Commentary by Ellen Domb

ETRIA - Day 2

The last item from Day 1 was a dinner speaker from the Congel company in Austria, showing food preparation–specifically the process for vegetable preparation for banquets, and the needs, and all the improvement opportunities that are available in the process. He showed an elegant small TRIZ case study that saved 10 out of 14 steps in vegetable preparation, and reduced by 80% the amount of butter used, improving both cost and health. Then, we found out that his company had catered the dinner, which was called Taste of TRIZ—we’ll need to add taste and aroma to this website so readers can appreciate the dinner.

Frankfurt’s famous bull and bear statues outside the stock exchange building, where the conference is located.

Day 2 started with parallel sessions. Since I am chairman of Session 2, there will be no report on session 1 this morning. First speaker was Meysam Maleki Anvar from the Iranian Institute of Innovation and Technological Studies. He had a first person report on his experience as an industrial engineer, using TRIZ methods to solve a problem in maintenance of manufacturing production line, and trying the Innovation Situation Questionnaire, the Problem Explorer, and the Function and Attribute Analysis methods to define the problem. The list of resources in the production environment, and the careful attention to non-material resources (fields, information, time, etc.) makes this an very useful teaching example.

Valeri Souchkov presented “Selecting Contradictions for Managing Problem Complexity” which was both a historical view of a primary TRIZ method and a tutorial on the modern approaches to the method. His hierarchy of selection criteria, based on ideality properties, will be very useful to people who confront realistic problems with complex relationships between the functions. The audience was most appreciative of the realism of Val’s examples, particularly the distinction between causally related problems and independent problems in complex situations (train schedules, RFID luggage tagging, and wind turbine blade design.)

Pavel Jiman from the Technical University of Liberec in the Czech Republic reported on “Development of the Technological System Tool as a basis of TRIZ Prediction.” He showed the difference between the traditional TRIZ use of the 9 screen method, starting at the system in the present (center of the box) and a more flexible system that starts at other points. He combines the 9 screens with the complete technical system (which I will also present tomorrow, and which will be in the December TRIZ Journal) and with the pattern of ideality increase, to predict changes in the technical system. The example of information display, and the video of interactive table displays and the glass manufacturing example were appreciated by the audience.

TRIZ Tools and Techniques session speakers (l-r): Valeri Souchkov, Meysam Maleki Anvar and Pavel Jiman.

The morning keynote speech was a departure from the TRIZ community, into the broader study of theories of technical evolution. Denis Cavallucci introduced Vincent Bontems, a philosopher, who introduced the audience to the work of Gilbert Simondon, developer of the theory and method of “mecanology.” Simondon organized a hierarchy of drivers for technological change that is similar to the TRIZ concept of progress toward ideality—for example, a system with complex energy transfers is “defective” compared to one with simpler transfers, or no transfers. Examples range from vacuum tubes to diesel engines to Guimbal’s turbine—Bontems made several observations about how unusual machine illustrations are in the literature of philosophy.

The afternoon session kicked off in 3 rooms—I’ll bounce around and tell you what I see. Roberto Nani from Bergamo, Italy, attracted a large audience to hear “TRIZ tools to evaluate marketing strategy and product innovation: A new start-up case study of silicone technology.” Patent portfolios in silicone are dominated by sealing methods, but the products of interest are consumer products for kitchen use. The novel TRIZ orientation is the separation of the intrinsic characteristics of silicone (water resistance, flexibility, moldable) from the extrinsic characteristics of a particular application, in order to analyze the relevant patents. Everyone enjoyed the case study of a flexible colander, with convex (rather than concave) bottom, so that the holes shrink under stress so that small pasta or rice does not pass through, but water does. The combination of the detailed patent analysis and a classical ARIZ approach to operational zone analysis and contradiction identification with a home kitchen example was very helpful.

Peter Schweitzer from Switzerland challenged the TRIZ community with “No Need for Methods?” He explored the psychology of groups and individuals, especially experts in research groups, and the many ways that they reject formal methodologies, even when the methodologies create breakthrough solutions for them. Extensive discussion (participants from Australia, US, Japan, Germany, Austria…) showed that this is a universal problem.

Sergei Ikovenko was wearing 3 hats this week—Gen3Partners, MATRIZ, and MIT, and made many indirect contributions to the program, since many of his former students are now featured presenters. His expertise in the technical issues of patent law and intellectual property development were of great interest to both the industrial and academic communities. Sergei started with the 5 strategies for revenue growth from Michael Treacy’s book, Double Digit Growth, and illustrated patent strategies that enhance the revenue generating potential for each of those strategies. MPV-“Main Parameter of Value” analysis is a bridge between classical TRIZ, classical portfolio analysis, and new perspectives on market needs.

Claudia Hentschel fascinated the ETRIA audience with her presentation “Tracing unorthodox use: A TRIZ-related ideation method in systematic product innovation.” She had a wide variety of examples over more than 150 years of situations where customers used products in ways never planned by the designer—the most remarkable statistic was that only 8 of 98 companies answered that they use data on unorthodox use, but 97 of 100 consumers say that they use products in non-conventional ways. TRIZ orientation helps break the “functional fixedness” pattern by helping you see the resources that are available in any product or system. TRIZ awareness of analogies helps you find the available alternate situations. Try it! Send your examples to the “Comments” section of this commentary—everything from using cola as a cleaning solution to using a paperclip as an antenna for a radio, to a Sony Playstation as an analysis device for blood analysis ….

Two sessions on the implementation of TRIZ picked up some of Peter Schweitzer’s themes. Eckhard Schueler-Hainsch from Daimler and Martin Jandt from the Technical University of Berlin presented “The introduction and application of TRIZ in industrial business in Germany—an investigative study” and Jurgen Jantschgi presented “Joint Application of TRIZ in Groups of several companies in Austria: Approach and Case Studies of Cross-Company Workshop.” Both statistical and observational data were analyzed. Key success factors included the expected (leadership commitment, open/fearless communication, personal and organizational interest in innovation) and the less expected (creation of cross-disciplinary and non-hierarchical teams, shared credit for new concepts).

Day 2 will end with a surprise social event, so I plan to post this commentary before, since this group has been known to drink, dance, and talk about TRIZ all night…

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