The last Thursday in November is the Thanksgiving holiday in the US. Originally a harvest festival with religious roots, thanking God for enough food to get through the winter, it has evolved into a family-oriented celebration of all the things for which we give thanks, usually centered around a holiday meal where each family member makes a specialty dish, and those who don’t cook bring the wine and the flowers. In our family, we go around the table, starting with the youngest child, and each person says what they are thankful for this year—family, good health, new babies, friends, good memories, and one of my nieces has just voted in her first election—she gave thanks for that opportunity, but wouldn’t tell her grandfather who she voted for!

What I didn’t say at the family celebration is that I am also very grateful for my TRIZ family. We have developed into a world-wide TRIZ community that has characteristics of many families—we don’t always agree on everything, but we help each other. Some members observe all the old traditions, some members develop new traditions. Like a family, when someone new joins, we help the new members learn the family traditions, both old and new, then watch as the new member decides which family traditions to observe, or whether to develop new ones. Our family is part-Moroccan, part-French, part-Russian/ German, and part-lots of things, so you can imagine the food at this American feast! And cousin Ariel married Sam from Spain, and he was experiencing his first US Thanksgiving, with all the family and a bunch of friends, and as I was watching him try to decide when to ask questions and when to just pretend he knew what was happening, I decided that the analogy with the TRIZ community was very close.

I am very grateful for the openness of my TRIZ colleagues—we may each think our variant on TRIZ is “best” but we don’t keep the variants secret—we publish them, talk about them, and modify them in public. I’m grateful to all the authors who have contributed to the TRIZ Journal (November is our 12th anniversary issue!) and even more grateful to those who have contributed multiple times. We all learn from your contributions, and from the comments and discussions that are ignited by the articles. The commentators and contributors to the discussion forum have expanded our frontiers of discussion—thanks to you all. And a very big thanks to the people who make it all possible—editor Katie Barry and the technical crew at CTQ Media, and all my co-editors, Jim Kowalick 1996-8, Michael Slocum 1998-2008, and Marco A. de Carvalho and Paul Filmore this year.

And the biggest thanks of all to our readers, who I meet in person at the conferences, and meet on-line all the time. I appreciate your words of gratitude for the TRIZ Journal’s help in your learning TRIZ, and I appreciate your comments and criticism so that we can make the TJ better. I appreciate the opportunity to be part of your TRIZ community. Thanks!

In a recent Sunday papers around the world, a large full page, color (not cheap!) advertisement was shown displaying a new mascara brush from Lancome: http://www.lancome-usa.com/makeup/mascara/oscillation.aspx?cm_mmc=SendTecSearch-_-GoogleOscillation-_-lancome+vibrating+mascara-_-NONE

When you watch the video at this site, you will hear things like: "Pulls lashes apart" "Coats all sides" "Vibrates at 7000 cycles per minute" "Let the oscillation do the work" "Repeat to improve the results" Now ask yourself--are you listening to a mascara application commercial or an ad for a vibrating toothbrush from years ago? A vibrating sander commercial from 30 years ago? How long have we had vibrating toothbrushes that massage gums, operate at thousands of cycles per minute, replace the work of hand brushing, cleaning all teeth and gum surfaces? What is it about eye lashes that are different than teeth and gums? I would submit not very much.

Why does it take 5+ years for a cosmetic company, whose goods are usually displayed in the same aisle of the store, to make the connection between oscillation and separation? I submit that the answer is that we think that our problem is unique and that no one could possibly have solved it before. We use special words to make us think our problem is special. In this case, mascara (solids coating), eyelashes (flexible fibers), and color (solids).We find it so incredibly difficult to want to admit that maybe the solution to our problems may already exist. We never ask ourselves, "who else has a similar problem?" How do they solve it? What’s the FUNCTION we are trying to perform (not put mascara on eyelashes, but coat fibers with solids). Who else does, FUNCTIONALLY, what you need done? How do they do it? What can you learn from them?

Excellent papers in both sessions. As before, I’ll report on the ones I hear personally, but encourage our readers to come to next year’s meeting, and to read the proceedings of this year’s sessions. Today’s reports will be shorter, because the papers themselves were at a high level of complexity.

Gaetano Cascini reported on research at the Universities in Florence and Milan, structuring the laws of evolution. He reviewed and critiqued work by others which claimed to be a process for forecasting, but was just hypothetical explanations of the laws of system evolution. Gaetano presented a new model for classification of systems so that the forecasting can be used in a repeatable way. As with Phil Samuel’s model from Thursday, he starts with an EMS (energy, material, signal) input output model, then uses the TRIZ construct of complete technical system, applied to flow of energy, flow of material, flow of information, etc. He expanded the system operator with the FBS = Function-Behavior-Structure analysis in each window. (Function of a system is the motivation for its existence. Structure is the entities, attributes, and relations between them. Behavior is the sequential changes of objects states governed by laws of nature; it is the link between functions and structure. The result of this disciplined approach to modeling of the system is an increase in the reliability of the forecasting system.

Dmitry Kucharavy presented his work, done with Roland DeGuio at INSA in France, “Logistic Substitution Model and Technological Forecasting,” which started with extensive historical and logistic analysis of the dynamics of competition. They have the same goal of unambiguous, reproducible use of the technology forecasting models. The research treats the economic system as a technical system, model its behavior, and uses that model to modify the forecasts. Over 300 systems were studied and modeled to analyze the periodicity and shape of the curves, to understand the behaviour of the system. Conclusion: competition takes place only in common infrastructure. (and other conclusions that are sub-elements.) REALLY great data! And a plan to do much more once they develop new software for analysis. www.seecore.org to see the depth.

Denis Cavallucci (Past President and founding member of ETRIA, as well as member of the faculty at INSA) addressed the difficult problem of formulating the problem to be solved in TRIZ. Current methods have several limitations:

*TRIZ limited to one contradiction at a time.

*Poorly formalized

*Exhaustivity is not guaranteed

*Two major postulates/axioms not used in conjunction, therefore hard to professionalize/ develop a curriculum …

*Contributing factors are the misusage and no usage of laws, wrong formulation of contradiction, incapacity to identify parameters, incapacity to perceive system beyond parameters, etc.

Their new system, called contradiction clouds, is a graphical display of the importance, universality, and amplitude of the contradictions, so that the researcher can decide easily how to begin the work on the problem. The method is being tested with 85 engineering students in both classroom and project situations, and in industrial application at a continuous annealing furnace. There was distinct improvement in the ability to develop clear problem statements quickly.

The next session was called a TRIZ Masters session—it was our good friends Isak Bukhman and Sergei Ikovenko. Isak showed how a standard project roadmap, with TRIZ as a key element, can be modified easily for many different kinds of projects. Sergei presented a continuation of work he has been doing for many years, applying TRIZ to many kinds of environmental and “sustainability” or “green” problems. These are applications of the general TRIZ problem of creativity in dealing with limited resources, and creating benefit without creating harm, but they are now much more in demand.

The parallel session featured other good friends speaking on other good topics—even TRIZ hasn’t conquered the problem of conference participation!

He then asked for an international review of ETRIA associated organizations. These were not official reports, just remarks by those who happened to be at Enschede.

AMETRIZ (Mexico)-me

MATRIZ-(International) Simon Litvin

Altshuller Institute (US) Zinovy Royzen

Japan- Toru Nakagawa

Korea Hongyul Yoon

There was extensive discussion about the activities of ETRIA. Members made many suggestions about improving future conferences, and about the role of ETRIA between conferences, to improve communications and research activities.

The members thanked the officers for their work all year and at the conference, and everyone thanked the conference organizers Dr. Ir. Tom H.J. Vaneker and his committee from the Department of Design, Production and Management of the Faculty of Engineering Technology University of Twente. Thanks, Tom!

“…over the history of software development there have not been that many innovations..” I would have heard this statement elsewhere in some forum, but now this is the base for a new TRIZ for software innovation book recently launched. This is the book written and re-written several times in the last four years by Darrell Mann, and something I personally had been waiting ever since he said the concept of a TRIZ book specific to Software. I must confess though, that the anticipation (for this book) had become oblivious to me at some point of time. (A lot have happened in the last 4 years). Last month Darrell launched his latest book, Systematic (Software) Innovation; I'm almost half done with that.

If you would have read his early edition of Systematic Innovation for business & Mgmt, and Technology, this is an easy read (hence I could finish half), flipping through the pages will do. However, if you are interested in learning TRIZ for software and are new to this concept, consider this as a good reference book (still please do read another primer book to understand the basic concept of TRIZ techniques), and suggest a thorough read, but not a very easy read as Christensen..

First impression – Considerable changes in his style; not difficult to read, usage of nice and catchy words, phrases, simple explanation of the techniques. This is a great improvement considering his previous books.

I'm not intending a complete book review here. I need to read (or flip through) this at least till the 10th chapter to do enough justice to that. But, something out-there-in-my-mind is here:

- Interesting examples used across. However, should have had more detailed examples with "real" software stuffs; data structure, algorithms, architecture design etc. Considering the time he had taken for writing (researching) this book, I can understand how difficult it would be. But certainly there is a great scope for the future editions of this book.

- Has covered lot of UI examples. I'm happy to see the Google search engine in this book

- Using perception mapping for software – I was expecting to see something more of this use in software when we were exchanging notes long time back. I don’t see anything more than the original perception mapping technique from the Systematic Innovation for Business & Management book.

- Very good, step-by-step approach to applying it in actual problem (He has justified that the software problems are not necessarily “software” problems, but is in the periphery of software) with loads of templates. Templates should help for the first timers, and especially for the software guys.

- A sole good chapter devoted how to teach this – Well thought through. Will help lot of new people would want to embrace this in their organization

- Last couple of chapters about the fascinating (for me at least) concepts about ToE (Theory of Everything). I'm sure he is writing his next book with this concept.

- Couple of things I’m not impressed a) quality of printing – Pictures are shrunk and nothing readable inside the charts and graph etc. b) cost – one of the costliest paper back edition book I have purchased..  - Around $51.00

Finally – Thanks to Darrell. Last four years of applying TRIZ for software in my company (no book targeting TRIZ for software existed until now) deriving our own approaches from the basic TRIZ, and his previous books has been validated now with his examples, approaches. I can go back and show his book, applications, case studies, approaches to those who weren't ready to listen what I had to say without any "master data"!

If you get a chance to read this book, do share your thoughts, views. I hope this book is possibly a foundation, and many more concepts, application, and books will follow..

Day 2 of the TRIZ-Future conference started with parallel sessions on Teaching TRIZ and on business models for innovation. Since I am speaking in the session on teaching, I will refer our readers to the proceedings (available from www.etria.net after the conference) for the very interesting papers in the parallel program.

Robert Adunka from Siemens opened the day reporting on his experience teaching TRIZ within the company. Robert had fascinating stories of the internal politics of the company, and how workshops focused on problem solving, innovation, and patent development helped overcome resistance to TRIZ as a new method. He had extensive data from the classes, and showed how the student and management reaction to the early classes were used to develop the current curriculum.

Gaetano Cascini presented on behalf of a large group of co-authors who collaborated on an EU-sponsored program TETRIS=Teaching TRIZ at School, which is part of the Knowledge Society EU initiative, which has a goal that each individual can use and develop knowledge independently. They have developed an extensive curriculum, supported by animation and on-line resources, which will be tested in high schools in Italy, Austria, Latvia, and Germany.

I was the chairman of the next session, with 3 papers that got considerable audience enthusiasm and controversy. Iouri Belski challenged the group with his views of the cognitive foundations of the TRIZ problem-solving tools. His challenge to experts to lose their expertise to “loosen” their thinking was particularly interesting.

Phil Samuel from BMGI presented a system developed with Rajesh Jugulum that uses parallels with the TRIZ methods to create a taxonomy of inventive principles for achieving robustness in the concept design phase. Nineteen strategies were developed, based on the analysis of 200 inventions, and organized for use by developers, clustered in 4 groups based on the 4 aspects of the P-Diagram (input, output, noise factors and control factors.) Phil showed one example each of a strategy for improving robustness by modifying each of the 4 aspects. Very exciting work—lots of research yet to be done, but very exciting at this point!

Hongyul Yoon from S. Korea showed his approach to non-technical problem solving, working by analogy to technical problem solving, with particular attention to the “effects” methods. It was necessary to develop specific models for function analysis and for the pointer to the effects and for the effects themselves in order to extend the methods.

Karel Bolckman’s keynote talk after lunch brought the TRIZ audience into the world of biology and bio-mimicry. Karel is both a TRIZ and biotechnology pioneer. He showed us spiders that control mosquitoes, worms that pollinate tomatoes, and methods that people have for persuading the bio-entities to do useful (human or mechanical) work. A growing area is developing bacteria that can sense chemicals—drugs, explosives, or anything that the designer wants detected. He showed us many crossovers between the studies of bio-mimicry and TRIZ and pointed out ways to expand the research to take advantage of both fields. Karel concluded with a proposal that we can learn from natural systems for better engineered systems by redefining ideality to include all harmful and wasteful effects at all stages of system lifecycle.

We then returned to parallel sessions—reminder to readers to go to www.etria.net for the full program. My reports are on the sessions that I saw!

“Early Experiences Employing the Matrix Principles Modified for the Communications and Electronics Domain” was presented by Paul Filmore, based on work done with his student Nasir Ayub. Paul invited the audience (and our readers) to send comments on the cases and examples that they presented with the help of a large number of industry experts who are not TRIZ experts, to help develop a systematic method of expanding TRIZ into other disciplines.

Ives De Saeger’s “Strengthening the 40 Inventive Principles” extended Paul’s theme, both by asking questions about the definitions of the principles, the circumstances of their use, and the problems he has observed with people using them. Examples include sticking with the first solution that is found, filtering the solutions when found, not exploring outside one’s area of knowledge. Ives’suggestions to strengthen the 40 principles is to change the language to a more uniform vocabulary, and to start each principle with an action verb. Another suggestion was to split the 40 principles into resource parts and recommendation parts. He’ll have these posted on www.p41.be in a few weeks and invites comments and suggestions from people who are willing to test the new way of formulating the principles.

Shuo-Kai Tsai reported on his work at the University of Sussex and G. Maarten Bonnema from the University of Twente reported on complementary work. Both identified the barriers preventing industry from adopting TRIZ and found that uncertainty of how to begin, and which tool to use for which problems are significant issues. Tsai’s BRIGHT system guides engineers in selecting specific tools in a TRIZ project, and Bonnema’s 8 guidelines help engineers pick among QFD, TRIZ, SIT and FUNKEY (Function-Key Drivers Architecture method.) We will be awaiting results on what happens as people start using both of these systems.

Professor Fred van Houten from the University of Twente delivered the concluding keynote address on the research in design engineering in the Netherlands, which is extensive, and deeply involves industry with academia. Photos: Keynote presenters Karel Bolckmans (r. with Boris Zlotin) and Fred van Houten

A very elegant dinner capped off the day. There were two surprise announcements:

1. Next year’s TRIZ Futures conference will be in Romania.

2. A special award for outstanding paper was made to Searching for Similar Products through Patent Analysis by P.-A. Verhaegen, J. D'hondt, J. Vertommen, S. Dewulf, J. R. Duflou from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Mechanical Engineering Department, Belgium.

This week I’ll be reporting from the TRIZ-Future Conference 2008, “The Synthesis of Innovation,” presented by the European TRIZ Association, CIRP The International Academy for Production Engineering, and the University of Twente at Enschede in the Netherlands. CIRP has 550 members in 40 countries, so their participation will be significant in spreading the TRIZ message. There will be a special TRIZ session at the next CIRP conference, as well.

I came to Enschede by train from the Amsterdam Schipol airport, so I can’t report on the scenery—8 of us from Taiwan, Iran, Japan, US, UK, and Turkey had a great time talking about TRIZ! This is what we have called in the past the “generous definition of Europe.” In the morning light, we could appreciate the beauty of the campus and the Dutch countryside.

The Wednesday morning program of tutorials continued the generous definition of Europe:

1. “Introduction to TRIZ for Technological Applications" by Hongyul Yoon, South Korea
2. "Introduction to TRIZ for Business and Management Applications" by Valeri Souchkov, Netherlands
3. "A systematized use of Su-Field Analysis" by Iouri Belski, Australia

All three audiences were quite participatory, and were a mix of university faculty, TRIZ practioners, and TRIZ students. The University of Twente demonstrated new conference communication technology—each visitor got an MP-3 player that functions as a USB memory. When plugged into the computer, it gives a 3-dimensional tour of the campus, it searches for new information and delivers it to the computer—we got the morning tutorials immediately after lunch .

This is where I usually insert my editorial remarks on the indirect benefits of attending TRIZ Conferences—you not only learn the new information, you learn the methods of presentation that a variety of teachers are using, and you learn what other people are interested in, both from their questions in the sessions and from the conversation over coffee and meals and walking between the sessions and the hotels. Start planning now for the 2009 meeting—some people need to request budgets now for meetings throughout the year! And some people can only attend a meeting if they are presenting a paper—start organizing your research and case study work now! End of Ellen’s editorial!

Today I mixed papers from sessions 1 and 2 in order to get a mix of theory and practice, and to find out what some of my friends have been doing since the last conference.

Giacomo Bersano, T.Eltzer, and R. Uhl reported on their method of integrating TRIZ with risk management to increase the success ratio for innovation projects. New data from the French ministry of industry showed that 23% of companies stopped innovation projects, 30% were seriously delayed, and only 10% were fully successful. He used the function modeling method from GTI to look at the complex relationships that lead to the failure of innovation projects, which identified the lack of good data as a key issue. TRIZ analysis of the contradiction between the need for precise data (and the requisite time and money) and the need for speed to market led to several suggested methods for resolving the contradictions. These methods have not yet been applied to new innovations—perhaps we can have a paper next year with the results?

Darrell Mann returned to a favorite theme from past papers, with technological updates, in the paper “Smart Materials Solve Contradictions: Connecting the Right Materials Solution to the Right Market Need.” Darrell used a wide variety of examples (vacuum cleaners, automobile suspensions, room air conditioning, bullet-proof vests, shin pads for sports) to address the fundamental issue of discontinuous change rather than optimization. Smart materials that are flexible when not stressed, and rigid when stressed resolve the contradictions because they have non-linear response to the impulse. For heat control, Darrell introduced smart conductors that change conductivity (the molecules rearrange themselves) as a function of temperature. Rheo-chromic and mechano-chromic materials change color as a function of stress—there are different applications for reversible and irreversible changes. He organized the stimulus and response fields in a matrix, which can serve as a guide for patent searches to find the materials which demonstrate the needed phenomena.

Simon Dewulf, Vincent Theeten, and Bernard Lahousse use case studies of novelty products to illustrate their thesis that simplicity is an overriding concept in TRIZ. Simon created a cross-index of properties and functions, and build a geometrical device (think morphological matrix with spider charts in the cells) to look at the opportunities for achieving the desired functions in the simplest possible way. More performance, less harm, more convenience, lower price are the 4 criteria that almost all developers want (on behalf of their customers), which can be used to rank the techniques found in patent searches. The audience enjoyed the de-colored beer (de-colored sugar syrup) and the metal foam (bread dough, whipped cream) and the flexible piano and dozens of other examples. Too much time was spent demonstrating features of their software, rather than the basic principles of the paper.

We then reconvened for the second keynote by Zinovy Royzen, “TOP-TRIZ: Theory, Applications, Training and Integration.” TOP TRIZ is a further development of classical TRIZ which includes problem formulation and Tool-Object-Product modeling, development of standard solutions into standard techniques, further development of ARIZ, and utilization of resources. Royzen presented six cases that demonstrated the practical applications and the depth and breadth of the method.

The day concluded with a reception, and I’m told that those with fewer time zones travel than I continued drinking and talking late into the night.

The Mexican TRIZ Association (AMETRIZ) is hosting a blog for ideas to solve the global economic crisis: http://blog.ametriz.com/.

Put that TRIZ (and other innovation methods and tools) experience to good use and submit your ideas. (And share them here, too!)

Thanks to Gaetano Cascini and Noel Leon for getting us this abbreviated report on the 2nd IFIP Topical Session on Computer-Aided Innovation, presented in conjunction with the 20th IFIP World Computer Congress (September 7-10, 2008, Milan, IT - http://www.wcc2008.org ), and dedicated to the Integration of CAI systems in the Product Development cycle. IFIP, the International Federation for Information Processing, is a multinational apolitical organization in Information & Communications Technologies and Sciences, recognized by the United Nations; it represents IT Societies from more than 50 countries, covering all 5 continents. Working Group 5.4 deals with Computer-Aided Innovation, http://computeraidedinnovation.net. Frequent TRIZ Journal readers will see that several of our frequent authors were participants and award winners for outstanding papers.

35 papers were evaluated in a double-blind process. Final program was as follows:

- A. ALBERS, N. LEON ROVIRA, H. AGUAYO, AND T. MAIER

Optimization with Genetic Algorithms and Splines as a way for Computer Aided Innovation: follow up of an example with crankshafts

- M. ANNARUMMA, M. PAPPALARDO AND A. NADDEO

Methodology development of human task simulation as PLM solution related to OCRA ergonomic analysis

- G. CASCINI AND M. ZINI

Measuring patent similarity by comparing inventions functional trees

- D. CAVALLUCCI, F. ROUSSELOT AND C. ZANNI

Representing and selecting problems through contradictions clouds

- D. CEBRIAN-TARRASON AND R. VIDAL

How an ontology can infer knowledge to be used in product conceptual design

- G. COLOMBO, D. PUGLIESE AND C. RIZZI

Developing DA Applications in SMEs Industrial Context

- S. DUBOIS, I. RASOVSKA AND R. DE GUIO

Comparison of non solvable problem solving principles issued from CSP and TRIZ

- O. KUHN, H. LIESE AND J. STJEPANDIC

Engineering Optimisation by Means of Knowledge Sharing and Reuse

- V. F. TELES AND F. J. RESTIVO

Innovation in Information Systems applied to the Shoes Retail Business

- A. J. WALKER AND J. J. COX

Virtual Product Development Models: Characterization of Global Geographic Issues

Posters:

- A. AMATO, A. MORENO AND N. SWINDELLS

DEPUIS project: Design of Environmentally-friendly Products Using Information Standards

- R. ANDERL AND J. RAßLER

PML, an Object Oriented Process Modeling Language

- F. BELKADI, N. TROUSSIER, F. HUET, T.GIDEL, E. BONJOUR AND B. EYNARD

Innovative PLM-based approach for collaborative design between OEM and suppliers: Case study of aeronautic industry

- C. CEVENINI, G. CONTISSA, M. LAUKYTE, R. RIVERET AND R. RUBINO

Development of the ALIS IP Ontology: Merging Legal and Technical Perspectives

- B. CRAWFORD, C. LEÓN DE LA BARRA AND P. LETELIER

Communication and Creative Thinking in Agile Software Development

- N. DÖRR, E. BEHNKEN AND T. MÜLLER-PROTHMANN

Web-based Platform for Computer Aided Innovation

- H. DUIN, J. JASKOV, A. HESMER AND K.D. THOBEN

Towards a Framework for Collaborative Innovation

- S. GRAZIOSI, D. POLVERINI, P. FARALDI AND F. MANDORLI

A systematic innovation case study: new concepts of domestic appliance drying cycle

- R. C. MICHELINI AND R. P. RAZZOLI

Product Lifestyle Design: Innovation for Sustainability

- MIN-HWAN OK AND TAE-SOO KWON

A Conceptual Framework of the Cooperative Analyses in Computer-Aided Engineering

- D. REGAZZONI, R. NANI

TRIZ-Based Patent Investigation by Evaluating Inventiveness

The program was enriched by the Keynote speech by Prof. Noel Leon Rovira on “The future of Computer Aided Innovation” and by a roundtable on “The role of computers in Innovation-related activities” (moderator: Gaetano Cascini):

- establishing the differences between innovation, invention and optimization (Roland De Guio);

- identifying the requirements for CAI systems (Rosario Vidal);

- how to integrate CAI systems in the Product Cycle (Noel Leon Rovira);

- how to link CAI tools with existing PLM systems (Marco Taisch);

- how to identify and create collaboration opportunities with other IFIP WGs (Open debate).

The BEST Paper Awards went to

- G. CASCINI AND M. ZINI

Measuring patent similarity by comparing inventions functional trees

- D. CAVALLUCCI, F. ROUSSELOT AND C. ZANNI

Representing and selecting problems through contradictions clouds

The presenters of the winning papers have jointly agreed to leave the 750 Euro Grant offered by the IFIP TC5 Executive Committee to Sébastien Dubois, co-author and presenter of the 3rd classified paper:

- S. DUBOIS, I. RASOVSKA AND R. DE GUIO

Comparison of non solvable problem solving principles issued from CSP and TRIZ

I'll see many of these same authors next week in the Netherlands at the ETRIA meeting, and hope to have more to report, and we hope to get some of the most TRIZ-oriented papers for publication in future issues.

I’d like to share with you a very simple, but powerful strategic analysis tool that I’ll just describe as the "tic-tac-toe" approach to strategic analysis. It comes from my experience with TRIZ, but it’s a much broader thinking tool and can greatly support your efforts to think strategically about innovation and where your organization is heading.

Put yourself, your product, or your business in the middle of the 9-Box diagram. Above you is the customer you supply. Underneath are your suppliers and the materials you buy. This box could easily be 12 or 15 boxes depending upon the depth of the supply chain and the steps involved in making your product or the needed raw materials needed for your product or service, but for simplicity we’ll just consider 9. To the left of your current box in the center is your past technology. To your right is the future. This same logic applies to the levels above and below you.

I propose that if you cannot complete in some detail all nine boxes, you do not know your business very well. Let’s look at a couple of simple illustrations. First the automobile. You are Ford, GM, or Toyota at the middle level. To your left is some aspect of previous car design, say windshield cleaning (note that we need to talk FUNCTION and not how it’s done). To the right might be the future of windshield cleaning and how it might be done (variable speed? responsive to auto speed? No wiper?). Above you is the integrated system, in the middle say, the car (of which the windshield is a part). Below you are the raw materials you buy to make a windshield wiper, say rubber strips. In the lower left is a description of a previous wiper raw material, say natural rubber (with little flexibility and a tendency to become brittle). To the right on the bottom are the materials envisioned for the next generation of wiper blades. In the upper left hand corner might be the car of the past with no wiper blades and to the right might be a windshield "cleaning system" (note I did not say wiper blades, I am describing the function needed and not how it’s done), possibly not requiring a wiper blade at all (think about how this might be done).

If you cannot complete all 9 boxes to some degree, you do not understand what is going on in your universe. The history of technology evolution clearly tells us that products and systems are integrated upward into their super-system. Said another way, your customer, despite what they might tell you, is trying to figure out how to get the function or value you provide without the use of your product or service.

If you are not thinking the same way, you are in for a rude awakening one of these days. Bank deposit systems that eliminate the need for deposit slips and envelopes are arriving. Want to be in the envelope business? Deposit slip printing business? Wouldn’t be a lot better to be in the optical scanning business rather than reducing the cost of envelopes? You’ve have heard the story of the buggy whip manufacturers who were making better buggy whips when the box above them moved to the right in one of these diagrams and better, cheaper buggy whips were irrelevant. The car provides a transportation service which is occasionally used to meet with other people. Maybe working on better Internet based communication systems is a smarter long term business, but that’s hard for GM and Ford to do, isn’t it?

To push a bit further, consider a cube and not a one dimensional diagram. Parallel ways of getting the same result. Cars are not the only way to get from here to there. Airplanes are another. If you make airfares low enough, who cares about the comfort factors of a car? Draw a simple tic-tac-toe diagram on a piece of paper and put your product or service in the middle box. To the left write in the past generation of this technology or service. To the right describe what you think future opportunities for improvement and development are. Now, one box below, write in a raw material or service you buy and use. While you are thinking about the path of evolution of this product or service, begin thinking about how your product or service could be performed without using it.

Now look at our customer above. What function does your product or service provide? Where is their product or service heading? How could they get the result they get with your product or service without you? What will their next generation need be? Do you have any idea how to provide?

Booz & Company announced its new Global Innovation 1000 report today –"Beyond Borders." The report focuses on R&D expenses across the globe as a key innovation indicator. Their top 10 companies include: Toyota, General Motors, Pfizer, Nokia, Johnson & Johnson, Ford, Microsoft, Roche Holding, Samsung and GlaxoSmithKline. A few interesting findings:

• "Fully 91 percent of the world’s 1,000 largest R&D spenders conduct innovation activities outside the countries in which they are headquartered."
• "Even as the companies based in the U.S. performed $80.1 billion worth of R&D in other countries, companies headquartered elsewhere poured $42.6 billion into R&D conducted in the U.S."
• Three industries make up 70 percent of the R&D - automotive, computing and electronics, and healthcare.

The report can be downloaded as a PDF here: http://www.booz.com/global/home/what_we_think/reports_and_white_papers/ic-display/42809114

What do you think? Do the results surprise you? Are those the companies that come to mind when thinking of innovation? Does R&D have a direct correlation to how innovative a company is? Is there too much outsourcing in innovation?

Couple of years back I was explaining the Ideal Final Result (IFR) concept to our engineers (Computer engineers) using the example of “search”. The question we tried to answer; what is the IFR for the function (for consumers) search. Since then I was intrigued by the potential possibilities in the human-computer interaction aspect of one of the most active phenomena on the internet, and search was always a fascinating topic to sell TRIZ concept to computer engineers. Recently Google released their browser (Chrome); before I wanted to install it myself and reading some of the fine prints about Chrome, the concept of IFR with “search” struck me queerly. Before I analyze why, let me try to describe some of the IFR’s we used to fantasize about.

In TRIZ Ideal Final Result means achieving the maximum functionality without any harm and increasing the overall cost (significantly). I assume the cost of developing a browser for Google should not be expensive considering the 20% time given to engineers doing something their own!

What is the Ideal Final Result for us in the “search” function?

- We never want to search if we know everything – This one is beyond the science fiction indeed.
- What if my system can understand what I would be searching in another few minutes – Something like a mind reader?
Possibly some commercially viable IFR’s
- I get paid for searching. Currently, searching is a free service for me.
- My search engine selects the keyword automatically and searches for me.
- My search engine knows what I need to search the moment I open the browser
- My search engine knows from where (my location) I search and what
- My search engine understands my situation in which I’m searching and giving the results based on that. Example; searching for hospitals for, and I get the results with the hospitals very close to the place I’m searching from.

A search engine does my actual work –I’m writing a research paper on cognitive thinking and emotions, and the moment I hit on the search, I may get the results related to the topic I’m searching, and search engine recommends an extra paragraph. (Hmmm...This is a cool feature for me to finish some pending articles…)
- Browser understands my emotions and search based on that. My blood pressure is so high after a meeting with my boss, and my browser is providing me some tips to cool down myself. (Think about integration with my mouse embedded a blood pressure sensor and browser)
- Searching what I may need tomorrow

The list can go on:

When Google announced their browser Chrome last week, the immediate connection made was – “Search” and “browser”, as in a function diagram interacting each other. Naturally, it is pretty evident why Google should develop own browser and enter this market, which is a very competitive from the era of Netscape, and also having partnered with Firefox supporting their browser for sometime.

They may have nicely packaged about their browser capabilities, (I must admit some of them are unique though), however, that doesn’t give their browser an edge on what’s there already, especially FireFox or Safari for a common user like me.

Illustrating the entire thought process behind launching a browser, what I believe Google’s attempt to bring a browser is nothing more than to implement the next generation search feature, indeed a very innovative thinking and an innovative way to achieve the same via their own browser.

Few Ideal Final Result’s we discussed above has been implemented in some part of the world, not necessarily specific to the search, but in similar context. Product like Autonomy is already providing intelligence searching, but with a limited knowledge base (internal to the organization). However, bringing intelligence to the search for the mass, like the way Google excelled in the search engine isn’t very easy with a restricted user and knowledge base.

How could Google fill this gap? A dedicated browser for using their own search engine should help them understanding the usage pattern, context in which we search etc and add some brain. Browser as an application running in my own PC, can facilitate more actions, record/log the instances, situations, applications I’m running and more to understand me as a user.

Here is a classic (?) feature:

When I search for the latest movie and book a ticket through online booking site, my search engine knows that and records it; after few days, I’m enjoying some music on my PC and suddenly remembers this movie I watched and want to check out the option to buy some music and open the browser to search. Bingo, there comes your browser and tells you, dude – here is the best site to purchase this song rated best by your friends (remember I also use my social network) from the movie you watched last week!
Well, perhaps not just fantasies after reading this news I guess – Be sure to read Chrome’s fine print . Some of the terms and conditions are very close to achieving the search IFR, like self searching, not searching etc, if they get to know what I do using their browser, the way I described above.

Incidentally, they have amended some of the clause mentioned in the copyright license, but still I believe they are on to something. Let’s wait and watch.

The 2008 participants represented Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, US, France, and the Mexican states of Veracruz, Jalisco, Nueva Leon, Mexico, Michoacan, Puebla, Queretaro, Distrito Federal, and Tabasco and there have been past participants from Zacatecas and Baja California Norte in Mexico, and Argentina, Brazil, UK, Iraq, Korea, and Spain.

Photo: R. Marin, Z. Royzen and J. Hipple with mariachis at the reception on day 2.

I will continue to report on my observation of the conference, with short notes on the papers. For the complete program, see http://www.ametriz.com/schedule_third_conference_triz.php.

Noel Leon presented the paper that he wrote with Humberto Aguayo Téllez on the use of Genetic Algorithms with TRIZ. The complementary elements of the two methods have been combined into Evolutionary Conceptual Design. Particularly, the use of biological evolutionary mechanisms in genetic algorithms and of technical evolutionary concepts in TRIZ, were particularly fruitful. They found that the two disciplines had developed similar concepts of ideality and the need to abandon trade-offs to reach the ideal final result (using TRIZ vocabulary) The examples that impressed the audience were both concrete and fanciful: The development of a design for a forged steel machine part that meets multiple simultaneous constraints, and the development of a simulated multi-terrain walking robot. See www.youtube.com/watch?v=oquKOVfzGfk&NR=1 to watch the robot learn! (I like when it starts experimenting with jumping instead of walking –TRIZ ideas of using another dimension to solve the problem!) Later in the day Cesar Villareal showed a case study of design of vertical wind turbines using the combination of the genetic algorithms with TRIZ to solve very difficult technical problems that will be essential for energy production.

Edgardo Cordoba presented the work that he did with Angélica Arellano Palacios on the application of TRIZ in human relations. They have worked with individual, management /administrative and cultural problems, and found that TRIZ makes significant and useful contributions in all areas. In particular, organization leaders increased their creativity and demonstrated ideal solutions at a level that had been inconceivable before their use of TRIZ. Tools that were most useful to the leaders were multi-windows, smart little people, and dimension/time/cost. They looked at the leadership dimensions: transactional, transformational, situational, and visionary, and found that leaders need similar skills in all areas, but they need to know how to apply those skills in a flexible way.

Luz Marina Torres Piñeros presented the work she developed with Oscar Fernando Castellanos Domínguez and others at the National University of Colombia. They studied the relationship between “technological intelligence” and the decision making process in countries ranging from Colombia to India to Ecuador to the US. She has extensive data showing how the state of 3 different industries (tobacco, cacao, and finque) improved as the understanding of the system and the technology developed.

Hilda Del Sagrario Vallín Sánchez and her colleagues Sergio Gerardo Mañón Espinon and Álvaro R. Pedroza Zapata from ITESO (Institute for Advanced Study in the West) in Tlaquepaque, a suburb of Guadalajara, showed a detailed case study of innovative development of battery technology through use of multi-parameter designed experiments.

Avraam Serediski is well-known to the TRIZ Journal readers. He participated in two of the projects that were reported at the conference. He and Gabriel González Molina and

Fidel García Gonzalez (who presented the paper) studied >20,000 graduating students from universities, and received surprisingly negative answers to the question of how the students will impact society. They have formulated a plan which is now in active deployment in the state of Puebla, associated with several universities, for entrepreneurship education and for business incubators, to encourage the students and others to work together for new enterprises.

TRIZ Journal readers are familiar with problems in the construction industry. The conference had 3 very exciting papers on the use of TRIZ to solve problems in materials development for construction to improve strength and life of materials and to reduce cost (both for the producer and for the user, and for society by reducing energy costs.)

1. Sergio Uribe from Cemex showed the TRIZ adoption process, and how Cemex is combining TRIZ with training, software, support, and management systems to increase adoption and accelerate project completion throughout the company
2. J. C. Rubio Ávalos and his colleagues at the Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo and with the support of government agencies used TRIZ for breakthrough improvements in phosforescent concrete, flexible window materials, strong membranes, and inorganic foams. In each case they used very basic TRIZ principles (such as the 40 principles and the separation principles) plus the concept of ideality, to make extreme improvements.
3. Alfonso Moreno Salazar and his colleagues in Guadalajara reported on developments in the use of foam panels for both home and industrial construction. The new techniques make very energy-efficient buildings possible with much less labor and use of raw materials, using classical contradiction resolution, applied in a multi-parameter environment.

Professor Rafael Oropeza Monterrubio both entertained and educated the audience—as the last speaker before lunch he had the challenge of keeping people engaged! His study of the failures of leadership in traditional organizations and his recommendations for structural changes, based on the application of TRIZ to management problems, were very well received.

Laura Ponce Garcia presented an extensive study of the opportunities for improvement in the hospitality industry, mostly focused on hotels, and the many possibilities made possible by the methods of understanding of customers’ needs and the use of information technology.

Christian Signoret & Avraam Serediski (Mexico and France) revived one of the TRIZ methods developed in the mid-1980s to increase the Ideality of a system: the Integration of Alternative Systems. The process was illustrated with an agricultural case study and a student project in rocket design. It produces very dramatic results very quickly, if the practioner has a good understanding of the relationships of the functions and subsystems of the system that is being improved.

Guillermo Cortes Robles Institute Technologica in Orizaba, Veracruz, MX, did two presentations on the use of Alternative Failure Determination to increase safety of industrial machinery. They were very elegant case studies, using the resources of the system to solve the problem, once the problem was understood. His data on the need to improve industrial safety made a strong case.

Pedro Sariego P showed 3 cases from the Chilean mining industry The case studies illustrated specific TRIZ methods, with considerable Six Sigma thinking in the identification of the problems:

1. Elimination of a contradiction: How to position the elecrolytic process in the chain of cathodes in hydrometalurgical processing of copper
2. Su-Field analysis: Problem of an elbow in the discharge of a lime production process
3. ARIZ: Removing large rocks that get stuck in the jaws of a crushing machine in a copper processing system.

Javier Rivera Ramírez discussed his work with Rosario Vidal Nadal on methods of managing innovation in an environment where science, technology and design have evolved without always being focused on the needs of the customer, and pointed out possible ways to manage both the people and the processes to enhance innovation.

Edgardo Cordoba’s fascinating presentation on the seventh generation of quality, presented as a new paradigm of TRIZ, had much new data that traced the evolution of the quality control, quality improvement, and pro-active quality movements, and suggested that the predictive properties of TRIZ would contribute to the future of quality in many ways.

Day 4 was devoted to tutorials. I did a half-day workshop on how to teach TRIZ, focusing on understanding the learning process before trying to do any teaching. Jack Hipple did a full-day program on the integration of TRIZ with many other tools and methods, and Noel Leon did an intensive half-day session for TRIZ beginners. I missed the party that the 4 organizations that were sharing the Expo center for the week of innovation presented on Saturday night (had to run to the airport) but I hope that this report shows the organizing committee of AMETRIZ that their efforts were appreciated!

Photo: Rafael Fargas, Noel Leon, and keynote speakers Andrew Brown and Mansour Ashtiani.

Current discussion about innovation has been dominated by the need to create a culture for institutionalizing innovation.

I posed the question “What does culture for innovation entail?” to my students representing cultures of France, China, Korea, Azerbaijan, USA, India, Spain and Romania. (I would like to hear from you about culture change that you have experienced at corporations. Please share your stories.)

I got the following responses:

• Rules and standards
• Objectives/purpose/goal
• Code of Ethics
• Work atmosphere
• Social responsibility/ caring
• Listening
• Bureaucracy – Speed of decision making
• Communication
• Preferences and interests
• Hierarchy/ structure
• Shared benefits
• History/ traditions
• Rewarding failures
• Recognizing successes
• Motivation
• Help/ support

Returning to the creating culture for innovation how does one take into account all the above aspects of culture? One can see that it is almost redesigning a corporation for innovation to change the culture. I think it would be a very difficult task. Can we really change the corporate culture for innovation? Or should we focusing on installing process for innovation in a given culture? In the recently concluded Business Innovation Conference, 5 out of 30 presentations were geared towards the ‘culture’.

AMETRIZ (The TRIZ Association of Mexico) changed the dates of the III Congreso Iberoamericano de Inovacion Tecnologica to participate in the inauguration of the new (Magnificent!) Expo conference center of Guadalajara with simultaneous meetings of Universitronica 2008, Creanimax (animation and video games) MexEEDev (Mexico Electronics and Embedded Developers Forum), and honoring the International Week of Learning, Innovation, and High Technology (my translation!)

Because of the date change, I was unable to participate in Day 1. Zinovy Royzen’s tutorial on the TOPS method of function analysis had 50 very active participants in the morning, who then learned to apply TRIZ to processes in Edgardo Cordova’s tutorial in the afternoon.

Day 2 is the plenary session, which opened with greetings from the officials of the state of Jalisco, the conference center, and the organizers. We were represented on the podium by Rafael Farga, the local organizer of the Congreso. Thanks to Rafael, and to Noel Leon and Edgardo Cordova who organized the technical program, for a great meeting. As always in these commentaries, this will be a personal report—if readers want the full program, see http://www.ametriz.com/schedule_third_conference_triz.php. The conference proceedings will be available for purchase from AMETRIZ after the conference.

Randall Marín, Senior Test Engineer from Intel in Costa Rica delivered the kickoff speech for our session. He presented the history of the semiconductor industry and Intel’s place in the industry, and the development of TRIZ at Intel. This is the same story that Amir Roggel has presented to audiences in Japan, the US and Europe, but Randall made it fresh with new stories from the Intel user conferences--applications of TRIZ to solve problems and to prevent problems in the most stressing manufacturing environment now in use. Randall’s slide show tour of the Costa Rica Innovation Center made a lot of people jealous—a great environment for TRIZ, both the physical place and the problem-solving orientation of the culture. The match between the Intel culture and the TRIZ emphasis on removing problems, not just making trade-offs has helped TRIZ propagate rapidly throughout the manufacturing sector of the company.

Photos: Marin, Hipple, Royzen, Brown

Jack Hipple is well-known to the TRIZ Journal and Real Innovation audiences. His talk on “Parallel Universes” got the audience involved in several case studies. He showed how the air traffic control display developers greatly improved the ability of a controller to notice a bad situation in time to do something about it (hey, this is important to me—I’m a pilot and a passenger!) by studying what is done in chemical plant control systems, nuclear power control, and computer game design. Jack’s illustration of the key skill of translating jargon into general language, so that you can look for the parallels in other technological “universes” was both helpful and entertaining. Thanks, Jack!

Mansour Ashtiani is the President of the Altshuller Institute for TRIZ Studies and the TRIZ advocate at the Delphi company. He gave the audience a very concise history of the development of TRIZ and the work of the Altshuller Institute to promote TRIZ, and suggested some future North-America wide collaboration with AMETRIZ.

Margarita de la Fuente y Xavier Gonzalez is an expert in many areas of innovation, including the de Bono and Goldratt thinking systems. Today she talked about the process of administration of innovation programs in business, based on the experiences that she and her co-authors have in the food and food processing industries (KFC, Frito-Lay, Nabisco and other big brands.) A key finding from their study is that organizational culture and organizational alignment are essential to innovation, seen as 2 legs of a stool. The third, essential leg, is the realization that innovation applies to all aspects of the company—service and product delivery, production, business processes, understanding non-users as well as users, regulatory requirements, and many others.

Zinovy Royzen gave an abbreviated paper on the TOP model, which he introduced several years ago and has continued to develop. (TOP= Tool, Object, Product) and showed how to use it to define problems. He injected much interesting historical information about the development of function analysis in TRIZ by many researchers (other than Altshuller). Zinovy’s case study on the transformer was a great introduction to the idea of trimming, both for experienced practioners and beginners alike.

I presented my new thinking on teaching TRIZ to beginners (to be published in the TRIZ Journal in December—be patient). What’s new? It isn’t about TEACHING—it is about LEARNING. And while many of us are teachers, all of us are learners, so learning about how people learn will help everybody. Good news, TRIZ is right: somebody someplace has already solved this problem, and I bring a lot of education research together and show how to apply it to TRIZ learning.

Concluding speaker of the day was Dr. Andrew Brown from Delphi, who has been a spectacularly popular speaker at TRIZCON meetings, and who is a member of several international study commissions on the future of the transportation industry. The audience left in a state of high excitement about the future of transportation, the future of technology, and the future of the world.

Prakasan Kappoth (Prakash) is a Senior Manager working as a Systematic innovation facilitator and innovation consultant at MindTree Ltd., Bangalore, India; a mid-sized IT Service Company delivering techno-business solutions to clients across the globe. He helps MindTree’s internal and external customers with identifying and solving technical and non-technical problems using structured innovation techniques (specializing in TRIZ).

In his capacity he is also working toward his Ideal Final Result (IFR) of "not doing his job – or others doing his job" by implementing continuous learning platforms for structured innovation and effective thinking focusing on engineers and leadership team. He recently started working with educational institutions (engineering and business) providing them hands-on systematic innovation workshops and frequent lectures to inculcate creative thinking for the future workforce (more ideal solution).

He has been in the IT industry for over 12 years; He has worked in a variety of technical domains including network management, industrial automation, image processing, consumer and embedded appliances, automotive and storage. He is an active student recently completed his MBA besides Dip in IT, Textile and Fashion Technology, and is now enrolled in a psychology course.

Prakash also represents ETRIA (European TRIZ Association) in India as a global coordinator, Member, Altshuller Institute of TRIZ Studies, and founded the TRIZ India Forum, a not-for-profit platform bringing together TRIZ enthusiasts from India.

Saturday dawned (well, 8:30) with more than 100 people attending the workshops on innovation, lean, six sigma, collaboration, and international business. The informal theme of the Friday session was emphasized by several of the presenters: let’s stop talking about “it” (innovation, or quality, or whatever!) and start doing “it.”

Jeannine Siviy, Deputy Director of the Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute kicked off the plenary session by addressing “Innovation in Engineering Process: Multimodel Harmonization.” She explained the problem of multiple model environments, in which a variety of models for corporate management and improvement are deployed at different hierarchical levels, across functions, using a variety of methodologies. For example, one company might have improvement initiatives using six sigma, ISO certification, improving enterprise governance, changing configuration management, and using CMMI (software methodology improvement.) This creates competition for resources, contradictory metrics, and duplication of work without any increase in benefits. The harmonization research is creating a unifying structure based on a philosophical orientation: go for performance first, the compliance will come, rather than an elaborate checklist approach. The case study of the approach used by Lockheed Martin was very helpful, and was also an illustration of the “positive deviant” method explained by Roberto Saco on Day 1.

Darrell Mann traveled to Zacatecas by way of Australia and the US (next stop Austria!) Darrell needs no introduction to the TRIZ Journal and Real Innovation readers. The Forum audience was very receptive to his presentation “Breakthrough Software Design and the Need for Breaking Rules.” He used Infosys specifically and India more generally as benchmarks for development of IT in all areas. (89,000 employees. 8000 new last year, one million applicants for the new jobs.) He compared the well-known software design patterns to the TRIZ principles for innovative problem solving, and reported on research that expands the patterns by a factor of 500. Darrell reported that the research shows that there are millions of systems, but only hundreds of problems and tens of successful solutions (no surprise to our TRIZ readers.) He presented a new acronym that was helpful to the people hearing about TRIZ for the first time:

PERFECT –IFR. Get rid of trade-offs

ESCAPE –from the box. Disrupt your patterns of thinking.

RESOURCES –use all resources to solve the problem, and don’t forget that the knowledge of the situation is a resource.

FUNCTIONS—understand the job the customer is trying to do.

EMERGENCE-patterns of evolution. The audience was very impressed by the universality of the patterns

CONTRADICTIONS – Eliminate them! Software uses the same 40 principles, but re-interpreted for the nature of software

TURTLES—Systems are fractal (the turtles are part of a long joke.)

Readers who want more of Darrell’s great examples are invited to go to the free downloads section of www.systematic-innovation.com

The after lunch speakers shared success stories from businesses in Mexico, and some of the resources that are available for businesses that need help starting innovation or quality initiatives, or both.

Jorge Perez-Rubio from the AMA training and consulting organization challenged the participants with “Leading Innovation: a unique opportunity for Mexico,” emphasizing the unique resources of people, education, location, and natural resources that Mexican companies can access.

Victor Hugo Arellano Lopez, Director of Operations for Texas Instruments de Mexico, reminded the audience of TI’s long and distinguished innovation history (revolutionized the exploration for oil, invented the integrated circuit, developed infrared cameras, created new industries with the DSP and DLP—even won the Emmy for how technology changed entertainment!) He showed how TI de M’s employees are the foundation of its continuous innovation and quality improvement efforts, and gave examples of the reward and recognition system that is a fundamental part of TI’s process.

David Rios Jara explained “Regional Innovation Systems” which had been benchmarked for products, services and management models. Experience in Europe for small and medium-sized enterprises was considered particularly relevant to Mexico. They found that regional systems are better than trying to build big national or mult-region systems— they are more in touch with the technology and resources of the region.

Fernando Avila, Quality Assurance Manager of the Tequila Sauza Company gave the concluding address, “Foundations of Value: Statistics, Quality and Competitiveness.” The audience appreciated his strong focus on quality defined as satisfying the customers’ needs, and his entertaining stories about the tequila business. His conclusion that quality alone is not sufficient for competiveness was well-received.

Temo and the entire staff of CIMAT got a very well-deserved round of applause from the audience for an excellent program.

In 2009, Real Innovation’s sister website, iSixSigma, will host its first annual Summit and Awards in Miami. Although there are some who debate whether innovation and process improvement can work together, we know that as successful as they can be on their own, combined they are unstoppable!

If your company also practices Six Sigma and systematic innovation, take the time to nominate a breakthrough innovation project for the Largest-Breakthrough Improvement Projects. Your project could be recognized at the awards breakfast AND highlighted in the March/April 2009 issue of iSixSigma Magazine.

The First National Forum for Organizational Competitiveness through Innovation and Quality convened Sept. 26-7 in Zacatecas, Mexico, a World Heritage city and a growing center of business and academic innovation. The conference was organized by Dr. Cuauhtémoc Lemus Olalde (“Temo”) and the staff of CIMAT, the mathematics research institute; they brought together an impressive cross-section of research, business, education and government resources to learn from each other’s experiences. The government of the state of Zacatecas was strongly represented: Secretaries of Education, Commerce, and Technology participated in the Forum personally, and staff members from several other departments were present.

The business community of Zacatecas is primarily small and medium-sized enterprises, with a heavy concentration of software and systems engineering business, and the applied research at CIMAT focuses on software development that enables and enhances enterprise functions—I had enlightening conversations with researchers working on strategic planning, decision making, failure modes and effects analysis, and balanced scorecard systems (and several projects that incorporate TRIZ elements!) About half of the presentations and workshops at the Forum are specifically oriented to the software-centric businesses, and half were more general.

This is a personal report, not a comprehensive summary of the conference, limited to the sessions that I attended (and my moderate ability to listen in Spanish while thinking in English) or what I heard from other participants. For the complete program, list of sponsors and organizers, see http://www.cimat.mx/Eventos/primerforoinnovacion/ The morning session started with brief welcoming addresses by the government officials, business and academic leaders, on the general theme that we know that innovation and quality are both important, but we don’t always know how to get from the general sentiment to application and implementation, and we welcome the Forum as an opportunity to advance our capabilities.

Roberto Saco, President of the American Society for Quality, was the lead speaker. His presentation “Innovation from Within: The Soft Power of Positive Deviance” emphasized that all innovation—hardware, software, organizational structure, operational systems—requires behavior changes. The theory of positive deviance emphasizes using the resources of the community to solve its own problems by finding the unusual (deviant!) members of the community who are thriving, and learn from their solutions to help the rest. Roberto had a pointed and emotionally moving case study to illustrate his points, showing how the Save the Children program in Vietnam used the creativity of 2 world-wide staff, local community participants and the parents of the children to make radical improvement in the problem of low-weight children using only the local resource (the nutritional value of the same vegetables that are in the ordinary diet can be dramatically increased when they are cooked in different combinations, for example.) Positive deviance was a new concept for me—look for more “commentary” columns as I learn more about it.

“Why Business Needs to Innovate and How to Do It” is my translation of the title of the talk by Rodulfo M. Rodriguez Gutierrez, visiting Zacatecas from the Polytechnic University of Catalunya. He emphasized the increasingly rapid cycles of product introduction, and the increasingly global competition in all fields, which combine to make innovation the only survivable business strategy. He gave numerous examples, emphasizing that service businesses need the same emphasis on innovation as product businesses.

Manuel Liñan is a six sigma master black belt and business consultant from Monterrey, with projects in Spain, France, Poland, US, and elsewhere. His talk, “TRES: The strategy for competitiveness” used the model of Technical, Alignment, Structural, and Social elements (TRES in Spanish-trust me) for understanding customers, your own company, and the environment, in order to decide how to be competitive. He showed the extension of the principles of lean process improvement to the lean enterprise as an example of how it might be necessary to change all 4 elements of a company’s operation to be competitive in a changing world.

I was the concluding speaker for the morning. “Enhance Business Innovation with TRIZ” was a 40 minute TRIZ introduction, emphasizing the universality of TRIZ for small and large, local and global, hardware and software, and emphasizing that the audience members who are hearing about TRIZ for the first time can start using it, and can learn by using it. Fortunately, Darrell Mann will be speaking tomorrow on TRIZ for software, and will have time to give the software participants some specific guidance.

The speakers were then organized into a panel for questions and answers. Most of the questions were about how to start innovation initiatives, and the panel differed widely, from the strongly traditional (reward systems, measurement systems, traditional bonus systems based on following the rules, etc.) to the radically un-managed (create a positive environment then let things happen, don’t try to control it.) Questions about how to improve the competitiveness of Mexico, or the competitiveness of Zacatecas, were mostly answered at the global level, with the emphasis on doing what your customers need, and taking advantage of your local resources (for example, the strength of the software industry in Zacatecas is due to the local university and research centers) and using government agencies to build infrastructure and reduce inhibiting factors.

After lunch we had 6 workshops, then a cultural evening. Zacatecas was originally a mining center, and the miners used the rhythms of their work to create very rhythmic music. Somehow, this became a festive event Callejoneada Típica Zacatecana where musicians walk around the town with a donkey who carries the drums and the supply of mescal, followed by all the participants in the event who sing, play the drums, and drink the mescal. (OK, the donkey is a myth. We carried the mescal, and the musicians carried the drums and we danced and walked and drank and danced.) AFTER that is dinner!

Sometime ago, I read that a new technology officer of a leading computer manufacturing company has discontinued R&D projects that go beyond 2-3 years. The top 20 or so projects were retained for generating short term revenue. Leadership in other companies have adopted the similar strategy to productize R&D. To an extent I believe R&D must become more business focused, efficient and productive, however, I do not believe R&D should be required to generate revenue in the short term. Instead, R&D organizations must become a source of profitable revenue growth, not only in short term but also in long term. There is a difference between revenue growth and revenue generation

For the sake of next quarter, corporations are forsaking future. First no R&D has been so efficient that it can produce additional revenue in just one or even two quarters. Second