New version of innovation software arrives

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Jan 18, 2005

Version 2.0 of Invention Machine's Goldfire Innovator brings a range of new features.

Invention Machine, a provider of software that accelerates and brings predictability to the innovation process, has released the newest version of its flagship product, Goldfire Innovator.

Goldfire Innovator is an integrated software environment that brings a structured process to inventive problem solving, providing engineers, researchers and technical personnel with easy to use problem definition and analysis capabilities combined with solution generating methodologies and precision access to worldwide technical knowledge.

The software enables users to systematically tackle engineering problems across a product's lifecycle, reducing the delivery time for new product innovations, rapidly resolving problems in existing products and continuously improving production processes.

Goldfire Innovator 2.0 brings several new features and enhancements that help to dramatically increase productivity in the areas of inventive problem-solving, idea generation and information access.

Goldfire Innovator 2.0 includes a new Collabouration Repository which enables greater co-ordination and communication among team members via centralised access to Goldfire Innovator project files, reports and workflows.

The Repository manages private and shared libraries and provides version control and access authorisation.

The Collabouration Repository further promotes productivity and standards and facilitates workflow and shared model re-use.

Goldfire Innovator 2.0 supports hierarchical device modeling, enabling users to analyse and represent complex systems and to delegate design problems across a team.

Users can now browse the full content of corporate and personal knowledge bases by categories.

Goldfire Innovator 2.0 leverages Invention Machine's semantic technologies to automate creation of a taxonomy structure, or knowledge index, that automatically groups similar types of knowledge together into "like" categories.

This visualisation of information dramatically reduces the amount of time users spend looking for relevant information from Internet or Intranet sites, networked drives, or their own computer.

Goldfire Innovator 2.0 further accelerates productivity and "time to ideation" by enabling automatic summarising of documents in personal knowledge bases, expanding email capabilities to facilitate data exchange among colleagues, and providing access to Goldfire Innovator's Knowledge Search from Microsoft Word, Microsoft Outlook, and Microsoft Internet Explorer applications.

"Goldfire Innovator is the only innovation process software that combines proven innovation methodologies, disciplines and tools; precision research and information access capabilities; and critical cross-disciplinary patent and scientific content", said Mark Atkins, Chairman, President and CEO of Invention Machine.

Goldfire Innovator customers include Caterpillar, Samsung, Whirlpool, Baker Hughes, Shell, GKN, Amcor, and Hexcel among others.

Companies using Goldfire Innovator benefit from greater conversion rates of ideas to products; better products, designed with an eye towards competition; streamlined manufacturing processes; and faster time-to-market - all at lower cost.