Innovation comes from outside, says founder






“Change that adds value.”

Maybe you just thought of the word “innovation”, which the above is a common definition for. 

As with other words, there are multiple understandings and definitions for innovation.

A couple of years ago Stuart Elliott, a co-founder at Planet Innovation, told us that it is “not about research and it’s not about invention,” but rather, it is “about creating a business that’s about creating a product or service offering that solves a real problem.”

Another explanation comes from Resmed founder Peter Farrelly, who has told multiple interviewers these words or a slight variation on them: “innovation only occurs when someone writes a cheque.”

You might have your own definition. And if so, then great.

Peter Torreele, the founder and Managing Director of 3RT – an Australian company that is commercialising a process to turn low-value wood residues into products with the looks and properties of high-quality hardwood – has another.

The former World Economic Forum CEO is also focussed on solving problems and creating something the market wants, but separates innovation as totally new, breakthrough solutions versus optimisation. It is also developed by outsiders.

“Optimisation happens within the industry itself, where people, engineers, scientists are trying to make an existing process better, cheaper, faster… Innovation is looking at the process and looking at how I can do it differently,” he says in episode ten of the @AuManufacturing Conversations podcast, released today.  

“And a different approach always comes from outside the industry.”

Torreele – whose company developed their robotically-controlled technology in collaboration with nanotechnologists at Flinders University, chemists at Henkel, and automation specialists at Bosch Australia Manufacturing Solutions – explains that 3RT has developed an approach to mimic nature over nearly a decade of development.

“Basically we say we are growing trees in a machine,” he explains of the process, which uses pressure, a water-based “nano-glue” adhesive, heat and a few secrets, and which the company says can do in hours what nature does in a century. 

The work began with 3RT co-founder, Professor David Lewis, Director of Flinders University’s Institute of Nanoscale Science and Technology, who Torreele says had never worked with wood before. 

“His other [researchers] are coming from polymers, plastics, automotive, and so they were looking at the process from completely new eyes,” Torreele recalls.

“And the new eyes [were] really going back to the fundamentals of ‘what does a tree do when it grows?’… Looking really at a nano level – because that’s what nanotechnology is all about – and understanding what is happening there.

“It’s innovation by looking at the industry from the outside.”            

Picture: A pilot machine based at 3RT’s Innovation Center at Adelaide Airport. (Image credit 3RT)

You can stream the episode of @AuManufacturing Conversations through a browser here, or download it from Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other platforms.

Subscribe to our free @AuManufacturing newsletter here.



Share this Story




Stay Informed


Go to Top