TRIZ
Forum: Conference Participation Report (5)
November 15, 2001
[Posted on Nov. 16, 2001] [Minor update on Dec. 17, 2001]
| TRIZ
Forum: Conference Participation Report (5) |
|
| Personal Report of ETRIA World Conference: TRIZ Future 2001 (Held at Bath, UK, on Nov. 7-9, 2001) | |
| Toru
Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin University, Japan),
November 15, 2001 [Posted on Nov. 16, 2001] [Minor update on Dec. 17, 2001] |
buttons guides you to the Japanese pages.
Editor's
Note (Toru Nakagawa, November 15, 2001)
This is a personal report of ETRIA Conference held a week ago. (See
ETRIA
Official Web site.) About 50 people attended and discussed at
the conference, but I believe thousands of people more are interested in
the papers and discussions at the conference. So I think it worthwhile
to write a participation report from my personal view as soon as possible,
as I did for TRIZCON2001 held
last March in USA. Because of my duty at the university I cannot
expect enough time to write two reports in Japanese and in English; hence
I have chosen to write this first in English for my readers in the world
including those in Japan. Please forgive me and correct me
if there is any mistake/misunderstanding in this report.
| Top of this page | Agenda | Cancelled papers | Overview | 1st Day | 2nd Day | 3rd Day | Japanese page |
Conference Name:
ETRIA World Conference: TRIZ Future 2001
Date:
November 7-9, 2001
Place:
Menzies Bath Waterside Hotel, Bath, UK
Held by:
European TRIZ Association (ETRIA)
Supported by:
University of Bath
Participants:
slightly over 50 people
Outline of the Agenda:
Presentations in single track from 9 a.m. through 5 p.m. for the three
days.
Agenda: (In the order of actual presentation. The running number in [ ] at the head is just for referencing in this report. Page number in the Proceedings is shown in [ ]. Several papers in the Proceedings were not presented, and a few others not in the Proceedings were presented. )
First Day: November 7 (Wednesday)
Welcome
Prof. C. R. Burrows (Univ. of Bath, UK)
Introduction
Darrell L. Mann (Univ. of Bath, UK)
Keynote
Address (1)
[ 1] The Place of TRIZ in a Holistic Design Methodology
David Knott (Rolls-Royce plc., UK) pp. 1-9
Keynote
Address (2)
[ 2] OTSM-TRIZ Vision
Dmitry Kucheravy and Nikolai Khomenko (OTSM-TRIZ Technologies Center, Minsk,
Belarus and LRPS, ENSAIS, Strasbourg, France)
--- Coffee Break ---
Session
1: TRIZ Method I
[ 3] Structural Scheme of Solving a Problem by Using TRIZ
N. Shpakovsky, V. Lenjashin, L. Chechurin, Hyo June Kim (Samsung, South
Korea) pp. 17-24
[ 4] A Complementary Possibility of the 9-Screen Diagram
Avraam Seredinski ((Consultant), France) pp. 25-29
[ 5] Model
and Process for Designing a Corporate-specific Problem-Solving Method Based
on the TRIZ Approach
Daniel E. Spielberg (Suspa Holding GmbH, Germany) pp. 31-40
--- Lunch ---
Session 2: Applications I
[ 6] TRIZ in the Process Industry
Gert Poppe and Bart Gras (Innovation Quotient, The Netherlands) pp. 49-55
[ 7] The Application of TRIZ Tools in an Eco-Innovation Process
Elies Jones, David Harrison, Neville A. Stanton (Brunel University, UK)
pp. 57-78
[ 8] Experiences of TRIZ Application at Ilford Imaging
Ian Mitchell (Ilford Imaging UK, UK) [no handouts]
--- Coffee Break ---
Session
3: TRIZ Method II
[ 9] Enhancing Overall Design Process’s Efficiency by Integrating
TRIZ in Creativity Phases
Denis Cavallucci, Philippe Lutz, and Roland De Guio (LRPS and ENSAIS, Strasbourg,
France) pp. 85-91
[10] Technology Forecasting from Emotional to Empirical
Michael Slocom and Lundberg (Ontro Inc., USA)
Presented by Ellen Domb (TRIZ Journal, USA) for the authors.
[separate OHP handouts]
Second Day: November 8 (Thursday)
Session
3: TRIZ Method II (continue from the previous day)
[11] Improved Function and Attribute Modelling Techniques
and Their Role in The Problem Management Process
Simon Dewulf and Darrell Mann (CREAX, Ieper, Belgium) pp. 101-108
Session
4: Methods Integration and Emerging Applications
[12] Constructing Forecast Maps of Engineering System Development
Nikolay Shpakovsky (Samsung, Korea) and Peter Chuksin (LG Electronics,
Korea) pp. 129134
--- Coffee Break ---
[13] Ideality
and 'Self'
Darrell Mann (University of Bath, UK) pp. 135-143
[14] TRIZ Research Programme at LRPS France
Roland De Guio (LRPS-ENSAIS, Strasbourg, France) pp. 145149
[15] Combining the Senario Technique with QFD and TRIZ to
a Product Innovation Methodology
Walter Eversheim, Thomas Breuer, and Markus Grawatsch (Fraunhofer Institute
of Production Technology IPT, Aachen, Germany) pp. 273-281
[16] Learning and Applying the Essence of TRIZ with Easier
USIT Procedure
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin University, Osaka, Japan) pp. 151-164
--- Lunch ---
[17] Systematic Technology Transfer From Biology to Engineering
Julian F. V. Vincent and Darrell Mann (University of Bath, UK) pp. 165-176
Session 5: Business Applications
[18] TRIZ-based Innovation Principles and a Process for Problem
Solving in Business and Management
Bruno Ruchti (Diwings AG, Switzerland) and Pavel Livotov (TriSolver Consulting,
Hanover, Germany) pp. 177-185
[19] "Solvers Technology": A Universal TRIZ-based Resolution
Method for the Non-Technical Problems
Vassarion Sibiriakov, Ludmila Semenova (Diol Company, Russia) and Avraam
Seredinski ((Consultant), France) pp. 187-196
[20] Using TRIZ to Analyse and Solve Mass Customization Contradictions
Darrell Mann (Univ. of Bath, UK) and Ellen Domb (PQR Group and TRIZ Journal,
USA) pp. 197-208
--- Coffee Break ---
Panel
Discussion
[21] How Should We Penetrate TRIZ ?
Coordinator: Darrell Mann (Univ. of Bath, UK)
Panelists: Jack Hipple (Innovation-TRIZ, USA)
Daniel Spielberg (Suspa Holding GmbH, Germany)
Michel Lecoq (iTER sprl, Belgium)
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin University, Japan)
Third Day: November 9 (Friday)
Open
Floor Presentations
[22] "TRIZ
Trainer"
Nikolai Shpakovsky (Samsung, UK)
[23] Some Consumer Product Samples of Inventive Solutions
Jack Hipple (Innovation-TRIZ, USA)
Keynote
Address (3)
[24] TRIZ Development – From the Past into the Future
Igor Vertkin (Oxford Creativity, UK)
--- Coffee Break ---
Session 7: TRIZ Method III
[25] The Integration and Use of TRIZ with KAI, Meyers-Briggs,
Six Hats and Lateral Thinking
Jack Hipple (Innovation-TRIZ, USA) pp. 233-238
[26] TRIZ and Multi-dimensional Thinking -- Means of Exploiting
Contradiction and Analogy
Anja-Karina Pahl (University of Bath, UK) pp. 239-247
[27] The Psychology of TRIZ -- Understanding TRIZ Tools in
Relation to What We Know about and How Our Brain Works
Graham Rawlinson (Next Step Associates, UK) pp. 249-253
--- Lunch ---
Discussion
Meeting for Future ETRIA
[28] A Critical Comment on the Administration of this Conference
Leonid Shub (Agamus Unternehmensberatung GmbH, Germany)
Closing Address Darrell Mann (Univ. of Bath)
Cancelled
Papers
[These were not actually presented at
the Conference even though they appear on the Proceedings or the Program]
[X1] Problem Formulation
-- A key step in the process of resolution of inventive problems
Sebastien Dubois, Nikolai Khomenko, Philippe Lutz, and Roland De Guio (LRPS,
ENSAIS, Strasbourg, France) pp. 11-16
[X2] Approach
to Complete Search of Innovation Concepts and Customization of TRIZ Tools
Pavel Livotov (TriSolver Consulting Hanover, Germany) pp. 41-47
[X3] Thinking
the Unthinkable – Advanced Identification of Faults for the Purpose of
Determining Potential Plant and Equipment Breakdowns
Gerhard Weimar and Pavel Livotov (TriSolver Consulting Hanover, Germany)
pp. 79-84
[X4] Integration
of TRIZ Tools For New Products Development
Yoshiki Nakamura (Sanno Institute of Management, Japan) pp. 93-99
[X5] (Keynote
Address) The Laws of System Evolution
Vladimir Petrov (TRIZ Association, Israel) pp. 109-127
[X6] TRIZ and
Innovation Asset Management: A New Dimension for Enterprise Strategy
Sergei Sviridov (ByKoncept, Inc., Canada), Valeri Souchkov (InBITween bv,
The Netherlands), and Andrew Kuryan (Orientsoft, Inc., Belarus) pp. 209-219
[X7] The Problem
of Determining the Efficiency of Programs of Further Training of Teachers
Ingrida N. Murashkovska (Methodological-Informative Center of the Jelgava
Educational Council, Latvia) pp. 221-225
[X8] Model of
a Pedagogic College Graduate - Speciality: "Preschool Education"
A. V. Korzun (State M.Tank Pedagogic College, Minsk, Belarus) pp. 227-231
[X9] (Special
Session) A TRIZ Exploration into ‘Ballad of the Stars’. Genrikh Altshuller
and Valentina Zhuavlyova’s Science Fiction Anthology
Janice Marconi (Marconi Works, USA)
[X10] TRIZ for
Perl-Programming 2 -- Improving Software with little Feedback from the
User
Michael Schlueter (Philips Semiconductors Hamburg, Germany) pp. 255-262
[X11] QFD by
TRIZ
Michael Schlueter (Philips Semiconductors Hamburg, Germany) pp. 263-271
Overview:
This is the first World Conference on TRIZ organized by ETRIA (European TRIZ Association) and held in (western) Europe. ETRIA was established just a year ago as a result of collaboration among leading TRIZ researchers/practitioners across the countries in western Europe (see ETRIA's official site: http://www.ETRIA.net). The TRIZ Future 2001 Conference was organized with relatively short preparation time, but resulted in much success, thanks to Mr. Darrell Mann, the President of ETRIA, and many others.
The conference site was a hotel at waterside in the City of Bath. Bath, as I learned during this trip, has a historic hot spring bath built by Romans in the 1st century and beautiful Georgean-style buildings built later in 18th and 19th centuries after the re-discovery of the hot spring and consequent bathing boom in the high society. Bath was designated a World Heritage Site in 1987.
The total number of participants was slightly over 50 (the list of participants distributed on the third morning contain 47 people). Participants came from the following countries (according to my guess on the basis of the participants' email address): 16 from UK, 8 from Germany, 5 from France, 3 from Korea, 2 each from Belgium, The Netherlands, USA, and Russia, and 1 each from Switzerland, Austria, and Japan, besides 2 unknown.
All the presentations were carried out in a single track and were always attended by more than 40 participants with keen and intimate atmosphere. Each presentation was given 30 minutes in the program but actually allowed about 40-45 minutes, as a result of hot discussions and flexible coordination which became possible due to cancellation of several presentations as shown above.
In contrast to the TRIZ conferences held in USA, no business displays of software tools etc. were arranged in the conference site. Though TRIZ consultants/businesses and industrial users were predominant, there were 20 academic people including postgraduate students.
The Proceedings having 281 pages were beautifully printed. It was announced that the Proceedings will be made available through ETRIA Web site to any people. ETRIA also decided that the authors of the conference papers have the copyrights of their paper and thus have the rights of posting them in Web sites, etc.
Topics of the presentations were more or less similar to the ones at the recent TRIZCONs. I will briefly review important presentations below essentially in the order of their presentation. (I will not mention about the papers which were not actually presented, because of my shortage in time.)
First Day (Nov. 7, 2001)
David Knott [1] characterizes the Design Process as a circular (or spiral) process containing the phases of Analyze, Understand, Decide, Create, and Capture. Then he points out that the investment of analysis tools and CAD have given benefits in the Analysis, Understand and Capture phases but has the tendency of squeezing the time of Understand and Create phases. He reported that Rolls-Royce has introduced TRIZ for providing capability in the Understand and Create phases and trained about 200 engineers so far.
Dmitry Kucheravy [2] presented the OTSM-TRIZ vision. OTSM is "General Theory of Advanced Thinking". This has been the main research theme carried out in Minsk with the group of people led by Nikolai Khomenko. (The Minsk group is now working actively spread in Strasbourg, Toronto, and Seoul, besides their home city.) OTSM-TRIZ is a version of TRIZ philosophy much expanded into the domains such as science, biology, scientific fiction, arts, education, business, economics, etc. Handout of slides was provided separately from the proceedings. You may understand the core part of the presentation in Khomenko's article "Minsk TRIZ Center and OTSM-TRIZ (General Theory of Strong Thinking)" posted in my Web site in September 1999.
Nikolai Shpakovsky et al. [3] presented the general scheme of problem solving in a charming "Christmas Tree Model" with a case study. Peter Chuksin (together with Shpakovsky) reported in [12] about "Forecasting Map", i.e. a scheme of representing the forecast of specific technical system, and its applications. Shpakovsky, Chuksin, and two more coauthors are Russian TRIZ experts currently working for Samsung and LG Electronics, in South Korea. Shpakovsky[22] also reported their development of "TRIZ Trainer" software in Samsung. This software is a CAI (Computer Aided Instruction) tool with proprietary examples of application and intends to support on-line individual training of mass engineers in their company. It is remarkable that these two big Korean companies are well proceeding to introduce TRIZ by employing these Russian TRIZ experts. (As far as I know, there is no similar cases in Japan and in USA.)
Daniel Spielberg [5] reported his thesis work at RWTH Aachen and its extension/application at Suspa Holding GmbH. He describes the mechanisms of "analogy model" and "transfer model" for problem solving in a matrix style similar to QFD. He discusses that technical knowledge of specific fields can be well accumulated in his scheme by use of non-dimensional indices in the dimension theory and that new problems (i.e. the problems located outside the index range) can be submitted to solve with TRIZ.
Gert Poppe and Bart Gras [6] presented a clear and very useful paper for the application of TRIZ in the process industry. They first point out that process innovation predominates product innovation in importance in the latter half period of evolution of a technical system. Then they notice that many TRIZ novices in process industry regard TRIZ unapplicable to process innovation. Poppe et al. list up the apparent bases of such arguements, and then argue that TRIZ is very useful in process industry too. The authors has kindly agreed to repost their paper and some additional slides in my Web site. (Please be patient for a few weeks, my readers.)
[This paper has been posted in this Web site "TRIZ Home Page in Japan" on Dec. 17, 2001]
Elies Jones [7] presented the work for
her thesis on the application of TRIZ to "Eco-Innovation", i.e. for developing
new, less environmentally harmful concepts for products, processes, and
services. She summarizes four cases of interviews to such TRIZ practitioners
for their practices. Then she proposes a simplified TRIZ process
which was actually used by engineering students in an experimental workshop.
This "workshop" was conducted by six groups of students in parallel for
evaluating the effects of her proposed problem solving procedure.
Her procedure has five steps as follows:
Step 1. Define the project scope, in terms of super-system,
system, and sub-system.
Step 2. Define Ideal Final Result at the identified
three levels.
Step 3. Explore the Problem Space, by patent studies
and drawing a hierarchical map of initial problems and solutions.
Step 4. Apply TRIZ tools, including Trends of Evolution
and Technical and Physical Contradictions.
Step 5. Record new ideas in the hierarchical map
of Step 3 and evaluate the outcomes.
Instruction of each step was given to the novice students only by leaflets
and handbooks, in order to control the experimental conditions. She
shows the examples of the students results written in the simplified worksheets
for describing and solving technical and physical contradictions and says
the novice students understood these solution methods well through given
examples in the leaflets. She says she is doing her PhD study in
a psychology-oriented laboratory at Brunel University and learned TRIZ
alone with the assistance of Darrell Mann.
Ian Mitchell [8] of Ilford Imaging UK talked his experiences of teaching TRIZ, organizing TRIZ user groups, and applying TRIZ to various corporate problems. He says he is a manager of a maintenance engineering section and is the only TRIZ expert in his company. But he has taught a number of 2-hour TRIZ seminars and keeps operating the lunch-time TRIZ user-group meeting every week for these four years. At the lunch time meetings, they not only solve problems together but also keep improving their TRIZ knowledge. His talk was nice just like the one ("Edge Suck-Off Problem") he presented at TRIZCON2000. On my request, he has promised me to write down his presentation and contribute it to my Web site after Christmas.
Denis Cavallucci et al. [9] reported the general framework of their TRIZ study in Strasbourg and Roland De Guio [14] described the overall activities of their laboratory in Strasbourg. It is very impressive that this French laboratory has recently established an excellent research and education capability in TRIZ. They say the group currently has about 30 members, including 15 faculty/research members, several PhD students, several Master degree students, and two Russian-French professional translators. With the trigger of Cavallucci's TRIZ study since 1995, the whole laboratory made a clear decision in March 2000 to concentrate their efforts onto TRIZ. Their group work in the name of LRPS (Laboratoire de Recherche en Productique de Strasbourg) in research and in the name of ENSAIS (Ecole Nationale Superieure des Arts et Industries de Strasbourg) in teaching and training. Nikolai Khomenko and Dmitry Kucheravy from Minsk joined this group. Thus the TRIZ research activities of this group seem to be very wide and systematic to introduce the Russian results of TRIZ and OTSM.
Fig. 1 of [9] describes the three major
trends in the creative process: (a) Creativity is a chain of phases (e.g.
Osborn's model), (b) Creativity is an innate art (e.g. Wertheimer's vision),
and (c) Creativity can be studied as a science (Altshuller's Theory).
They propose a framework for integrating TRIZ into the design process.
Their framework is somewhat classical, I feel. This probalbly reflects
their academic stance and their efforts to introduce the achievements of
TRIZ in Russian publications/manuscripts in an understandable form in French/English.
Second Day (Nov. 8, 2001)
Simon Dewulf et al. [11] introduced their new TRIZ software tool ("CreaTRIZ") which is trying to support user's problem solving process with modern interactive and animated IT technologies. They pointed out the importance of attributes in the functional analysis. (This point is more clearly stated by Sickafus in USIT. See e.g. Nakagawa, Apr. 2000.) They also show the software's capability of representing the change/difference of the functional analysis diagram in time and in multi-user view.
Darrell Mann [13] showed an interesting example of searching genuine TRIZ-like solutions in the patent database. Ideal Solutions in TRIZ are characterized by their capability of solving the problem 'by itself'; for example, self-cleaning, self-balancing, self-aligning, etc. It is important to distinguish such ideality-driven solutions from a much larger number of ordinary 'automatic' or 'self-doing' solutions. The distinguishment is illustrated in the following figure. (Mann says no patent of self-cleaning filter is ideality-driven yet unfortunately.)
Fig. 3 (p. 138)
[Inserted here on Dec. 17, 2001]
He has searched for the 'self'-based patents (including 'automatic', 'auto-', etc.) in the US patent DB for the period of last 15 years. Checking the searched patents on the case-by-case basis, he has found over 2000 Ideality-Driven 'Self' patents. [Two participants asked about the discrimination; and Mann confirmed this repeatedly.] He has classified those 2000 patents with the categories of functions. There are a large family of self-adjusting, self-positioning, self-centering, self-leveling, self-opening/closing, etc. which are associated with a physical movement. Second largest class delivers with non-physical changes, including the functions of self-test, self-time, self-regulate, self-limit, self-calibrate, etc. Then he further points out there are a large number of patents which make use of newly invented materials or newly discovered effects, etc. He mentions that there are a lot of patents describing not-yet-familiar, extraordinary ideas. This accumulation of examples of 'Ideality-Driven Self-Function' patents must be a treasure of ideas of inventors and TRIZ learners, since 'Ideality' would very often be thought almost equivalent to 'Impossible'.
Walter Eversheim et al. [15] reported their integrated framework of using Senario Technique, QFD, and TRIZ sequentially in this order. Senario Technique works to deduce from current product and current customer requirements into future customer requirements. Then, from future customer requirements, QFD reveals technical requirements to future products and contradictions among them. Then, TRIZ is applied to solve such contradictions and to obtain solutions of future product design. An example is shown for a future vacuum cleaner.
Toru Nakagawa [16] reported as follows: "Penetration of TRIZ is slow because TRIZ overwhelms the learners. The essence of TRIZ can be expressed in only 50 words. Simplifying the TRIZ process of problem solving is necessary for penetration, and USIT (Unified Structured Inventive Thinking) developed by Ed Sickafus is a good candidate for such an easier TRIZ procedure. Experiences of training and applying USIT in Japan show high evaluation of USIT. We should promote TRIZ/USIT in industries with a Slow-but-Steady Strategy." My paper is now posted in my Web site "TRIZ Home Page in Japan" (in English).
Some participants made questions about the parallel use of USIT and TRIZ knowledgebase and about users' response of USIT after they know TRIZ better. I replied that in Japan almost all the USIT learners have learned TRIZ beforehand and are TRIZ software users and that they have found USIT easier to actually apply in their companies.
After my presentation, I was invited as one of the four panelists in the Panel Discussion [21] and I gave a short presentation some more about the current approaches in Japan.
Julien Vincent et al. [17] was a very interesting presentation. Professor Vincent and Darrell Mann (half time) recently moved from University of Reading to University of Bath, and is building up a laboratory of biomimetics in Department of Mechanical Engineering and Design. They have several graduate students at moment.
Current TRIZ knowledgebases do not yet include useful design ideas which were developed by plants and animals for over a billion of years, even though G.S. Altshuller mentioned its importance in his first paper on TRIZ. Vincent et al. have found that the key to accumulating such biological knowledge must be the functionality. For the functions of "staying warm", "cleaning or washing", and "joining surfaces", for example, the nature has developed a huge variety of designs. Such nature's designs have not been accumulated well in the academic world of biology, and are far little known to engineers. So with the aim of systematic technology transfer from biology to engineering, they are developing the framework and are actually trying to accumulate functional examples of nature's designs. This is certainly a treasury of new designs and new technologies.
Bruno Ruchti et al. [18] reported
a new way of applying TRIZ to business problems. They think the principles
of TRIZ can be applied to business problems as well as technical ones,
but they have found it better to reorganize the 40 Principles of Invention
into "12 Innovation Principles for Business and Management" for
easier usage. The 12 new principles are represented in pairs of opposite
operations. They are:
(1) Combination - Separation, (2)
Symmetry - Asymmetry, (3) Homogeneity -Diversity, (4) Expansion - Reduction,
(5) Mobility - Immovability, (6) Consumption - Regeneration, (7) Standardization
- Specialization, (8) Action - Reaction, (9) Continuous action - Interrupted
action, (10) Partial action - Excessive action, (11) Direct action - Indirect
action, (12) Preliminary action - Preliminary counteraction.
Recommendations of usage of them are shown in
a tabular format together with their relationships to the 40 principles.
They also show an application of these principles to the case of "the communication
lack between a highly technically competent/important individual and the
rest of the staff". At first I felt some uneasiness in reading the
pair-wise opposite solution proposals, but I understand that we should
consider all (including opposite) choices of alternative solutions in the
above 12 aspects.
Darrell Mann and Ellen Domb [20] is another application of TRIZ in the business field. Mass Customization is "the economically viable creation of products tailored to the specific needs of individual customers". This has been an important issue in all businesses in history even though with different positions and significance depending on their economical/technical situations. They discuss how to use TRIZ principles like Contradictions, Ideality, Trends, and Functionality in this issue and showed some case study examples of shoes, lights, and home customizable foods. Methodologies for applying TRIZ in non-technical fields are now getting clearer little by little through these works, I feel.
Panel Discussion [21] was opened on the
second day afternoon in the time slot where two canceled papers on Education
were originally programmed. The main issue was "How to penetrate
TRIZ". Since comments of panelists and those from floor were
so broad, I cannot summarize them here. Elies Jones made a question
on children education and Dmitry Kucheravy answered that TRIZ-based
education is now widely tried in former USSR countries for a wide variation
of age. He said that education is a direction of TRIZ activities
but he also commented that experiments in education are difficult not in
conducting but also in evaluating. It is much desired to discuss
the issue of TRIZ-based education in TRIZCON2002 next April.
Third Day (Nov. 9, 2001)
Igor Vertkin [24] gave a talk with a number of questions to the audience. He worked at Baku with G. S. Altshuller and coauthored the book "How to Become a Genius". He immigrated to UK 10 years ago and is now working as a TRIZ consultant with a "portable TRIZ" (i.e. just a cut-bone approach of TRIZ, he says). He explained the characterization of the four stages in the S-Curve, and then asked the audience "Where is TRIZ in the S-Curve?". Various people answered "Stage 3", "Stage 2", etc. I answered "Stage 3 or 4 in Russia, and Stage 1 in western countries". Answers to this question are quite different among TRIZ specialists depending on what he/she means by "TRIZ" and what he/she intends to achieve in the future. Vertkin said "TRIZ in the 80s is now dead and nothing essentially new has been achieved for these 15 years". Then he further asked the audience "What are you going to do in the S-Curve of TRIZ?" and "How can you use TRIZ to start Next S-Curves?"
We, specialists and promoters of TRIZ, should be prepared for answering these questions. Nakagawa's presentation [16] meant to start a new S-Curve of (refined) TRIZ in the whole world by reformulating/simplifying TRIZ so as to be readily acceptable by ordinary engineers; this is a view of new movement in innovation in technology. Different people of course may have different visions, such as new S-Curves of (refined) TRIZ in the field of business applications, in education, with new software tools, with further extended TRIZ theory, etc. All such activities may be regarded to form a new S-Curve of TRIZ as a whole.
Jack Hipple [25] is a TRIZ consultant having the background in psychology. He introduced two psychological assessment tools, i.e. Meyers Briggs Indicator (MBTI) and Kirton Adaptive-Innovative (KAI) tool. TRIZ instructor may use these tools to inquire the participants for 20-30 minutes and use the result for arranging the practice groups of participants according to their problem-solving styles. Hipple also points out that TRIZ needs almost always to enter the situations where preceding tools such as Lateral Thinking and Six Hats are used and that it should be desirable to integrate TRIZ with those methods. Earlier in [23] Hipple showed interesting samples of consumer products he found in shops; they hold wonderful example of application of TRIZ principles.
Anja-Karina Pahl [26] presented a paper on the basic philosophy of TRIZ from a psycological view point. She says: "Contradiction is not only a primary constituent of TRIZ but also, more generally, intrinsic to multidimensional thinking. The psycological concept of contradiction can be depicted as mismatched information and its resolution. Thus contradiction is not a flaw in our thought system but a vital indicator that our primary thought system or physical orientation is at odds respect to a second or n-th reference frame. While contradiction is implicit in every step of our reasoning, we can exploit it only when we recognize its relationship to the greater whole." (Sorry, but I did not have enough time to read her paper closely.)
In the final session for discussing the future of ETRIA, Leonid Shub [28] raised an important issue. He commented on the fact that about one third of the papers which had been announced in the program and published in the proceedings were not presented and that a few core members of ETRIA were among those no-show authors. This fact was very disappointing for the participants and needs to be improved in the future, he said. Ellen Domb also talked that similar problem of high rate of cancellation occurred in all the four cases of TRIZ conferences held in USA and that this tendency must be overcome in the TRIZ community. In the meeting, reasons for such cancellations were not shown/discussed.
Darrell Mann, the President of ETRIA, reported that the present conference was prepared in a much short time and was operated with the financial risk-taking by Professor Vincent of University of Bath without any commercial funding. The participants of the conference, of course including myself, appreciated all the efforts of people who made this conference possible. Many people who attended or not attended the conference are looking forward to further ETRIA activities.
Next ETRIA conference, TRIZ Future 2002, was announced to be
held in Strasbourg, France, on November 6-8, 2002. I wish
many TRIZ professionals and users meet in Strasbourg next year (and at
TRIZCON2002 in St. Louis, USA, next April 28-30, as well).
| Top of this page | Agenda | Cancelled papers | Overview | 1st Day | 2nd Day | 3rd Day | Japanese page |
| Home Page | New Information | Introduction to TRIZ | TRIZ References | TRIZ Links |
| TRIZ News & Activities | TRIZ Software Tools | TRIZ Papers and Tech Reports | TRIZ Forum | Home
Page |
Last updated
on Dec. 17, 2001. Access point: Editor:
nakagawa@utc.osaka-gu.ac.jp