Pictures of the Future Fall 2006
Inventors & Innovators – Dr. Maximilian Fleischer
Siemens Corporate Technology, Munich
Lilliputian Sniffers
Maximilian Fleischer is only 45 years old, but to judge by the number of patents he’s registered you’d think he’d be well past retirement. Fleischer has worked for Siemens Corporate Technology (CT) in Munich since 1992, and since that time he’s registered 150 inventions and published just as many articles in specialized journals. "I like to try out new things," he says. Fleischer, who holds a doctorate in physics, has one invention that makes him seem like Gulliver in the land of the Lilliputians. The "little people" here are miniature chemical sensors that are used to detect various substances, such as toxic gases, industrial pollutants, and stale air in conference rooms. They are only a few square millimeters in area, are designed simply—and are thus relatively inexpensive.
The first such devices developed by Fleischer have already been in commercial use for several years. They include sensitive microchips that monitor the combustion process in the small gas boilers found in many apartments. Tiny alcohol sensors for motorists will also soon be launched, and there are plans to introduce measuring probes that recognize asthma and other illnesses through scents (see Pictures of the Future, Fall 2004, Gas Sensors). Fleischer has always done things his way—and for that he’s very grateful to his former boss, Prof. Hans Meixner, a Siemens researcher and expert for innovative applications of piezo ceramics. "When I was getting my master’s degree, I had the freedom to try something new, and I ended up developing a piezo motor that could turn in two directions," he recalls. This small sensation was followed by a doctoral dissertation that laid the foundation for Fleischer’s first chemical sensor. "You have to be patient," he says. "In our industry, it can take ten years to go from the initial idea to an actual product."
Fleischer, who received the Siemens "Inventor of the Year Award" in 2003, likes to collaborate with universities and outside companies. He attends conferences, obtains information on the latest research results and often talks with colleagues. "You have to intelligently combine all the contributions from research in order to come up with an application," he says.
Even after 15 years in the lab, Fleischer says he still wants to remain a researcher. He was once offered a job as director of research at a major company, but he turned it down because "it would have been a pure management job. I could have had a bunch of people at my beck and call, but in the end I would simply have been managing other people’s research," he says. Instead, Fleischer is quite happy with his "relatively modest working group," to which he tries to give the same degree of freedom that he himself has always enjoyed.
Tim Schröder
Innovators
How and Why Innovations Originate. Many management books focus on the theory of innovation processes, strategies and methods—but to what extent can such theories explain the origins of innovations? We’ve put together 14 brief portraits that present Siemens inventors and innovators and their experiences. We explored their personalities and examined the efforts they made to overcome obstacles. In the end, we found that there’s no standard recipe for innovation success. Some innovations result from the pure persistence of visionary pioneers who think out of the box, while others are born of a consistent approach that involves analysis and continual process improvement. Still others bear fruit because inventors incorporated customers into the process at an early stage, especially in their own regions, or worked together with external partners. What all our innovators have in common, however, is a propensity to think independently and the need for a culture that permits errors and promotes employee creativity. Above all, such a culture must always consider the utility of new ideas for customers.