A PERSPECTIVE FOR INNOVATION ENABLING EDUCATION FOR JAPANESE ENGINEERS

Innovation-related education is regarded increasingly important in Japan these days, especially for engineers, and a corresponding education, innovation enabling education entitled "Innovation Engineering", has been developed as part of a planned MOT course at Musashi Institute of Technology, and verified through trial provision of the education. Considering some inherent features of Japanese companies, such as an inward-looking attitude in thinking and a middle manager's role characterized by the middle-up-down management model, emphases in the development has been placed on the following three points; expanding the horizon of engineers, providing a practical tool for engineers, and working on innovation enabling environments of business practices, and the intended students were set to be engineers at middle management positions. We have proposed a new concept of innovation enabling in practical business environments, as a core of the innovation enabling education for engineers, and named it "Innovation Engineering." A framework, called 2D Matrix, is developed along with this concept, in order to offer some objective and analytical perspectives to middle-management engineers, by especially distinguishing management activities and operational practices.The developed education course of twelve modules has been shortened to four-module seminar, and tested through the trial provision. By taking appraisal of the attendants there, the contents of education and the background concept have been proven to be well-accepted and verified for its importance. This kind of methodological approach could be a good first step for them to expand organizational and managerial horizon in an organization.