Topics like quality, efficiency, process and cost can dominate almost any manufacturing conversation. End-customer satisfaction depends on consistent quality and high value; as an industry, we spend billions of dollars annually to implement practices and technologies to make things better.

Creativity, on the other hand, is more elusive. We call it ‘thinking outside the box’ for a reason: it sits in opposition to other practices. Creativity is difficult to predict, to manage or to make efficient. It requires a great deal of failure and investment, sometimes with little return.

So for this Make Things Monday, we’ll highlight creativity. Meet Aidan Robinson, a 9-year-old who saw things differently and found an intersection between Lego and his prosthetic arm. Rather than focus on making a better hand, Aidan imagined what he could do given the right tool. Through his maker camp and a lucky break, his ideas might just change how we think about prosthetics for kids.

That ability to take a situation, a set of tools, resources and materials and come up with a completely different approach can quickly separate leaders from followers in an industry. Sometimes it isn’t just about making things better, it is about reimagining what’s possible.