ICG T&C NEWSLETTER on TRIZ and Systematic Innovation, February 2005

 

Dear readers,

In 2005, we have started to change the format of our newsletter to make it more convenient for you to read and bring you more useful information.  We hope that the year 2005 will bring you more successful innovations!

Kind regards,
Valeri Souchkov

ICG Training & Consulting

 

NEXT EVENTS

For those, who is interested in the current state-of-the-art of TRIZ and its further evolution, the following events are scheduled:

  • April 17-19, 2005: TRIZCON 2005, an annual Conference from Altshuller Institute, Delphi Tech Centre, Brighton, MI, USA.

  • May 18, 2005: “A Day with TRIZ and Systematic Innovation”, The Hague, The Netherlands. During the day, which will be divided to the two parts: tutorials and presentations, we will explain you what Systematic Innovation is and how it can be used for your benefits both for technological and non-technological applications. We also reserved time for the roundtable discussions.

  • November 16-18, 2005: ETRIA World Congress “TRIZ Future 2005”, in Graz, Austria, the first call for papers and conference information are available.

 

TRAINING

In 2004, ICG T&C launched a new training course on a regular basis: Systematic Innovative Thinking for Business and Management. This one-day public course focuses on developing practical skills with solving non-technical problems in a systematic way by using analytical techniques and patterns of innovative solutions. In-company group training is also available.

Our next one-day training is scheduled for April 13, 2005.
More information on the course is available at
http://www.xtriz.com/Training/business.htm

The next two-day course for Systematic Innovation in technology is scheduled for April 26-17, 2005

A schedule of courses in Systematic Innovation from ICG T&C for year 2005 is available at www.xtriz.com/Training

 

NEWS

Reports from the TRIZ Future Conference 2004

The conference “TRIZ Future 2004”, conducted last November in Florence, Italy by the University of Florence and the European TRIZ Association, demonstrated a growing interest in TRIZ and its spreading popularity. 125 participants from 23 countries gathered for 3 days to listen to over 40 presentations and exchange ideas thus creating the largest European TRIZ event.
For those who are interested in visiting the next conference TRIZ Future 2005, and for those who is interested about the TRIZ news, the following reports are available:

Is TRIZ commercially successful?

This question is asked very often. Many examples which were presented during TRIZ courses or were published in TRIZ literature are done with “reverse engineering”: illustrating how TRIZ could be applied to generate one or another solution rather than showing the real success of TRIZ. Please have a look at four selected cases that were created with TRIZ and resulted in significant economic benefits: http://www.xtriz.com/documents/TRIZSuccessCases.pdf

idéLAB® is opened

Industrial Design Centre, Ide Partners, and ICG T&C have established an idéLAB® - a cooperation among several partnering organizations, which uses TRIZ and Systematic Innovation to help customers to roadmap and design new generation products.
More information is available at the
IDC website (in Dutch only)

Invention Machine launches Goldfire Innovator 2.0

Invention Machine, Inc. (Boston, USA) has recently announced the availability of Goldfire Innovator™ 2.0, a leading corporate software tool which supports and enhances a process of technological innovation.
More information is available at
www.invention-machine.com

 

 

Innovation: Some Thoughts after the Summit for The Future 2005
Valeri Souchkov, February 2005

In January 26-18, 2005, Club of Amsterdam conducted the “Summit for the Future” which became a major multinational event uniting those who are interested and willing in influencing further scientific, technological and economic development of Europe. While speaking at the Section “Science and Technology”, I observed that most of the attention from speakers and audience which enthusiastically participated in the discussions was paid to the issue of innovation which will become a main performance indicator in knowledge-based economy.
I would like to summarize the major points which were raised and agreed upon by most of the audience:

·   These days, Europe faces a choice: either to transform to a knowledge-based society where the major value will be defined by Intellectual Property and intellectual assets; or to continue capitalizing on knowledge and know-how of the existing business and economic models and their further perfection.
From the point of view of the TRIZ trends of evolution, the current S-curve of European evolution has reached the maturity level, where manufacturing and production do not experience any radical changes any longer: instead, the focus is put on their perfection and optimization; and there is still plenty of room to do that. But still, the change will happen – it is inevitable. Without changing, the European economy has a high chance to fall to stagnation.
What makes it possible to start a new S-curve – to shift towards knowledge-based economy, where a significant role will be played by Intellectual Property, a major product sellable as within Europe as well to the rest of the world? Among positive points there are highly educated society, strong scientific and cultural traditions, highly developed communication infrastructure, highly developed networking approach. What are the obstacles? Conservatism, fear of change, inertia, hierarchical management structures, current education system, long delays with decision making.

·    Ideas for breakthrough innovations are not created within organizations; they are created within communities, mostly informal, comprised of groups and individuals with different backgrounds and experiences but driven towards a common goal. Thus it is very important to understand how to identify and create such groups and what mechanisms provide maximum performance of such groups.

·    Innovation is not about science and technology only. An organization that would like to take a position of a leader should be innovative in every aspect of its activities.

·    Innovation Cycle consists of three distinct phases: a) generation of an innovative idea; b) development of the idea by transforming it to a product or a service; c) making success of the innovation on the market or within a society.
Therefore it is important to develop and evolve all methods that support every part of the entire Innovation Cycle evenly rather than putting a strong focus on one part and neglect or minimize the role of another part. So far, this has been a case: while there are serious investments to developing economic aspects of the Innovation Cycle, a little is invested to understanding how innovative ideas are produced.

·    Current educational system does not create innovators. Instead, it creates a knowledgeable individual in a certain narrow area of specialization, but this does not help much with learning how to think innovatively and generate new ideas. To produce new ideas systematically and an immediate response to the market or societal needs, learning specific knowledge and mastering thinking methods should be balanced.

·    A success of modern innovation depends on how three major knowledge sources are interfaced: knowledge of a specific domain where innovation is demanded; expert knowledge of a domain which can help to create a new innovation; and innovative thinking. This points us to three groups of expertise which are relevant to each source.

 

 
 
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