Went down a rabbit hole looking for cross-industry innovations (AKA one industry borrowing from another).

Found some good ones

1/ James Dyson created the Dyson vacuum design after seeing how sawmills use cyclone force to eject sawdust.

2/ The OG example: Henry Ford's car assembly line borrowed innovations from 3 industries:

• Watch (interchangeable parts)
• Canning (continuous flow manufacturing)
• Meatpacking (Ford reversed the "disassembly" part of the meatpacking process - AKA chopping up cows)

3/ Baby incubator

In late 1800s, French doctor Etienne Tarnier was looking for a solution to save babies born prematurely.

On a visit to the Paris zoo, he saw poultry incubators and borrowed that innovation to make a baby incubator.

4/ Soda bottling plants

The rotary milking parlour was invented in the 1930s. It was the most efficient way to milk cows.

Soda bottling plants have a similar set up

(*I'm not actually sure the direction of the borrowing here...feel free to @ me).

5/ 3M created a product that prevents post-surgery facial infections by consulting theatrical make-up artists.

6/ An escalator company borrowed techniques from the mining industry to install escalators in shopping malls.

7/ BMW created its iDrive system -- a way to safely manage your control panel (e.g., keep your eyes on the road) -- by borrowing from video game controllers.

8/ Owen Maclaren created the first foldable baby stroller (AKA lightweight baby buggy or pram) by borrowing the design of an airplane's landing gear.

As a former aeronautical engineer, he understood the mechanics of lightweight, collapsible structures.

9/ A hospital in the Netherlands (Amphia) improved operations and patient service by borrowing the airport control tower concept.

Specifically, Amphia has its own Hospital Control Center to route medical procedures.

10/ This thread was inspired by the viral tweet from @emollick, detailing how an F1 race team helped a children's hospital re-work its post-surgery handoff procedure: https://twitter.com/emollick/status/1316782686619529219?s=20

11/ Another good "Borrowed Innovation"

After WWI, Kotex created disposable female sanitary napkins based on surgical field dressings used in battle.

(There was a post-war abundance of cellucotton, absorbent fibrous material created to make up for cotton shortfalls during WWI).

12/ Pharma GSK borrowed innovations from McLaren racing team:

• Telemetry & sensor analysis used for race cars to monitor stroke victims
• Pit crew methods to improve handover of toothpaste production from Sensodyne to AcquaFresh

(h/t @adcobley) https://www.mclaren.com/group/case-studies/case-study-gsk/

13/ This is cross-industry innovation is done within ONE company, NuCO2 (a carbonation company).

It uses bulk CO2 for:

• beverage carbonation
• balancing the pH levels of chlorinated water in pools

(h/t @JBSpoke)

Keep the examples coming people!