Basic SCAMPER

For several years, I have been asking to do write up on SCAMPER on my blog. Now, here is my brief attempt at it.

SCAMPER, which was created by Bob Eberle, provides a checklist for refining an existing product and service. There several reasons why SCAMPER is used. These are to reduce the:

• Material cost for creating the product or service,
• Manufacturing cost for producing the product or service,
• Distribution cost for diffusing the product or service to the customers,
• Storage cost for keeping the product or service to balance demand, and
• Propensity of product and service reaching the end stage of their life in the market.

From the principles of SCAMPER, I have developed a set of Let's SCAMPERTM cards in 2008.

SCAMPER stands for:

S - Substitute - If we don't use this, what else could we use in place of this?

Over the last 100 years, the global sea level has risen by about 10 to 25 cm. The Earth's climate will warm by at least 1 degree by the year 2100 and the seas will rise by 11 cm. The warming is likely to continue through 2400 even if pollution stops today. We could face the worst-case scenario of global average temperature rising by 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit within this century resulting to sea level climbing by a foot or more.

There is a need to reduce these emissions and prevent the continuous lost of coastal land and habitats, and biomass may provide the alternative source of fuel to petroleum.

C - Combine - Could we put two or more together?

Ask anyone who bakes and they will tell you how nightmare-ish it is using the measuring spoons. Wouldn't it be a joy in baking when the complexity of using the spoons is taken out of the process by combining the spoon heads into just two that ride on sliders?

A - Adapt - Could we change it slightly and use it else where?

When come to adaptation, no other product does it as well as Listerine.

‘Listerine was invented in the 19th century as a powerful surgical antiseptic. It was later sold, in a distilled form, as a floor cleaner and a cure for gonorrhea. But it wasn't a runaway success until the 1920s, when it was pitched as a solution for "chronic halitosis", the faux medical term that the Listerine advertising group created in 1921 to describe bad breath.

By naming and thus creating a medical condition for which consumers now felt they needed a cure, Listerine created a market for their mouthwash. Until that time, bad breath was not conventionally considered a catastrophe, but Listerine's ad campaign changed that.

As the advertising scholar James B. Twitchell writes, "Listerine did not make mouthwash as much as it made halitosis." Listerine's new ads featured forlorn young women and men, eager for marriage but turned off by their mate's rotten breath. "Can I be happy with him in spite of that?" one maiden asked herself. In just seven years, the company's revenues rose from $115,000 to more than $8 million.’ Source: Freakonomics. Listerine most recent addition is the whitening formula.

M - Modify - Could we modify its attributes to save on its costs and extend its life?

We are all too familar with the calculator. The sale of the first electronic desktop calculator began in the early 1960s and quickly became a commodity by late 1970s. The first microprocessor was developed originally as a calculator chip, which served as a springboard for an entire industry.


Modern calculators are electrically powered and have morphed in countless shapes and sizes varying from cheap, give-away, credit-card sized models to more sturdy adding machine-like models with built-in printers to extend it life and usefulness in the market. There are calculator softwares that could be uploaded onto the personal computers.

P - Put to another use

'Put is another use' is similar to 'recycle' and 'reuse' but we do not change the physical characteristics or attributes of the original product or service. We just take it lock, stock and barrel and apply it else where.

Sodium bicarbonate is used in baking where it reacts with other ingredients to release carbon dioxide to help ‘raise’ the dough. Sodium bicarbonate (or ‘NaHCO3’). Is a salt with many other names including sodium hydrogencarbonate, sodium bicarb, baking soda, bread soda, cooking soda, bicarb soda or bicarbonate of soda.

Baking soda has been put to many different uses without the need to change its Alkaline characteristics.

E - Eliminate - Could we remove its elements?

ELIMINATE - to go where it can’t be before

Recently the head of the US based MIT Media Lab, Mr. Nicholas Negroponte presented a prototype of the 100 dollar laptop to UN Chairman Kofi Annan at the WSIS-summit in Tunis.

This little bright green laptop can do almost anything a current laptop computer can, but, by using mass-produced cheap components, omitting expensive moving parts, and by the law of great numbers can be made for just one tenth of its price.

The price in the title is no mistake: this machine can be made for just 100 US dollars (S$148).

Source: http://www.bohol.ph/article116.html

R - Reverse - Could we turn it inside out or upside down?

Many things could provide fresh perspectives when we reverse it inside out or turn it upside down. Could we turn a piece of art upside down to give it a brand new feel? Could we print on the blank side of a piece of printed paper to recycle it? Here are some other examples of things on the reverse.

Copyright 2007. Anthony Mok. All Rights Reserved