The Outstanding Corporate Innovator (OCI) Award

Again this year, the winners of PDMA's prestigious Outstanding Innovator Award will receive international recognition, and share their best practices in a presentation at the 2008 PDMA International Conference.

The OCI Award is one of PDMA's highest profile programs. For the past nineteen years, PDMA has presented the OCI award to organizations that both exemplify the spirit of innovation and demonstrate the ability to consistently transfer their creative ideas into successful new products and services.

The award was developed with two objectives. First, to identify and publicly recognize the excellence of companies that have been the most successful in continuously developing a stream value creating new products and services. The second, and equally important, rationale for the award is to provide a learning vehicle for the sharing of the winning firm's individual best practices with PDMA's general membership.

From the outset this award was envisioned as different from other traditional new product development awards offered by other industry organizations and publications by virtue of the rigor of the qualification and selection process. The basic requirements for receiving this award are:

• Sustained success in launching new products over a five-year time frame. This measure confirms the winner's approach to innovation and new product development goes beyond a single major product success. The winner's new product track record over an extended period provides adequate time to establish its ability to perform at an exceptional level in new product development.
• Significant company growth from new product success. This standard insures that new products that simply upgrade and replace previous company products are not considered the sole basis of outstanding performance.
• Well defined new product development practices and processes that can be described to others. Since the OCI Award is seen as a learning tool for other practitioners, it is essential that the winner have a new product development process that can be described adequately to the membership.
• Distinctive innovative characteristics and intangibles. This standard recognizes unique and innovative characteristics of the organization's approach to the new product development process that make it particularly suitable for the organization. It also provides for the recognition of noteworthy intangibles including the organization's culture.
  
  

Past Recipients - Since inception the following companies have been recipients of the OCI Award and have participated in our annual conference, providing valuable insights for the organization and its members.

1988  - Merck & Company
1989  - Hewlett-Packard
1990  - Advanced Cardiovascular Sys., Inc.
         - Harris Corporation, Broadcast Division
         - New Pig Corporation
1991  - Safety Kleen Corporation
1992  - Keithley Corporation
         - Marriott Lodging Group
1993  - Apple Computer
         - Nabisco Biscuit Company
         - Nordic Track
1994  - Bausch & Lomb, Eyewear Division
         - Chrysler Corporation
         - Welch Allyn
1995  - Fluke Corporation
         - Pepsi-Cola Company
         - Senco Products, Inc.
1996  - Eastman Kodak 
1997  - Herman Miller
         - 3Com (US Robotics) 
1998  - Cincinnati Machine Tool 
1999  - Maytag 
2000  - EXFO Electro-Optical
         - Rockwell Collins Inc. 
2001  - Window Fashions Division-Hunter Douglas 
2002  - BMW Group AG (click here for conf award presentation - 3.4 MB download)
         - Teknion (click here for conference award presentation - 6.0 MB download)
2003  - Harley Davidson (click here for presentation - 700 KB download)
         - Dow Polyolefins (click here for presentation - 340 KB download) 
2004  - Affymetrix (click here for Trevor Nicholls' presentation - 3.31 MB, and click here for Grace Colon's presentation - 3.66 MB)
         - Air Force Research Laboratory (click here for presentation - 6.9 MB download)
2005  - djOrthopedics (click here for presentation - 1.5 MB download)
         - Sprint/Nextel (click here for presentation - 1.0 MB download)
2006  - Xerox Corporation (click here for presentation - 4.7 MB)
         - Bank of America Global Consumer & Small Business Bank (click here for presentation - 711 KB) 
2007  - FedEx Corporation (click here for Visions article on FedEx)
         - Mine Safety Appliance (MSA)