Davison's Inventegration® Service
After years of experience in new product development, Davison developed a unique process which they call Inventegration®. The key concept behind Inventegration® is to combine new products with consumer and industry needs. Simply put, when an idea is transformed into a finished product, it must meet the needs, values, lifestyles, and budgets of consumers. Any new product must also be designed to meet industry structures for production, materials selection and pricing.
History of Davison Design and Development
America's history is filled with stories of inventive people who have explored their ideas. Their products helped to shape America into what it is today and laid a strong foundation for the future. The stories of these men and women have inspired some of us to dream and reach for the impossible. All of these inventive people had one thing in common, they discovered a problem and set their sights on solving it with a product or service to make our lives a little easier.
Many years ago, a local young man was influenced by these innovative leaders. He dreamed of launching a product that would solve the problem of toothbrush germs that could spread to make everyone in his family sick. After years of work, he accomplished huge advances in solving the problem, only to be let down when a major corporation put a product on the market to solve the same problem. He was frustrated that his effort was thwarted.
A retired patent attorney helped him expose a new problem to solve that eventually led to a new dream. The patent attorney said, "I've been working with inventive people like you my entire career and I have yet to see one of the patents I've written for them get to market." It was right then and there that this young man asked himself, "How can I make inventing a product more systematic and cost effective?" He thought to himself, "There has to be a better way than running all over western Pennsylvania for prototyping, engineering, research, testing, and packaging." The way to solve this problem was obvious; create a company where all the components needed for creating new products would be housed under one roof. His dream was based on the fact that Corporations in America do it each day with their own research and development departments, so why couldn't he?
In 1989, that young man created Davison, Inc., a place where the process of inventing lives in the spirit of a team of people who work together to develop new products. There are inventors, product designers, researchers, prototype makers, and package designers, all from the region that combine their skills to create a research and development machine.
Mr. Davison explains, "It was not that easy in the beginning. A few people and a dream, working out of a basement in Oakmont, PA is how it all started. Inventing, designing, testing, and answering the phone, all out of one room. Slowly, but surely innovative products started to be designed, only to be met with failure again and again." He learned first hand that Thomas Edison's statement that, "genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration," was true. It was time to put the youthful dream of just having a good idea to accomplish easy success to rest once and for all. The details that revolved around each area of research and development were complex and took long hours and hard work. The famous picture of Edison sleeping in his lab appeared in Davison's mind.
Mr. Davison asked himself many difficult questions, "Why were these innovations failing? Where had things gone wrong? How can we improve? What haven't we discovered about the inventing process?" It took years of trying and failing and doing years of research and development on the process of research and development. Finally, certain key elements started to show up again and again, and an innovative approach to the inventing process was born. The process is trademarked as INVENTEGRATION® (in ven te gra shen). Simply put, Inventegration® means invention integration. It is the process of solving a problem with a product or invention that integrates into common manufacturing and merchandising techniques. By taking this approach, many far- fetched ideas can be brought into the reality of today's manufacturing capabilities and consumer price points.
Mr. Davison clarifies, "All inventors need to recognize that whatever their invention may be, it must be manufactured at a price point that the consumer can afford. The secret is simplicity.
The simplest invention is easy to manufacture, has packaging that is easy to manufacture, and the packaging will tell a story of why the product exists in under 5 seconds. That is what it all comes down to for a new product. Can you capture the consumer's attention long enough to expose the problem that the invention solves so that the consumer can see the value in the product? These are the key elements when inventing."
Take Henry Ford for example, he did not invent the car; he invented the process of mass producing a simple car that was economical. Before Ford, the process of making a car was extremely complex and expensive, and that's the reason why there were only a few cars running in the early days. Likewise, Mr. Davison did not invent inventing; he invented the process of mass producing economical research and development in a simple manner. Mr. Davison points out, "the lesson here is: Work hard to make your new invention or process simple."
At the Davison Design and Development's headquarters in RIDC Industrial Park, Pittsburgh PA, innovative concepts are being explored and designed in their 110,000 square foot sales, research and development facilities. With over 240 Inventionmen™ "creative people" from the Pittsburgh area, they all work together to invent new and improved products through the Inventegration process.
Submit your idea to Davison Design and Development
Visit Davison Design and Development's website
Read why Invention City is proud to be sponsored by Davison Design and Development
