Innovation is such an overused fracking term. But I saw two articles side-by-side on the Interwebs version of the WSJ that I thought were nice to look at, step back and really appreciate how much effort goes into changing small and large aspects of commercial life.

FASHION | January 23, 2013, 8:05 p.m. ET

Retailers Conjure Virtual Models
By SVEN GRUNDBERG and ANNA MOLIN

Models, beware. A bunch of dummies want to steal your jobs.

Fashion retailers, including global clothing giant H&M and Nordic youth outfitter JC, are cutting the costs and drama associated with fashion shoots. Instead of dealing with prima donnas and picky photographers, some companies are turning to plastic people, and a sophisticated rendering technology, to build their online catalogs.

"For catalog shoots, we don't pay any more for models, photographers, hair and makeup, stylists," Ilan Benhaim, the co-founder of French online retailer Vente-Privee, said. "What we have are two people in a studio dressing a mannequin, and a quality-control system."

The firm behind the technology is a Stockholm-based startup named Looklet, in which Vente-Privee now holds a financial stake. To create the virtual models, Looklet photographs their flesh-and-blood counterparts, breaking down the photos into arms, legs and faces, as well as smaller body parts like eyes and hair. Separately, it shoots articles of clothing on a mannequin. The people and apparel photos are entered into software where designers can mix and match them into combinations of hairstyles, skin tones, body postures, clothing combinations and even facial expressions.

While not as sexy as a high-end fashion shoot, it is efficient. Vente-Privee, for instance, sells an ever-changing stable of brands on its site, and its strategy allows marketers to handle 50% more products in the studio each day. The retailer shoots more than 500,000 products a year, using 2.5 million images, and estimates it cut production costs by two-thirds with virtual models.

Before switching to Looklet in 2010, Vente-Privee said it could waste valuable production time waiting for a late photographer to show up or end up discarding images because the clothes weren't ironed properly.

Looklet, which employs 30 people, arrived on the scene in 2009 with an online social community that allowed would-be designers to dress up and style their own virtual models. The mix-and-match concept was a hit, growing to 600,000 members in a matter of months.

Its founders quickly realized the commercial value of the concept. "If you handle large volumes of clothes and accessories, organizing photo shoots is a logistical nightmare," Robert Ahlborg, a Looklet founder who heads development, said.

But would discerning shoppers go for it?

H&M bought into the technology early. Its fake models turned out to be too convincing. Last year, it came under fire for not disclosing that the models weren't real because, in theory, using faux people puts added pressure on women and men to look unrealistically flawless. Eating-disorder organizations criticized what they called unnecessary use of fake models, while bloggers told readers to sign letters urging H&M to use real models.

H&M, which said it never concealed its use of virtual mannequins, sees advantages to the technology. "It's a way for us to show our products from various angles in the same way that we show our outfits on display dolls in stores," spokeswoman Camilla Emilsson-Falk said.

Mr. Ahlborg saw the uproar as a validation of the technology. "We were pretty satisfied that it took more than 1½ years before anyone noted that H&M used our virtual models," Mr. Ahlborg said.

For Vente-Privee, the challenge was convincing its suppliers, including Ivanka Trump and Diesel. Some were skeptical at first. "They said no, no: 'I want a real model. It will sell more,' " Mr. Benhaim said. "We said, 'no, look at the results. We have increased our revenue by more than 20% per item on Looklet models compared to real models."

More than 90% of Vente-Privee's model shoots are done via Looklet mannequins, and it expects to have sold more than 280,000 products through Looklet technology in 2012.

JC, the youth retailer, uses it to display its entire online catalog because it is faster. Customers see it as a unique way to shop. "Our customers, especially girls, love to build outfits," Eleonore Säll, who heads JC's online operations, said.

Still, even the most digitally inclined companies keep some real models in the mix, and experts don't expect the trend to eliminate the human side of the industry. For instance, companies like H&M rely heavily on celebrities, like David Beckham, to sell clothes. And mannequins can't walk down runways.

Fredo Kazemi, chief executive of Elite Model Management in Stockholm, isn't shaking in his boots, but he sees computer-generated avatars as an eventual competitive factor for the workaday models that jet from shoot to shoot working for an array of retailers.

"It's not a threat yet, but you have to be realistic. It's a cost issue, and if you can animate, you will," he said. "Over time, it will reduce work for models, but I don't think that will happen within the next 10 to 15 years."

Looklet still bases its renderings on photos of humans, which guide the morphing of mannequins into real-looking people. But it said it pays a hefty sum to a small group of models and then gains endless rights to reuse the photos. Plans are under way to create mannequins for children and plus-size models.

The biggest drawback? "If there have been any complaints from our customers, it is that they don't have any swanky models walking around their offices anymore," Mr. Ahlborg said. "However, these concerns aren't shared by the guys sitting on the money."



http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...619254898.html


BUSINESS Updated January 23, 2013, 8:38 p.m. ET

Innovation Is Messy Business
Boeing's Dreamliner Shows How Problems Often Mar Technological Advances
By DANIEL MICHAELS

Nine years ago, Boeing Co. executives decided to take the biggest leap in airliner technology in a generation and develop the 787 Dreamliner. They promised it would burn less fuel while flying farther and offering more passenger comfort than existing models.

The plane would be "a true game-changer for the industry and traveling public," said Boeing's then-chief executive, Harry Stonecipher. The 787 also showed Boeing's "commitment to innovation."

Airlines, eager to save money and woo fliers, ordered a record numbers of Dreamliners, now totaling 848 planes. Rival Airbus remade its product line in response.

Today, Boeing is struggling to master its innovations. The Dreamliner's body and wings, made of plastic reinforced with carbon fiber, have proven unexpectedly hard to produce and attach. Power-distribution panels running the plane's advanced electrical systems have overheated and ignited in flight. Most recently, lithium-ion batteries that provide auxiliary power—and were themselves a first in commercial aviation—have caught fire, prompting regulators world-wide to ground all 50 Dreamliners in service.

Companies, governments and academics have made "innovation" a buzzword for competing in the global economy. Boeing's experience offers a reminder that innovation—for all its value—doesn't come as easily as a catchphrase. It can get messy.

Boeing, an icon of American ingenuity, has reshaped travel over the past half-century with bold technological leaps such as the 747. The original jumbo jet in 1970 opened air travel to the masses and connected cities as distant as Seattle and Tokyo.

The plane cemented Boeing's position as the world's premier jetliner producer for three decades. But it first nearly bankrupted the company due to technical problems and slow orders.

Boeing's backers say the Dreamliner will prove just as revolutionary. But its problems again show the traumas that innovation can bring. The Airbus unit of European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co. and smaller plane makers have also recently faced similar, if less dramatic, crises with some of their most promising advances.

"As a CEO of a high-tech company, you have mixed feelings about innovation," said EADS Chief Executive Tom Enders last spring, as the company grappled with cracks inside the wings of its newest plane in the skies, the A380 superjumbo.

Mr. Enders, who then ran Airbus, noted that every innovation carries risk. "But if you're too risk-averse, the competition will kill you," he added. "Either way, you're walking a tightrope."

Boeing declined to comment for this article.

The history of innovation, of course, is littered with failures. Even Thomas Edison bet badly, as in his development of direct-current electricity that proved inferior to alternating current.

Aviation innovation is especially risky because the stakes are so high. A crashed laptop might lose data, but a crashed plane kills people.

Entirely new jetliners get developed only about once a decade, costing billions of dollars. Jetliners sell on average for about $100 million apiece, roughly the price of an office building—or approximately 200,000 iPads. Airliner systems are so integrated that changes to one element can ripple through the entire design.

Boeing for years stressed innovation and technology. "For a young aeronautical engineer, Boeing was definitely the most exciting place to be," 747 chief engineer Joe Sutter recalled, in his autobiography, of joining the company in 1946.

Over the following half-century, Boeing dominated jetliners thanks to its "willingness to invest whatever it took to be the technological leader," Mr. Sutter recalled.

Profits would come from superior products, top executives reckoned correctly.

Rivals' innovations didn't fare as well. The British-made Comet, the world's first passenger jet, flew in 1952, before designers at de Havilland Aircraft Ltd. fully understood metal fatigue. Two midair Comet disintegrations killed almost 100 people. By the time de Havilland redesigned the plane, Boeing and Douglas Aircraft had overtaken it.

The British government forced de Havilland to merge with competitors during the 1960s as the nation's aircraft industry declined.

Boeing in the late 1990s throttled back on innovation amid internal upheaval. The Dreamliner program, approved in 2004, marked a resurgence. Boeing said the plane, built largely of composite materials, would leapfrog advanced technologies at Airbus. It would rely more on electricity to run its systems than existing planes, which used hydraulic and pneumatic power. The advances meant it would burn 20% less fuel and cost 30% less to maintain than current models, Boeing promised.

To convince wary airline executives that carbon-fiber body material was strong, Boeing sales teams carried samples and hammers, letting airline executives whack the composite with all their might.

Airlines signed on, knowing the risk. "You can't introduce an airplane so radically different without there being issues," says Robert Milton, who in 2005 ordered as many as 60 Dreamliners as chief executive of Air Canada parent Ace Aviation Holdings Inc. "We ordered big, early, but were never in the first year of deliveries."

As orders rolled in, Chicago-based Boeing grappled with the challenges of its new technologies, such as protecting 787s from lightning. Traditional aluminum planes conduct the frequent electric jolts and dissipate the charge, but the Dreamliner's lightweight composite skin wouldn't, exposing it to potential damage. As a defense against lightning, Boeing engineers had to add shielding and metal structures, putting back more than 2,000 pounds—roughly the weight of 10 passengers.

As the first planes came together, other problems emerged. In early 2007, Boeing abandoned plans for wireless entertainment systems onboard. The technology wasn't mature enough yet, Boeing executives said.

That year, as Boeing assembled the first prototype 787, it became clear suppliers were struggling to make their components. Specialized metal fasteners couldn't be produced quickly enough. Composite fuselage sections had imperfections that required extensive repairs.

Armies of Boeing engineers fought mounting delays, but new problems emerged. Excessive moisture trapped by the composite skin, for example, created condensation dubbed "rain on the plane" that Boeing countered with wicking material.

In 2009 Boeing Chief Executive Jim McNerney, who had assumed the post in 2005, conceded that "the initial plan outran our ability to execute it." In retrospect, Mr. McNerney said during an earnings call, "there is no doubt that the baseline was too ambitious."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...879948292.html