Management and engineering innovation - Foreword

Innovation management and engineering provide solutions to major innovation issues. The associated methods and systems are developed with the aim of optimizing a company's or department's capacity for innovation, while managing costs and risks.

However, innovation management and innovation engineering are distinct, albeit intertwined, activities which generally have consequences for the organization and operation of a company, since both aspects of innovation concern both the manager (company manager, project leader) and the engineer (R&D department engineer, design office engineer, etc.).

The separation between these activities is often misunderstood, and this foreword aims to show that innovation is a process that calls on various methods, techniques and tools more specifically dedicated to one or other of these activities:

• The manager must respond to the company's main economic, social and environmental challenges, draw up a strategy in this context, use the management methods specific to innovation and the various sources of financing, and ensure that he or she innovates by seeking to differentiate the company's offering, protect its intellectual assets and sell its innovations;

• The engineer, in response to the manager's expectations, must call on the associated techniques and tools that will enable him to develop his observation and inventiveness, and design an innovative solution to the challenges facing his company.

The aim of this article is therefore to orient the reader towards one or the other collection, depending on whether he or she is involved in management or engineering activities, while bearing in mind that it is important to keep an overview, and for managers and engineers to share their practices to ensure coherence in the innovation process.