Nottingham Spirk is an open innovation

Open Innovation

Although the idea and discussion about some consequences date back at least to the 60s, open innovation is a term promoted by Henry Chesbrough, a professor and executive director at the Center for Open Innovation at the University of California, Berkeley, in his book Open Innovation: The new...

 and product development firm established in 1972 by John Nottingham and John Spirk in Cleveland, Ohio. The firm currently has over 70 employees that work in disciplines such as: market strategy, product invention, design

Design

Design as a noun informally refers to a plan or convention for the construction of an object or a system while “to design” refers to making this plan...

 and engineering

Engineering

Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...

, user research, rapid prototyping

Rapid prototyping

Rapid prototyping is the automatic construction of physical objects using additive manufacturing technology. The first techniques for rapid prototyping became available in the late 1980s and were used to produce models and prototype parts. Today, they are used for a much wider range of applications...

, structural packaging, branding, interactive design, quality control

Quality control

Quality control, or QC for short, is a process by which entities review the quality of all factors involved in production. This approach places an emphasis on three aspects:...

 and global sourcing

Global sourcing

Global sourcing is a term used to describe practice of sourcing from the global market for goods and services across geopolitical boundaries. Global sourcing often aims to exploit global efficiencies in the delivery of a product or service...

. They partner with companies in the consumer, medical, retail, and business-to-business

Business-to-business

Business-to-business describes commerce transactions between businesses, such as between a manufacturer and a wholesaler, or between a wholesaler and a retailer...

 industries.

Nottingham Spirk uses vertical integration

Vertical integration

In microeconomics and management, the term vertical integration describes a style of management control. Vertically integrated companies in a supply chain are united through a common owner. Usually each member of the supply chain produces a different product or service, and the products combine to...

 in its facility known as the Nottingham Spirk Innovation Center where the entire product development cycle from focus group

Focus group

A focus group is a form of qualitative research in which a group of people are asked about their perceptions, opinions, beliefs and attitudes towards a product, service, concept, advertisement, idea, or packaging...

 facilitation to product design

Product design

-Introduction:Product design is the process of creating a new product to be sold by a business or enterprise to its customers. It is concerned with the efficient and effective generation and development of ideas through a process that leads to new products.Product designers conceptualize and...

 and mechanical engineering

Mechanical engineering

Mechanical engineering is a discipline of engineering that applies the principles of physics and materials science for analysis, design, manufacturing, and maintenance of mechanical systems. It is the branch of engineering that involves the production and usage of heat and mechanical power for the...

 is executed.

Products

Nottingham Spirk products range from consumer appliances, to household items, and medical devices. Some of the company’s 900 patents include: the Crest SpinBrush, Swiffer SweeperVac Phillips Eclipse MRI scanner, Scott’s Snap Lawn Spreader, Lubrizol’s Oil Filter, the line of Dirt Devil products, the Unilever Axe Bullet, CardioInsight EC Imaging Vest, Purell Branding, and the Sherwin Williams Dutch Boy Twist & Pour paint can.

Recognition

Nottingham Spirk has been featured in Fortune magazine, The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

, and Forbes

Forbes

Forbes is an American publishing and media company. Its flagship publication, the Forbes magazine, is published biweekly. Its primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Fortune, which is also published biweekly, and Business Week...

. The firm has won numerous awards including: CLIO, IDEA, and The Dupont Packaging Award.