Creative Tension

Charles Deneka, Corning's chief technology officer, can offer all kinds of metaphors for describing Corning's R&D culture. It is, for instance, like the U.S. military, as opposed to the old Soviet military. The Soviet military was all about command and control - very tightly scripted and managed, and not all that good at adapting to change. The U.S. military is highly trained and conditioned, but it has been given the creative license and latitude to ad-lib in battle.

Corning's R&D operation is like a soccer team, as opposed to a traditional football team: a collection of talent, all with roles to play, all able to keep performing in a game that is constantly changing. It is like a jazz ensemble, as opposed to a symphony.

But as Deneka, 56, acknowledges, in R&D, "there's a range of management, from the intellectual process of coming up with ideas, of creating new thoughts, that is the least managed, up to the running of manufacturing lines of new products, which is as tightly managed as any factory." And Corning has committed to paper the actual steps between inspiration and earnings, and made those steps part of the culture of Sullivan Park. They are quite simple.

1. An idea or inspiration forms. Before going much further, a team builds up as much preliminary knowledge as possible.

2. Experimentation tests the feasibility of the idea. Is it borne out in the lab? Is there a reasonable product possible from the idea?

3. Feasibility is one thing - practicality is another. At this point, an idea has morphed into a product, and there is a formal team working to overcome manufacturing and marketing hurdles.

4. Production and profitability are explored. Even if a good idea becomes a good product, can it be manufactured reliably? Can it be produced at a cost that will allow it to earn a profit in the market?

5. Profitability is examined in light of the product life cycle. Once a product is on the market, how do you stay ahead of competition? This question may take the R&D staff back to Step 1.

The various forms of optical fiber, Corning's largest source of revenue, are at various steps of the process today. Corning's biotechnology initiative - producing gene chips for medical research - is in the early stages of Step 4, with products coming out this fall.

There are formal meetings and reviews between each stage, and senior management at Sullivan Park makes decisions about which projects get the money to advance through the steps. And more and more, at each stage of the process, the formal project teams are made up not just of R&D people, but also of manufacturing and business staff members, because Corning is constantly trying to shorten product life cycles. If something new is going to become a business in a year, the business side of Corning needs to know.

Charles Fishman (cnfish@mindspring.com) is a Fast Company senior editor based in Raleigh, North Carolina. This article was his idea. Contact Lina Echeverría by email (echeverria@corning.com), or learn more about Corning inc. on the Web (www.corning.com).