TRIZ Forum: Conference Report (30)       


Personal Report of
The 10th TRIZ Symposium in Japan, 2014

Held by the Japan TRIZ Society, NPO,
on Sept. 11-12, 2014, at Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin Univ., Japan), 
Nov. 24, 2014
Posted on Nov. 27, 2014; Updated: Mar. 27, 2015

For going to Japanese pages, press buttons. 

Editor's Note (Toru Nakagawa, Nov. 24, 2014)

Japan TRIZ Symposium 2014 was held on Sept. 11-12, 2014 in Tokyo.  In spite of the 2-months delay, I am writing this Personal Report to introduce you the Japanese TRIZ event and all the presentations briefly.  I believe it important for us Japanese TRIZ community to present our TRIZ activities and results widely and openly to the global TRIZ community in order to develop TRIZ further and to proliferate it in the world in cooperation with you all. (Since I am not involved in its organization this year, the present report is made shorter than the previous ones.) 

Note (TN, Mar. 27, 2015):  The Japan TRIZ Society posted in its official Web site the PDF files of the invited talks and award-winning presentations on Nov. 19 and those of all other contributed presentations on Jan. 14.  In this "TRIZ Home Page in Japan", I have posted selected 9 presentations.  In the present page, I have prepared the links to all these PDF files in the JTS site and the HTML pages in this Web site.

 

Top of the page Outline of Symposium Organization Invited talks Methodology of TRIZ Integral Use Case studies Promotion of TRIZ
TRIZ in Education Patent Studies Non-technical areas Concluding remarks Symposium news page JTS site   Japanese page

 


(1) Outline of the Symposium

Name:               The 10th TRIZ Symposium in Japan 2014
Held by:            The Japan TRIZ Society (NPO
)

Sponsored by:         Robust Quality Engineering Society; Intellectual Property Association of Japan
Supported by:         Japan Society for Design Engineering; Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers;
                              Society of Japanese Value Engineering; Risk Analysis Research Center,
                             The Institute of Statistical Mathematics; Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun;
                              Japanese Society of Applied Statistics; Japan Creativity Society

Date:                 Sept.11 (Thu.) and 12 (Fri.), 2014
Venue:                    Nishi-Waseda Campus, Waseda University (Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, Japan) 
Main theme:           Future with TRIZ!
Web site:                Japan TRIZ Society:    http://www.triz-japan.org/english_top.html 

(2) Outline of Agenda

Sept. 11 (Thu):  Tutorial (Masahiro Kuwahara), Opening ceremony, Special invited talk (Shin Taguchi (USA)), Presentations (10 papers in double tracks), Panel discussion, Buffet dinner & communications
Sept. 12 (Fri): General assembly of JTS, Keynote lecture (Anatoly Guin (Russia)), Presentations (2 papers in double tracks), Poster presentations (5 posters), Presentations (10 papers in double tracks), Closing ceremony

(3) Invited talks and participants:

Mr. Anatoly Guin (MATRIZ, Russia)  Keynote Lecture: “Application of TRIZ for increase in competitiveness in economy and education”
Mr. Shin Taguchi (ASI Consulting Group /American Supplier Institute(ASI), USA) Special Lecture: ”Status of Scientific Methods for Product Development Outside of Japan ~ Robust Optimization using Taguchi Methods ~ Epoch Making Case Studies”
Mr. Masahiro Kuwahara (IDEA) Tutorial:  "TRIZ Technology for Innovation"

Participants:

According to the Communications of JTS (Nov. 8), 135 participants in total.  36% of them participated for the first time while 18% for 10 times all through the Symposia since 2005.  Most of the participants seem to come from user industries, and not many from academia. Success in getting a large number of domestic participants, but small number in international participation (only a few besides the 2 invited speakers).

(4) Organization and management

Two-days Symposium this year (half-day basic tutorial + 1.5 days of lectures and presentations).

The Symposium was prepared just on the time table:
     Announcement of the plan and Call for papers: in February;
     Submission due of abstracts: in May;
     Announcement of the first advance agenda and posting the abstracts:  in June;
     Submission due of the presentation slides:  late July; and
     Due of registration:  in August.
All the announcements were posted in Japanese and in English, and the Symposium was prepared and organized smoothly just as the previous ones.  The Symposium was operated smoothly during the two days, too. Such a smooth way of organizing and operating the Symposium is quite remarkable in comparison with the TRIZ conferences in various other countries.

It was also nice that 10 institutions/associations in Japan joined to support the Symposium.  The two speakers invited from abroad gave important and impressive lectures.

As for the contributed presentations, 22 papers were given in oral sessions while 5 more (including 1 from overseas) in poster sessions.   Thus the number of contributed presentations has increased slightly from the last year Symposium (with 20 papers + 3 posters).   The presentations are evaluated high in their quality in the international standards.

The international nature of the Symposium was reduced much last year and has not recovered yet this year. English translation of slides was supported by the Program Committee (with the help of machine translation), and all the presentations were projected both in Japanese and in English and are recorded in the Proceedings in the two languages.   It is a pity that the machine translation is not good enough yet (especially form Japanese to English) and some of Japanese presentations can not convey their contents well in the English versions. 

Japan TRIZ Society has recently (on Nov. 19) posted the presentation slides in their Web site both in Japanese and in English in the following way:
    Slides of invited talks and of 5 award-winning contributed presentations: Openly in the Web.
    Slides of other contributed presentations: In the Members-only pages of the Web.

 

(5) Brief introductions to presentations (1) Invited Talks

Reading the slides of all the presentations recorded in the Proceedings, I am introducing them to you one by one. 

The description after '--' is a note of my personal view. 
The * mark means the presentation I actually attended (Note that half of the contributed presentations can not be attended because of the double track agenda.)  
The ● marks stand for the award winning presentations as the result of participants' voting for 'Best contributed presentation for me' (5 presentations). 
The marks are the presentations which I recommend you besides them (7 presentations).
and   show links to outside (i.e. JTS Web site), while  and show links inside this "TRIZ Home Page in Japan".

 Invited talks are introduced here first in this section, while the contributed ones in the next section.

JI01  Opening:  Yuji Mihara (Japan TRIZ Society) “Opening Remarks” *    

JI    Closing:   Manabu Sawaguchi (Japan TRIZ Society) “Closing Address”  *

EI01  Keynote Lecture:  Anatoly Guin (Vice President of MATRIZ (International TRIZ Association), Russia)  “Application of TRIZ for increase in competitiveness in economy and education” *    

In the world where big changes are taking place all the time, we have to seek for 'Education for a new era' which need to cultivate the abilities to face with contradictions, to handle unorganized, flooding and yet insufficient information, and to solve different problems. We should innovate the education with TRIZ, the author talked.

JI02  Special Lecture:  Shin Taguchi (ASI Consulting Group /American Supplier Institute(ASI), USA) ”Status of Scientific Methods for Product Development Outside of Japan ~ Robust Optimization using Taguchi Methods ~ Epoch Making Case Studies”  *    

Mr. Shin Taguchi, the son of Dr. Genrich Taguchi, explains the history (since 1950's) of development of Taguchi Method by using many epoch-making application cases in Japan and in USA. How and what new concepts were introduced in each case and how it turned over conventional common senses into new philosophy by Dr. Taguchi.   Even though it was difficult for me to understand the cases fully, the lecture is impressive.

JI00  Tutorial: Masahiro Kuwahara (IDEA, Inc.) “Let's Study the Foundation of TRIZ, and the Effective Cooperation Method with Other Methodologies” *

Introduction to TRIZ for the novices, for 2 hours. The needs for industries to obtain some methods for generating 'hit-sales products/services'.  Instructions to basic TRIZ tools. The way of developing hit-sales products/services by the integral use of QFD-TRIZ-Taguchi Method, etc.

JI03 Panel Discussion:  chaired by Manabu Sawaguchi (Japan TRIZ Society) “Desired Direction of TRIZ toward the Future and its Contribution to Innovation” *

JP01  Hiroshi Hasegawa (Shibaura Inst. of Tech.) * 

A discussion from the stand point as a researcher in design engineering. There have been developed a variety of design process methods, e.g. Engineering design by Pahl and Beitz, V-model, Design for X, Systems approach of IEEE1220-2005, etc.   The main keyword of them is 'quality assurance', for which the design process should cover 'kotozukuri' (or value creation) in addition to 'monozukuri' (or products creation).   They put stresses on processes but are weak in assisting the idea generation, where TRIZ is quite powerful.  Therefore, further TRIZ development should be directed towards the integration with design processes, quality assurance and empowering the idea generation assistance.

JP02  Narumi Nagase (SONY) * 

The author has the experiences of introducing and promoting TRIZ in two different companies, i.e. PCC for over 6 years and Sony for over 7 years. In such industries TRIZ may be evaluated differently depending on the proliferation stages: during a few years at the initial stage 'TRIZ can help generate ideas from various viewpoints!', while at later/mature stage 'The people who use the TRIZ way of thinking are certainly capable and highly effective!'. For the future of TRIZ, I want to pursue 'easy-to-understand TRIZ' (but not 'simple TRIZ') for obtaining more people who understand and use TRIZ. I wish to extend TRIZ deeper and to practice more towards TRIZ for value creation rather than TRIZ as tools for generating more ideas.

JP03  Setsuo Arita (Hitachi)  *

The author has been involved in the company-wide project for 'innovation of design and development processes' and promoted TRIZ in Hitachi since 1997.  TRIZ is a very powerful and useful tool throughout the stages of developing technologies and products. Besides TRIZ, however, other methods especially including KT (Kepner-Tregoe) method, QFD, and Taguchi method are also useful at various stages of product development. We recommend integral use of these methods, especially the combination of TRIZ and KT, for the processes of product development.  For contributing TRIZ to the innovation, we should put emphasis on the TRIZ' way of systematic thinking and the cultivation of people who are capable to innovate.

JP04  Takashi Ogata (OLYMPUS)  *    [No slides recorded in the Proceedings]

JP05  Naoyuki Yoshida (JNC)  *               [No slides recorded in the Proceedings]

JP06  Akihiko Ikeda (SONY)  *                 [No slides recorded in the Proceedings]

 

(6) Brief introductions to presentations (2) Contributed papers

All the contributed presentations are introduced here according to their categories. Some of coauthors and their affiliations are omitted.

A.  Methodology of TRIZ

J01    Takashi Ogata, Kazuhiro Fujikawa, Hiroyuki Tsuchiya (OLYMPUS Corp.) “Finding the needs of customer by the SN Matrix and TRIZ process - The functional approach for connecting methods and 7 solutions -“  (Oral 1)    (Jan. 18, 2015)      

The authors pursue for the methods of linking their technological seeds (S) with their customers needs (N); they want to provide new products/services of attractive quality (by developing their technology) and to reveal some hidden needs of customers.
For such a purpose they have developed a scheme of describing their aims and means consistently in terms of 'functionality'; hierarchy of aims (for what aims/purposes they want to use their technologies) and of means (what types of means are available/needed for achieving the aims) are described. For each of the function in the hierarchical scheme, the authors clarify their goal/current levels of realizing the function, competitors' technology (contents and their levels), customers' requirements, and priority, and write them down in a tabular form named as 'SN Matrix'.
With this representation method, they are well supported in the thinking processes of expanding their desires, finding the seeds along their strategies, drawing out the needs which requires the seeds, and generating ideas of realizing the functional means. In these thinking processes, they found TRIZ and its knowledge base tools (especially Goldfire) useful. They also found that the representation scheme of functions in the SN Matrix is consistently applicable in their 7 categories of problem solving processes (or 'solutions').

-- This is an excellent presentation, having experiences of real applications and theoretical framework together.

J02  Hiroyuki Tsuchiya, Tetsunori Shibuya, Takashi Ogata (OLYMPUS Corp.) “Design risk prevention by the SN Matrix and TRIZ process - The functional approach for connecting the methods and 7 solutions –“  (Oral 3)     

In the risk analysis at the product design stage, even experienced engineers often miss to reveal some hidden defects/weak points and later caused unexpected faults. For preventing such mistakes, risk analysis requires much time and efforts.
In the present study, the authors use fish-bone charts, functional trees (SN Matrix), and TRIZ effects databases depending on the purposes; they can clarify the target elements of risk analysis, review the functions with respect to space and time characteristics, and find out a wide variety of possible risks. The SN Matrix was found useful also for evaluating the possible effects of the risks; they evaluated the risks by using criteria and levels, competitors' solutions, customers' requirements, etc.   For the problematic functions extracted in such a manner, they clarify the problem elements of the risks and try to find solutions to prevent from the risk by using TRIZ and Taguchi method.

-- I think this is a sound method for risk analysis

J05  Manabu Sawaguchi (Waseda University), Shintaro Ishikawa (Fujitsu) “A Study of Conceptual Design Process for an Ideal Design Way”  (Oral 9)     

The authors try to evaluate how much the system satisfies the user's requirements on the basis of information theory and to define the ideality of the system.   They use various designs of paper cups for hot coffee as the example. They evaluated the ideality of different existing solutions and then tried to propose some improvements, showing their evaluations.

J08  Nobuaki Arai (Arai & Associates), Masahiro Kuwahara (IDEA), “Technology Forecasting by S-curve Analysis - A Study as a Means of Innovation Induction Method -“  (Oral 6)     

Using the statistics of patent applications of 3D printers as the example, the authors try to evaluate the stage of evolution on the S-curve. They found the historical changes in the waves of patent applications and in the predominant players, but found the stage of S-curve unclear. For forecasting innovations in future, they suggest to use TRIZ concept of evolution of technical systems and to investigate the appearance of new principles for realizing the existing functions.

J09  Ikuo Yoshizawa (SANNO Institute of Management.) [Educational Research Subcommittee of a New Era (Japan TRIZ Society)] “Creation of Answer Proposals to the Open Tasks Using Substance-Field Analysis and Standard Solutions”  (Oral 8)     

A new study group in Japan TRIZ Society started in November 2013 for revealing 'How to teach TRIZ' and 'How to utilize TRIZ for making general education more effective'. They use "Open tasks" authored by A. Guin et al. as the exercise problems and try to make a collection of case studies of searching for solutions for oneselves. Searching for solutions, they selected the TRIZ tools of Substance-Field modeling and Inventive standards. For a number of familiar problems, they suggests multiple ways of generating various solutions.

J10  Yoshiharu Isaka(IDEA Inc.)”One Method for Expanding TRIZ Application - Applying TRIZ to Products that TRIZ can be Hardly Applied to -“  (Oral 10)  * (Jan. 18, 2015)    

In the areas of 'Utility engines' for example, some standard products have been delivered for decades without much change, because of no change in the requirements for basic usage as the power supply in the working machines for agriculture, forestry, etc. Isn't there any room for applying TRIZ?
The author thinks the key is to find the 'sales points' which can convince the target users, i.e., the person who is in charge of selecting the engine in the working machine manufacturer. Thus one has to think of various functions and features as the 'sales points' by using some idea generation methods. Then TRIZ will help to generate some methods for realizing the functions/features. All these processes are regarded as the 'Theme definition' stage in the problem solving process with TRIZ.

-- This is an unfancy but important proposition, I think. The author describes the problem situations and the thoughts in the form of discussions among the relevant persons by using a concrete example; this makes the presentation easy to understand and convincing.

J13  Shinsuke Kurosawa (trizstudy.com) “Eight Key Ideas of TRIZ”  (Poster 1) *    

The author names 'Productive thinking' for 'the thinking process for revealing some methods to satisfy the needs'. The Productive thinking has two main processes, namely, 'The Analytical process' for analyzing existing knowledge and 'The Synthetic process' for developing new knowledge (i.e. the knowledge of methods to satisfy the needs) on the basis of existing knowledge. TRIZ principles along the former process are: Modeling, Systems approach, RTV (=CID)/Psychological methods, and Ideality/Levels of inventions, while those along the latter are: Contradiction, Laws of systems evolution, Resources, and Ideality.

-- This is interesting as a research note of the author's thoughts for decades long.

J16   NAGAI Tetsuya, Yuji Mihara, Tsuyoshi Todome, Hideaki Kosha, Takashi Shikata ([(MPUF]), “Deployment for Searching the Causes (DeSC) - To complete causes of the problem -“  (Poster 4)     

For analyzing the problem, we have often used the 'Why-why analysis' where we ask why?, why?, for several times for finding one root cause. However, we have found the 'Why-why deployment', where we apply the questions Why? to multiple directions, is more suitable for creative problem solving by finding many keys to different solutions. For the Why-why deployment (i.e., a type of divergent thinking), we have made a check list of different viewpoints. We call the Why-why deployment with the check list as "Deployment for Searching the Causes (DeSC)".

-- The method and its explanation here seem to be clear and effective.

J22  Yoshinori Takagi ( ) “Invention Principle ‘Sugoroku’ - 40 TRIZ Invention Symbols on the 9 Screens -“  (Oral 14)    (Jan. 18, 2015)    

At the TRIZ Symposium 2012, the present author reported the hand-script symbols of the 40 Inventive Principles, and was appreciate highly. This year, he is reporting the idea of classifying the 40 principles into 9 groups for easier teaching. The principles are classified into 4-membered groups from the top, with a minor adjustment to make the 8th and 9th groups into 6-membered groups. He has given names to the nine groups, then arranged them in the 9 windows (3x3), and made the path of going through them in a way like a sugoroku game.   He explains how to teach and utilize the Principles and their symbols, by using the 'Making harmless' group of Principles 21 to 24.

-- The symbols and their groups are very easy to understand and memorize. The description of usage is vivid and attractive.

 

B. Integral Use of TRIZ with Relevant Methods

J24   Hisao Kobayashi, Hakaru Koine, Nobuyuki Suzuki, Kumiko Matsuoka (Association of Risk Management Japan) “Risk Management for the Improvement in Performance by TRIZ - Growth Timing and Market Size Known by Risk Management –“  (Oral 18)     

Risk Management originally intends to handle any uncertain possible elements/events which might affect the business goals. Thus it covers not only negative events such as disasters and accidents but also positive events. Cases of innovation with TRIZ by our company or by competitor companies are big uncertain factors to be handled in the risk management.

J26  Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin University & CrePS Institute) “General Methodology of Creative Problem Solving and Task Achieving (CrePS): Reorganizing Various Application Cases and Their Methods in the ‘Six-Box Scheme’ ”  (Oral 22) *   (Jan. 18, 2015)    

CrePS is envisioned as the 'General methodology of creative problem solving & task achieving'. It implies a system of generalized and universally applicable methods. The general methodology CrePS can be realized on the basis of TRIZ/USIT, by reorganizing many different methods, and by using the framework of the Six-Box Scheme, I am advocating. For developing it, I am working in the following aspects:

(1) To make course materials of CrePS case studies. We should just use case studies already published.
(2) To understand different methods (including TRIZ) and to describe them in the framework of CrePS.
(3) To relate CrePS to various activities in the 'Real world'.
(4) To categorize various purposes of CrePS application, and to recommend concise CrePS processes for each category.
(5) To proliferate the vision of CrePS.
The slides (and papers presented at JCS Conference and ETRIA TFC) are posted in this Web site.

 

C. Case Studies in Industries

J04   Yuki Taniguchi,  Kazushi Tsuwako (HGST Japan)  “The Trends of Technical Evolution by Innovation in the Hard Disk Industry” (Oral 7)  *    

The authors have been working for many years for the development of hard disk drives in HGST Japan (or formerly Hitachi Global Storage Technology) and they now review the history of technology evolution in the field of HDD. They refer to "Dilemma of Innovation" by C. Christensen and 'Trends of evolution of technology' by Darrell Mann.
The low-end disruptive innovations took place several times in this field to make the HDD smaller. The evolution pursued the change from macro to nano and has almost reached the limit by now. They introduce the outline of future directions of their company at the end.

J11  Satoshi Okada (Hitachi, Ltd.) “TRIZ Application to the Development of Robots Utilized in Severe Environments”  (Oral 11) *  

For safely decommissioning the Fukushima nuclear power plant, we have to develop new robots which can crawl into the containment vessel (but still outside the reactor vessel) and obtain and send back the images of the inside situations while moving around.  In developing such a robot, there are two crucial difficulties, and the author solved the problems by use of TRIZ and successfully made prototypes of the robot.
(1) The robot has to pass through the existing pipe of 100 m for entering the containment vessel, and to walk around on a grid floor made of steel inside the vessel.  ==> The author has attached crawlers on both sides of the thin robot body, and the crawlers are arranged in a straight line while passing through the narrow pipe and are rearranged in the H-shape for walking around safely on the grid floor (i.e., solution by separation in time).
(2) In the severe environment under nuclear radiation, the electronic devices for motor control and for CCD camera monitoring will be damaged in a short time.  ==> In the robot body only the motors and camera CCD are installed while the electronic devices for controlling the motors and the CCD are kept safely outside the vessel and are connected with cables with sufficient shielding (i.e., solution by separation in space).
The test use was completed successfully. The actual observation of inside the containment vessel will be carried out in spring 2015.

-- I think these are new and clear solutions showing the strong features of TRIZ.  We eagerly hope that such robots and other TRIZ solutions play important roles for recovering from the nuclear plant accident.

J15   Tsuyoshi Todome, Yuji Mihara, Kazushige Aoki, Tatsuhiko Atsuta, Takashi Shikata, Noritaka Nakayama, Tetsuya Nagai, Yasutake Makino ([MPUF]) “How to Supply Water to a Planter during 10 Days' Absence”  (Poster 3)  *    

A new study group under MPUF started with voluntary multi-company members and reported a case study of applying USIT for the purpose of mastering USIT.  They chose a task of delivering water to the flowers in a container regularly for 10 days of absence. They defined the task as 'to deliver water to the earth in the plant container every day in a fixed amount and evenly (on the earth surface)'.  The authors carried out the analysis of the present system, consideration of desirable behaviors of the ideal system, and analysis in time and space. Then they generated over-70 ideas and proposed 4 conceptual solutions.

-- The presentation seems to intend to show various points of the process rather than the solutions obtained.   Nevertheless, it should be desirable to present the way of applying USIT in a more refined manner, e.g. with diagrams showing proper usage of the analysis methods.

J18  Sho Tsuchiya (Univance Corp.) “TRIZ Case Study in the Development of Automotive Unit”  (Oral 15)     

Univance is a middle size industry manufacturing mainly power-train systems and units for automobiles, and has started to installing TRIZ under the guidance by a consultant.   In the 2013 fiscal year, they carried out a full process of TRIZ application to the project of reducing friction in a transfer unit.  In the 2014 fiscal year a shorter version of TRIZ problem solving process has been applied to the size reduction of a gear box, aiming at obtaining results in a shorter period. At the stage of problem definition they applied the cause-effect analysis (for 5 days), then at the idea generation stage the tools of 40 Inventive principles (for 4 days), and at the solution construction stage the methods of idea combination for each subsystem and concept selection (for 3 days). For idea selection, they put various ideas (addressing each root cause) in the graph of expected effects vs necessary development period.  As the results, they succeeded in reducing the size (currently of 166 φ×108.5) into 118 φ×108.0, better than the preset goal size of 125 φ×108.5.

-- This presentation is interesting as a case study of learning and adjusting the TRIZ application methods.

J19  Hidemitsu Ohoka, Katsumichi Hiraoka, ○ Koji Matsuda, Takuji Yamamoto (SHINWA Controls Co., Ltd.) “Development of a High Durability Electric Motor-operated Valve by TRIZ”  (Oral 17)  *    

At TRIZ Symposium 2012, the authors presented the successful case of reducing the size of an air conditioning equipment (for manufacturing industries) into half in the footprint area. They now report a second case of TRIZ application to the development of valves. They face with 3 high-level requirements for the electric-controll valves: i.e., long working durability (continuous operation for 10 years without stopping), high-resolution controllability (over several thousand in resolution), and handling the purified water.
They have used the TRIZ application process essentially the same as the one in the previous report. They have found the function-attributes analysis and the method of evaluating possible risks and examining their prevention are particularly effective, they say. Good linearity of flow amount with respect to valve opening (thus resulting high resolution and good controllability) was obtained, they say.

J20  Naoyuki Yoshida (JNC Corp.) “Introduction of TRIZ Practical Use Case at JNC Corporation”  (Oral 19)  *    

JNC Corp. has the CI of 'Leading-edge Chemical Industry' and aims at the development of new business/products and at innovation in the manufacturing process. They started to introduce TRIZ in 2010 and carried out a number of practical trainings in every site in 2011 under an external consultant.
The author reports the case of 'development of prototype equipment for manufacturing large-sized porous membranes'.  The project task is 'to design a prototype equipment for manufacturing porous membranes, which are long and large in area, possible to have various thickness and other properties, and applicable of various types of processing (e.g., hardening processes). A prototype equipment, designed as a short-term solution, was built and it succeeded in producing porous membranes, which have finely-controlled 3D network structure on the surface with the average pole sizes of 0.1, 0.2, and 0.3 μm resulting in good transparency of liquids.
They have trained a number of in-company consultants and are promoting real practices.   Their current foci are activities of making TRIZ well known and real application of TRIZ together with the engineers in the job.

-- Concerning to the case, the process of problem solving and some technical details were presented in the slides on the Symposium site but such technical details are masked in the slides recorded in the Proceedings.  TRIZ seems to be installed well inside the company.

J21  Tomohiko Katagiri (IDEA Inc. & SWCN) “Development of a Spinning Top by TRIZ & TM & Simulation”  (Oral 21)    (Jan. 18, 2015)    

SWCN stands for Solid Works Club of Nagano, which is a voluntary, not-for-profit group of engineers and SME owners of different industries having activities since 2007 (according to their Web site).   'All-Japan Manufacturing Industry Koma Taisen (Spintop battles)' was first held in Feb. 2012 and second in Feb. 2013.   The koma (or spintop) must be smaller than 20 mm in diameter and be turned by fingers without using any tool.   There is no limit in the weight, length, shape, materials, etc.   The battle between 2 komas is performed on a slightly concave ring. The koma spinning longer on the ring wins the game, and the koma winning the game twice in a row win the match.
The slides in the Proceedings explain the processes of considering various contradictions in the design and examining different design prototypes by use of Taguchi method and simulations. However, the SWCN's koma which won the second place at the Second Koma Taisen was extraordinary in its shape; just after turning the koma opens its 3 arms for hitting out the competitor (named 'cat's punch').   At the Symposium I did not attend at this presentation, but had a chance of glancing their koma.  Battles and komas are shown by movies posted in the Web site of the Koma Taisen Association.
-- Very interesting event and interesting koma designs.   The 3rd Koma Taisen will be held in Feb. 2015.

E01  Sérgio Baltar Fandino (UEZO/SENAI CETIQT, Brazil), Luiz Rodrigues Junior, Rodrigo Ribeiro Maciel (SENAI CETIQT)  “The improvement of the fabrics used in the professional market through research on consumer need and engineering parameters”  (Poster 5)     

This is the only presentation contributed from abroad to the present Symposium. The poster presentation was contributed by SENAI CETIQT (Technology Center of Chemical and Textile Industry), Brazil.   It is a pity that I cannot grasp the main point of their presentation even reading their slides repeatedly (probably the slides in English were simple machine translation of the Portuguese version).
SENAI is the national institution in Brazil for teaching and job training in the industrial fields, and financially supported by the job training tax posed half and half on the employers and the employees.   Vocational training is executed for 2-3 years onto young people who graduated middle school or high school.

 

D. Promotion of TRIZ in Industries

J17  Shigeru Hisanaga (DENSO Corp.)  “How to Lead Beginners to TRIZ at the Place of Practice”  (Oral 13) *  (Jan. 18, 2015)    

As reported in the TRIZ Symposium last year, DENSO introduced TRIZ since 10 years ago and has been promoting its application to a variety of projects. They try to make the TRIZ application practical in short time (within 20 hours each).   The TRIZ application team is formed by the desire of the project and by the voluntary members only. Thus the TRIZ promoter needs to guide the team, composed mostly by TRIZ-novice members.   In such situations, it is a key to success to adopt the approach and tools which fit well with the needs and intentions of such TRIZ beginners.
The authors reviewed their 250 projects for these 10 years and characterized them with 3 types of needs (i.e., Want many ideas, Want a good solution, and Want to reconsider from the root) and with 2 types of intentions (i.e., Out of the constraints and boundaries, and Inside the present constraints).   For each category of 3x2, the authors examined if the used TRIZ tools were successful or not from the viewpoints of the TRIZ beginners. In conclusion, the authors have summarized the TRIZ tools recommendable in each of the 3x2 categories of beginners' needs and intentions.

-- This is a nice presentation with deep insights.  The author made a concluding remark saying: "The success of TRIZ practice depends not only on the technical results but also on the participants' satisfaction. And hence, coaching is more effective than consulting."

J23  Koji Tsumagari, Masaaki Sakai (LOGO Corp.) “How to Spread TRIZ across Business - Why does it not get to a Manager's Heart? -“  (Oral 16)  *    

TRIZ is hardly known in the business field.   The authors say: Even though TRIZ has been known to some extent as a good idea-generation method, it is never recognized by business executives.   We wonder if some important value of TRIZ is missed.
The present authors found that TRIZ fits best as the basic background for the engineers to understand the world (of technology).   TRIZ gives sound basis of understanding engineering philosophy and systematic thinking, and provides new perspectives for cultivating engineers. Though this approach seems to be a long way, we should persuade business executives on the value of TRIZ in this aspect."  The authors have recognized this point while teaching the students on the engineers' ethics, they say.

J25  Shigeru Kasuya (Proengineer Institute & Yamaguchi University) “TRIZ marketing for the Ubiquitous concept ~ So that anyone uses TRIZ anywhere anytime ~”  (Oral 20)  *   (Jan. 18, 2015)    

The author presents 10 examples of different trials, methods, and tools for the purpose of responding to the users' apparent/hidden needs at TRIZ trainings and consulting. They are: Smart phone version of 40 Inventive principles (1 screen/principle); 40 Inventive principles adapted for the IT/software field (smart phone version); and understanding various other methods in relation to TRIZ (e.g., Checklist method by Osborne, NM method (by Masakazu Nakayama), Wai-gaya meeting at Honda, Goal deployment, QC story approach, etc.)   The author tries to make the usage of TRIZ inexpensive, with the slogan of "Anyone can use TRIZ anywhere anytime."

-- For more detail, you may refer to the author's Web site "pro-engineer" (in Japanese).

 

E. Usage of TRIZ in Education and in Academia

J06  Takayoshi Ohtsu  (Suzuka National College of Technology) “TRIZ in Robot Education - Application of the Block Robot to TRIZ Education -“  (Oral 2) *    

The author reports the TRIZ-related educational activities at Suzuka National College of Technology.   They carry out education on intellectual properties, education of creative engineering on a practical basis, cultivating young students oriented towards science and technology in cooperation with regional primary & middle schools, universities, municipal offices, etc.

(1) Classes of project research.

(2) Exercises to build robots, vehicles, etc. by using 3D blocks (by Artech). (even elementary school children make various things with much interest.)   During the project, students are guided to examine the structure, functions, controls, etc. with reference to several frequently-used TRIZ Inventive principles.

(3) Challenges at Ene-1 GP SUZUKA Race by middle school students.
Task: "Time race at international Suzuka Circuit (5.807 km with a slope of 7.8 %) for 3 rounds by using 40 rechargeable batteries". State-of-the-art technologies are taught and learned for themselves: The middle school students built a battery-driven car for themselves: for example, a composite material sheet was made by attaching carbon-fiber sheets on the both sides of a porous acrylic resin plate; carbon-fiber enforced plastic plate is made by immersing polymers into the carbon-fiber layer; and the shafts of front wheels and rear wheels are attached on the flat body sheet with box structures.
They achieved the results of 18th among 85 teams (from industries, universities, high schools, etc.) in the electric vehicle category, and also of 3rd among 15 teams in the category of electric bikes. (Top among the middle school teams in the two categories.)

-- The presentation has shown the activities vividly with many photos and movies.

 

F. Patent Studies

J07  Narumi Nagase (SONY) “New approach for excavating invention comprehensively ― Four Twist Matrices Approach to excavate intellectual properties ―”  (Oral 4) *    

Sometimes the top management tells us "to use our own technologies and intellectual properties and to create new products and new customer values".   But conventional approaches do not lead to such new products.   The author proposes here a new practical approach for such an endeavour.   In the present paper, the author describes the outline of the method and then illustrates its usage with an example of examining the entrance into the new field of electrical tooth brush.
The outline of the method is as follows:
(0) to set the field of entrance tentatively.
(1) To survey the preceding patents by other companies and to learn how they generate values in the field.  In this process, a matrix is build to describe the relationship between the merits/effects of the invention and its fundamental mechanism/functionality of the invention.
(2) To learn how the preceding inventions concretize their solutions and to obtain knowledge for transferring their methods. At this stage, a matrix is built to describe the relationships between the mechanisms/functionality and technical means of solutions.
(3) To review all the intellectual properties of our company from the viewpoints of these means in the solutions and to find our own inventions of possible application in future.  Third matrix is built to describe the relationships between the means in the solutions and the inventions/patents of our own company.
(4) To think of new creative way of value generation by using the inventions/solutions found in our company.
Fourth matrix is built to describe the relationships between the inventions found in our own IPs and the new customer values.
The author arranges these four matrixes at the corners of a square and call them as 'Four Twist matrixes'.

-- This is an excellent paper proposing a new thinking process and explains it systematically and logically.  The author says the information processing of public and our own patent databases are well supported by the software tool, Goldfire.

 

G. Applications to Soft & Non-technical Areas

J03   Hisataka Izawa, Ikuo Yoshizawa, Osamu Ikeda, Xiaolei He, Fumiko Kikuchi, Yasuo Moriya ([Business and Management TRIZ Research Subcommittee, Japan TRIZ Society)]  “Methods and Examples of Applying the Business Management Related Evolution Trend Proposed by Darrell L. Mann - Translating the Evolution Trends from the World of TRIZ into the Daily Business and Management –“  (Oral 5) *   (Jan. 18, 2015)    

The B&M Study Group of JTS reported last year how to generate 'hit products/services'. Since they found the tool of 'Trends of evolution' effective, they tried to make the 'Trends of evolution' tool more useful.
(1) They have made a booklet in Japanese for introducing the Trends of evolution in Darrell Mann's "Hand-On Systematic Innovation for Business and management".
(2) They have clarified the relationships of the Trends of evolution with several other methods often used in the B&M fields: they include Nonaka's SECI model, 4 viewpoints in the Balance-score cards (i.e., finance, customers, business process, and learning & growth), and SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threat).
(3) They made a case study of applying the Trends of evolution: To transfer the technologies of some abandoned business for starting a new business model of servicing the technologies. They have found the examination of 3C (i.e. Customers, Company, Competitors) with respect to the 32 Trends of evolution very useful.

J12  Yui Kato, Manabu Sawaguchi (Waseda University) “Research on Process Improvement of Design Service”  (Oral 12)     

Conventional designing process is highly professional, specialized, dependent on individual skills, and not standardized.   The present study aims at visualizing the designing process, making tactic knowledge into explicit organizational knowledge, and improving specialty skills and designs.
First the team discuss about the intentions of design making and evaluation criteria to form the target design concepts (which are agreed quantitatively by using the AHP method). Then the team make multiple designs in accordance to the concepts, and evaluate them with the criteria.   If the designs are not satisfactory with respect to some criteria, the designs are tried to be improved with the help of contradiction solution by TRIZ. (For this purpose, the TRIZ contradiction matrix (Matrix 2003) has been adapted for the designing field by converging the parameters in the matrix and selecting relevant Inventive principles.)

-- The task of visualizing the design process and making it not dependent on individual skills seem to be still difficult and important.

J14  Kimihiko Hasegawa, Toshimitsu Kataoka, Shigeru Suzuki, Nozomu Takeuchi, Narumi Nagase, Toshiaki Masaki, Hirotsugu Ishihara, Sadao Nishii ([Intellectual Property Creation Research Subcommittee, Japan TRIZ Society]) “Proposal of an Easy Value Evaluation Method by Means of TRIZ - Taking the Proposal for a New Life Style of the Elderly People as an Example – (Part 1)” (Poster 2)     (Jan. 18, 2015)    

According to the abstract of this presentation, the IP Creation Study Group of JTS, which completed an IP-related multiple-year project last year, discussed freely about what they should work on next and what are the concerned themes for the members, and decided the topic here as their new study project.
Discussing the purposes of their project, they decided 'The aged and their relevant people live a happy life' as the top purpose (or vision) and 'The aged people solve the problems of their own and others' as the target (or goal).   In more concrete words, they recognize the problem 'The researchers and engineers around their retirement age want to live a life with some good motivation' and wish to have solutions towards 'For achieving their own visions, the aged people solve their own problems as well as others' problems'.  The Study Group wants to propose such new life styles for the aged, to discuss and organize various concepts for achieving them, and to propose some activities for arranging the environments.

-- This is an important topic for many aged engineers, including many TRIZ practitioners, and for the whole society in Japan.  We hope this approach and their activities fruitful.  By the way, when we think of their activities, this presentation should better have the title interchanged with its subtitle.

 

(7) Concluding Remarks

After reviewing all the presentations as described above, I would like to write down some general comments here.

(a)   Generally speaking, TRIZ in Japan are carried mainly by the engineers in many different industries, especially those mid-carrier and senior engineers and middle managers).  This has not been changed since the TRIZ introduction era of late 1990s.   Since the baby-boomer generation is about to retire, individual members are changing of course.

(b)   Reflecting above, TRIZ has been promoted mostly in the bottom-up style in industries.  There are a number of industries, where the TRIZ promotion/application activities, sometimes for over 10 years and some other times for recent several years, are appreciated and are carried out by the organizational support.  Hitachi group companies are remarkable in this context by their continuous company-wide TRIZ activities since 1997. Nevertheless, there is no industry where the top executives promote TRIZ as their company strategy.   This is one of the biggest problems for the TRIZ community in Japan.

(c)  Understanding and actual practice of TRIZ application methods have been advancing well in Japan.   Industries have become to use TRIZ in their ways of adjustments, i.e., from the classical TRIZ or from the TRIZ as shown/given by foreign or domestic TRIZ vendors/consultants to the TRIZ adapted for their own situations and needs.  Concerning to QFD and Taguchi method, the industries have become to respond in a similar manner; they often use TRIZ and relevant methods in a compact and smoothly linked manner.   It is also remarkable that industries can 'introduce and digest TRIZ' in such a manner in much shorter years than before.   Better understanding of TRIZ in Japan in general (and also better supports by Japanese TRIZ consultants) has contributed in such easier promotion.

(d)   A big problem for the Japanese TRIZ community is the fact that there is no TRIZ research center nor TRIZ research and development group (having sufficient members and sufficient organizational basis) in Japan.   In the world, TRIZ has been advanced by some vendor/consulting firms in USA, some TRIZ research laboratories in universities in Europe, some in-company core teams in Korea, some government supported organizations in Malaysia and in China, etc. In Japan we do not have any core institute/group having members over the critical mass. In these situations we have not improved/developed TRIZ in a substantial scale in Japan. For instance, there is no project of developing some TRIZ-related software tools originally in Japan.

(e)  Proliferation of TRIZ into university education in Japan is very slow.  In the Symposium this year, there are 4 presentations in relation to universities but only 1 of them (by Tsumagari) discusses on education.  In National Colleges in Technology (i.e., vocational education-oriented schools for students of age 15-20 and extendible to 22), they try to put more stress on IP education and hence get interested in TRIZ.  Suzuka NCT made a nice report of their IP and TRIZ-related education; I also have heard similar activities in some other NCTs. We need to work more for proliferating the TRIZ way of thinking in the schools (elementary schools to high schools) and in the Graduate schools as well.

(f)  It is highly desirable for TRIZ to cooperate and integrate with relevant methods.   It was nice that Japan TRIZ Symposium this year was sponsored and supported by 10 associations/institutes of relevant fields.   We should strengthen the human relationships with such organizations and also the cooperative/integral use of such methods.

(g)  If we look around, however, we notice that 'Innovation' is the top-level fashionable keyword today in the society; besides such academic associations, the government, industries, managers, mass media and publishers, and even universities are running around it.  We all certainly know that as the methods, techniques, and philosophy for Innovation TRIZ must take the important position, but we have not succeeded in convincing many people yet. It is difficult for us to join the people who lead the innovation movements, and it seems somehow difficult for those people to understand TRIZ, probably due to their busy schedules. I suppose that building personal relationships with those people is the most certain and most effective means for TRIZ to contribute to the innovation movements.

(h)   In relation to the above point, it should be important for TRIZ to have broader viewpoints on business and on society. It is a good trend that the present Symposium had a number of presentations in this direction.   We should enhance such studies and applications further from now on.

(i)  At the end of this section, I would like to mention about the need of international cooperation for (Japanese) TRIZ community. If we Japanese TRIZ community have our eyes only on domestic activities without being interested in the results and activities of international TRIZ community, we will be behind the advances of TRIZ.   For us to get information overseas, we should either read documents/news abroad, go and attend at international meetings, or invite people overseas for listening to their talks (or better we should do all these options). To keep our activities and results open and attractive for overseas TRIZ people and to have people come from overseas to give presentations in Japan (even without invitation) are the most beneficial ways for many Japanese TRIZ people.   Till the 8th TRIZ Symposium 2012, we made much efforts for this purpose, such as by sending information of TRIZ results and activities in Japan to global TRIZ community in English, and realized such results to some extent, e.g., nearly 10 presentations from abroad.   We should realize such situations again.  I hope that the leaders and committee members of Japan TRIZ Society think over this aspect seriously.

(j)  Japan TRIZ Society has recently posted the presentation slides in their Web site both in Japanese and in English: slides of invited talks and of 5 award-winning contributed presentations are posted openly, but those of other contributed presentations in the Members-only pages.  In this Web site "TRIZ Home Page in Japan", I am going to post several selected presentations openly under authors' permissions in near future.

 

In conclusion, the 10th Japan TRIZ Symposium 2014 was a success with many high-quality presentations and many participants, and we hope our next Japan TRIZ Symposium in September 2015 will attract even more presentations and more participants from Japan and from over the world. 

 

 

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Last updated on Mar. 27, 2015.     Access point:  Editor: nakagawa@ogu.ac.jp