Small companies became interested in research

Ivar Renngård, active nowadays at the Movexum  business incubator, and  Lars Löfqvist, Researcher at CLIP, the Centre for Logistics and  Innovative Production at Gävle University, have together written a  conference article about how academies and small businesses can generate  mutual benefit from research.

Tell us more Ivar Renngård:

But we do not have any innovations here?

In  2007 I was a partner 2007 in an IT company in Söderhamn and was asked  if we could receive a doctoral student, Lars Löfqvist, who would be  involved with small companies and the development  of innovation.

“But we do not have any innovations here?”

“You do have a product that is developing all the time?”

“Yes we do..”

”With a new version every year and data versioning?”

”Yes that is the case..”

“Then you have an innovation product!”

Interesting to see the pattern

Lars  sat in on our meetings, observing, and he described how we worked. It  was very interesting that someone could see a pattern in our work.

The  researcher is very clever at describing things; he described how we, at  every point, could improve the process, like a LEAN system. Lars  discovered before long that the process was designed for large  companies. He designed a process for small companies.

Became project manager

Ivar Renngård swapped jobs, became project manager and continued his cooperation with Lars Löfqvist.

“I became a theoretically-interested practitioner and now work at Movexum, a business incubator.

Lars  backed up the interest I had in these theoretical procedures and  process improvements, a method that can also be used in other  established small businesses.”

Article for the research conference

“Our  paper describes the methodology and the results that Lars obtained. My  contribution has been that of a sounding partner, considering the  situation from both sides.

We have worked mostly with new businesses, but would like to do more with existing established companies.”

Great interest around the globe

There is great interest around the world to inform small companies about the relevant ongoing research that exists.

Lars  Löfqvist, researcher at CLIP, the Centre for Logistics and Innovative  Production, at Gävle University, and Ivar Renngård, former small  business entrepreneur, currently active at Movexum

Business  Incubator, have written a joint article about how the academic  community and small companies can generate mutual benefit from research.  The conference article is based on joint research between Lars, Ivar  and his former company, as well as collaborative seminars together with  small and medium-sized enterprises.

The article  gives both perspectives – that of the researchers and the entrepreneurs –  and describes how valuable collaboration can be created, but also shows  how cooperation between academic institutions and the business sector  can develop in such a way that entrepreneurs themselves can contribute  towards the research process and write research papers.

The conference article is called 'The creation of mutual benefit within innovation management

research on small companies' and will be presented at the 16th Continuous Innovation

Network (CINet) Conference on the 13th -15th  September 2015,  at KTH Stockholm.

For further information please contact:
Ivar Renngård, Lean Startup Coach Movexum
Tel: 070-783 07 54
Email: ivar@movexum.se

Lars Löfqvist, university lecturer in Industrial Engineering at Gävle University
Tel:070-00 51 530
Email: mailto:lars.lofqvist@hig.se

Text: Douglas Öhrbom