aboriginal Relations Policy helps the company in building relationships that are rooted in trust, mutual respect, and transparency. The company’s commitment to Aboriginal Peoples consists of: respecting traditions and rights of aboriginal people by respecting and understanding their traditions, beliefs, customs, and history. Besides that Mintrex shares its economic success with aboriginals through economic and employment opportunities. Besides that, the policy enable the company to comprehend its environmental impacts by recognizing the significance of the land to Aboriginal Peoples as well as accepting the company’s own responsibilities toward the land, and dedicate itself to carrying out its business in a manner that is environmentally stable. Through its numerous foundations, Mintrex is ssupporting the aboriginal peoples’ social well-being. At Mintrex, Aboriginal people are below one cent of the engineering labour force; however, the company is endeavouring to search for engineers with indigenous background as well as knowledge. 6.0 Engineer Functioning As an Innovator at Mintrex Environment In contemporary global marketplace that is fiercely competitive, senior engineers play a crucial role at Mintrex in ensuring continuous innovation (Williamson, Lounsbury, & Han, 2013). The demands for engineers at Mintrex to play more important roles in every innovation process are tremendously increasing. Senior engineers play a crucial role at Mintrex in improving the training and education of junior engineers so as to become innovative and compete in the international marketplace and perform effectively in a global environments where the cross-cultural sensitivity, open-mindedness, emotional intelligence, and social awareness is needed. Mintrex engineers have successfully combined intrapreneurial roles together with other innovative strategies for purposes of commercial technology, and since it operates in a dynamic world, the company’s future success relies on its engineers’ ability to innovate. At Mintrex engineering innovation has been and is still the key driver for high productivity in the mining industry, especially attributed to its pebble crushing circuit that has successfully been utilised in various mining sites across Australia. Basically, Mintrex is amongst the leading engineering consultant in Australia, and this has mainly been attributed to its ability to convert its inventions into innovation. The company’s engineers play an important part in improving Australia society and in innovation, and this has been very important for Mintrex transition from to high value-added activities. 7.0 Circumstances That Hindered and/or Facilitated Innovation at Mintrex To facilitate innovation at Mintrex, the company has created a playground culture that has three vital factors: first is offering an environment wherein risk-taking is harmless, and this can be achieved by creating a working setting where it is okay to bring up innovative ideas. Second factor is assembling a team that is dedicated and has high probability of creating a solution to a problem. Mintrex innovation team is empowered so as to solve various engineering problems devoid of outside influence. Last factor is designing a physical work environment, which is favourable to innovation, and assist in having a physical environment, which has collaboration spaces as well as offers other tools of collaboration for multidisciplinary teams. Previous studies on successful organisations on innovations has pointed out that to be innovatively successful, the company must concentrate on investing and managing the principal innovation assets: first is information, Mintrex in this case has invested in information systems for achieving current, reliable information concerning research, technologies, markets, and so forth in the field of engineering. Another innovation facilitator is skills; informal and formal learning for multiskilling, reskilling, and skilling of engineers has been a key innovation facilitator at Mintrex. Intellectual property has been a hindrance to innovation because engineers are not able to protect their knowledge base through copyright, design registrations, trademarks, or patents. Other factors that can facilitate or hinder innovation include funding, organisational networks, and reputation. 8.0 Diagrammatic Model of Mintrex Innovation Process for Engineering Innovation 9.0 Conclusion In conclusion, it has been argued that engineering innovation is a cutting-edge tool, which offers a systematic innovative approach to engineering firms like Mintrex. The central concepts of engineering innovation include methods and tools for communicating, creating, as well as commercializing ideas that are meaningfully unique. Engineering innovation as evidenced in Mintrex case is very important to any company given that it is closely related to productivity. Although there are several paths for improving productivity, it has been evidenced that engineering innovation is the most suitable way. Presently, practices in engineering field have created the need for a broad scope of skills, which is more than just technical skills, but also skills in innovation as well as entrepreneurship. 10.0 References Drucker, P. (2014). Innovation and Entrepreneurship. New York: Routledge. Mintrex. (2010). Completed Projects. Retrieved from Mintrex : http://mintrex.com.au/display/index/projects-completed Okpara, F. O. (2007). The Value Of Creativity And Innovation In Entrepreneurship. Journal of Asia Entrepreneurship and Sustainability, 3(2), 1-13. Williamson, J. M., Lounsbury, J. W., & Han, L. D. (2013). Key personality traits of engineers for innovation and technology development. Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, 20, 157–168. Appendices Letter to the Company Seeking Co-Operation MINTREX PTY LTD PO Box 1932 Subiaco WA 6904 Level 3, 516 Hay Street Subiaco WA 6008 Name University Address To the Chief Engineer: I am seeking permission to gather collect information from the company’s Engineers in the current project entitled Innovation in engineering and Entrepreneurship. I fully understand the purposes and objective of the study as well as the nature of the research procedures, and I am prepared to offer the willing participants’ a chance to ask questions concerning the abovementioned topic. I promise to strictly abide by the policies of the company together with the set rules and regulations. I am seeking your support as the chief engineer of Mintrex so that I can successfully manage to research about innovation engineering used by the company in its various projects that ranges from mining beneficiation to mining infrastructure. The outcome of the study will provide an important summation of engineering innovation state at engineering companies such as Mintrex, in addition to its impact on engineers’ competence and productivity. For this reason, your support in enabling me to complete this research will highly be valued. Yours Sincerely, Letter of Gratitude to Company Management Date Name Address MINTREX PTY LTD PO Box 1932 Subiaco WA 6904 Level 3, 516 Hay Street Subiaco WA 6008 Dear Chief Engineer: I write this letter to offer my gratitude and appreciation for allowing your engineers to participate in this study about Engineering Innovation. The answers provided by the Engineers were exceedingly enlightening and caring, in widening my knowledge about engineering innovation. I completely appreciate the enthusiasm displayed by the y engineers in participating in the interview processes. Their contribution was significant and have aided extensively in my career research. Sincerely yours, Name: Signature Challenges faced in producing the required information Prior to the interview, respondents were not informed concerning the details of the study and were not offered assurance concerning ethical principles, like confidentiality and anonymity. Because of this, respondents lacked the idea of what to expect from the interview, reducing the likelihood of honesty. By using structured interviews it was not easy and quick to administer and resulted in numeracy and literacy problems with the respondents. A lesson learnt is that engineering innovation is important because it helps companies solidify their competitive advantage and increase productivity. Another lesson learnt is that entrepreneurs play a crucial role in innovation diffusion, especially from developed economies to developing countries. Competencies Demonstrated Competency Extent (From important to less important) Application of established engineering methods to complex engineering problem solving. 7 Fluent application of engineering techniques, tools and resources. 6 Discernment of knowledge development and research directions within the engineering discipline 5 Understanding of the scope, principles, norms, accountabilities and bounds of contemporary engineering practice in the engineering discipline 4 Ethical conduct and professional accountability 3 Creative, innovative and pro-active demeanor 2 Application of systematic approaches to the conduct and management of engineering projects 1 Read More

Given that Sandfire’s execution strategy was mainly rooted in its desire to accelerate the project, Mintrex innovation ability enabled the company to commence the detailed engineering as well as major procurement contracts preparation together with the last phases of the PFS and before the commencement of the DFS. This innovative strategy needed a profound PFS detail as compared to what would routinely be used in minimising the changes extent during both the DFS as well as detailed engineering.

Mintrex managed to complete the following tasks in parallel with the DFS study; plant site bulk earthworks, access road and drainage, HV power distribution, and infrastructure services. In 2014, Mintrex managed to design a pebble crushing circuit that had a 10tph nominal throughput so as to facilitate high plant throughput. In this case, a Metso HP100 cone crusher as well as Sanki conveyors were utilised in the circuit that was rooted in the Tabakoto Pebble Crusher Design. Besides that, Mintrex utilized Pebble Crushing circuit that was designed for Tabakoto in the Nzema project, but was modified for specific conditions at the site (Mintrex, 2010).

Both design and engineering were performed for a fixed price without extras or variations and within the time frame. Besides that, Mintrex helped Excelsior Gold Ltd to prepare a pre-feasability study for the North Gold Project. The scope of Mintrex work involved preparing an operational cost and capital estimate for the processing plant. In this case, a flow sheet was designed by Mintrex reflecting minimum requirements leading to a plant that was robust and easy to run requiring less manpower to work.

In 2013, $360 million was approved by the Northern Territory Government for the MRM expansion investment. In this case, the capacity was increased in the MRM Phase 3 Development Project to 5.5 million tons of ore annually from 2.5 million tons. Altogether, an average of 93kt of lead, 383kt of zinc, as well as 110t of silver in concentrate was anticipated to be produced yearly. In this case, Mintrex was tasked to prepare the novel primary crushing station design at McArthur River Mine. So, the plant comprised of a grizzly screen, an apron feeder, as well as a Metso C160 jaw crusher that had a 350 ton ROM bin.

Besides that, Mintrex as well successfully prepared designs for the mill installation (11 MW as well as doubling of the concentrates storage shed size (Mintrex, 2010). 3.0 Engineering Innovation Credited To Mintrex A noteworthy engineering innovation that can be credited to Mintrex is the Pebble Crushing Circuits. Basically, the crushing plants are an essential part of majority of the traditional comminution circuits. At Mintrex the key goal of their crushing circuits is to allow for the effective use of energy in decreasing either the critically sized fraction or the top size material so as to balance and optimize the general capability of comminution between the grinding as well as crushing circuit operations.

It was realised during the interview process that the sustainable management of the quality and yield of crusher product need utilisation of computerised control strategies. Mintrex’s control schema for crusher circuit uses a layered approach, which entails supervisory control as well as basic control (sequences, interlocks, in addition to regulatory control) and involving model predictive control. So, the control schema layered approach offers a holistic as well as robust approach to optimization, and control schema layers contribute uniquely to the general performance of the control system, all having their own related benefits.

Mintrex’s control schema constitutes a hierarchical control layers and successful operation of all layers are reliant on the layer performance that feeds into it (Mintrex, 2010). The control strategy complexity according to the interviewed engineer is reflected in the final schema complexity, which basically is the process complexity function, the number of considered process variables, the process equipment disturbance rejection capabilities, as well as the dynamics of the process.

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