Newsletter 29

New Innovations with Old Things

Not all innovations result in new products, or are even based on new ideas.  Pizza isn’t new.  Blue jeans are hardly cutting edge.  Yet the processes used to make these products can still be made more efficient and responsive.  Using wind to power a ship is an old idea.  Trying to understand people’s motivations isn’t novel.  Still, sometimes there is scope for a new approach to an old concept.  Happy reading.

Pizza Ovens Power the Future in Canada

Pizza Ovens Power the Future in Canada

Are pizzas inherent energy hogs? On average, a pizza oven uses the same amount of energy in a day that a Canadian home uses for a month in winter. Who knew? One solution: develop a waste energy recovery system on the chimney. It holds more promise than any solution that involves eating less pepperoni.

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ASME, March 2018


Viking Grace Now First Passenger Ship Equipped With Rotor Sail

Viking Grace Now First Passenger Ship Equipped With Rotor Sail

Although this cruise ferry is LNG fueled, it will harness the wind to reduce fuel consumption. The rotor sail is a rotating cylinder that uses the Magnus effect to produce lift in a direction perpendicular to the wind. With the right wind, the lift will push the ship forwards. Of course waiting for the right wind is an old concept in the marine world.

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Marine Log, April 2018


How To Deal With Difficult People

How To Deal With Difficult People

Apparently engineers come across more of these people than non-engineers do. That itself is a topic for further research. The authors of books like: “Make Difficult People Disappear” and “Eat That Frog” give their suggestions for how to work with people that make you angry. Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

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ASME, May 2018


Tablets, Lasers, and Time to Market: How Levi Strauss Reinvented the Way It Makes Jeans

Tablets, Lasers, and Time to Market: How Levi Strauss Reinvented the Way It Makes Jeans

The Eureka Innovation Lab is set up to innovate…holes in trousers. The lab has created a computer to “move holes around” or “make [jeans] dirtier.” They have developed lasers to wear out and rip jeans instead of using overseas manual labour or the obsolete method of having the wearer do it themselves over time.

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Fortune, February 2018