Innovation adoption in the US Navy: the Percy Scott case study

Naval Case Study

Modern organizational structures are so highly complex and competitive that the old paradigm -- improving efficiency and the bottom line, is no longer all it takes to be successful. Instead, continued reinvention of both materials and capabilities is not only necessary, but will ensure continued success. This is particularly true as a paradigm for the military organization, which needs to field operations with as few limitations as possible. One seminal example of this paradigm shift involved the development of continuous aim firing for the U.S. Navy.

We know that gunfire at sea is difficult at best -- the gun in mounted on an unstable platform, the sea is moving, and the target moves as well. Add to this variable like weather and range, and it becomes increasingly complex to even come close to hitting a target. The issue was solved due to the tenaciousness to two individuals: English Admiral Sir Percy Scott and American Junior Officer William Simms. The process was one of creativity and ingenuity: Scott noticed the issue and used his mathematical and practical mind to understand the firing process and develop a mechanical process in which to solve it. His was a contribution of logic -- of using three elements of innovation to ask the questions of how machinery could be better used to solve an issue.

Sims, on the other hand, had a different way of looking at things. He observed the "dotter" and the systems used on the British ships and concluded that it was a human element that allowed for success of failure within the firing scenario. Sims found issues in Scott's design that he felt needed improving, wrote a few articles critiquing the process and, through his cognitive abilities in linking disparate materials, was able to form a better solution. His contribution was not necessarily one of total innovation, but of the ability to put ideas together in new ways for new solutions. Sims was possibly better at trial and error, but the two minds together were able to solve the issue and to allow for working guns in which others could make small improvements over time.

Q2- It appears that the impact Sims' reports had on the naval bureaucracy was rather predictable. Essentially the Naval management agreed with Sims in purpose -- the need for a new system of aiming and firing on ships, but found reason after reason to make excuses and argue for limitations of current technology (e.g. reasons for poor ship design, etc.). The Naval brass used budgetary and practical reasons for not pushing he project -- in what looked like a power struggle for funding, they told Sims to take things slow.