The Innovation Factory takes a fresh look at the fine art of breakthrough innovation. Written by an experienced researcher and scholar and by an experienced inventor and entrepreneur, it marries theory with practical examples focusing on the Concept-Knowledge (C-K) Theory developed by the prestigious school Mines ParisTech. Elmar Mock, the creative engineering force behind the Swatch, passionately tells how he helped to create this revolutionary product that saved the Swiss watch industry in the 1980s. Gilles Garel, a professor of management, relates this tale of epic innovation to C-K Theory.

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Gilles Garel is a professor at the National Academy of Arts and Trades (Cnam), Paris, France, and at the Polytechnic School of France At Cnam. He is the chair of Innovation Management and has been collaborating with companies on innovation and project management since the 1990s. He is also director of Cnam's Interdisciplinary Laboratory of Scientific Action research (LISRA).

Elmar Mock is an engineer of chronometers and plastic material. At the age of 26, he, along with Jacques Muller, invented the Swatch. He subsequently conceived the Rockwatch for Tissot before leaving the watch industry. In 1986 he founded his own company, Creaholic, in Biennes, Switzerland. He is cited as an inventor in more than 150 patents. In 2010 he won the Gaia Prize.