TRIZ
A Method for Systematic Innovation
(2-Day Workshop)

About the Program:
This workshop will provide a practical method for enhancing engineering creativity and accelerating product and process innovation. The main method discussed is TRIZ; a Russian acronym for "The Theory of Inventive Problem Solving" is a unique & powerful engineering Innovation "tool" that dramatically increases the engineer's knowledge, creativity, and problem solving skills. TRIZ exposes you to an extensive technical "knowledge base" derived from an analysis of over 2 million of the worlds' most innovative patents. This knowledge base contains numerous "inventive principles", several engineering principles, scientific phenomena, and technology trends. The TRIZ process significantly reduces the problem solvers dependency on their own knowledge, experience, and education. TRIZ is based on the idea that most of the underlying "root" problems that engineers face contain elements that have already been solved, often in a completely different industry, for a totally unrelated product, that may use an entirely different technology to solve the problem. In brief, TRIZ provides an efficient, effective, & inexpensive way of tapping into knowledge from a number of different industries, branches of technology and fields of engineering to solve problems. Engineers who are not particularly creative can quickly, & creatively develop "innovative" solutions to some of their most difficult challenges.

Learning Objectives:

• How to overcome psychological inertia and to direct the creative effort towards the most promising solutions.
• How to define and formulate problems for optimal solvability.
• How to develop breakthrough concepts of solutions.
• How to replace trade-off with real solutions satisfying conflicting requirements.
• How to maximize utilization of available resources.
• How to visualize future evolution of your product or process.
• How to use TRIZ software.
• How to implement TRIZ in your organization.
• How TRIZ can integrate with other techniques into a complete and comprehensive Product Development Process.
• How TRIZ fits into Six Sigma and Design for Six Sigma

Who Should Attend?
This course is designed for anyone who is involved with the development of new technology or tasked with solving existing engineering problems. Engineering and R&D executives, project leaders, designers, researches, engineering consultants, inventors, and patent lawyers can benefit from learning the techniques taught in this course.

Features & Benefits:

• New approaches for Engineering Innovation
• Leading Software demonstrated
• Practical applications & "hands on" exercises
• See Learning Objectives

Agenda - Day 1

Introduction - Course Outline, Objectives, Logistics, TRIZ Background, Fundamentals, etc.

Common Innovation Strategies, Barriers, and Enablers - Learn what can keep people from maximizing their creative potential. Discuss and review typical strategies for Innovation and how to break common barriers to ensure the best solutions to technical problems. Interactive Examples.

Ideality and the Ideal System - Learn the concept of the "Ideal Final Result" and how to break physiological inertia to gain a clearer focus. Learn the importance of maximizing the functionality while minimizing the costs and problems. Learn methods to help approach the Ideal System like the utilization of "free" or available resources in the system or supersystem.

Altshuller's 40 Inventive Principles - Learn 40 powerful inventive principles that can be used to deal with over 1200 common "Engineering" conflicts. Interactive examples and exercises.

The 4 Separation Principles - Learn how to transform Technical Conflicts into "Physical or Logical" Conflicts for elegant solution paths. Learn 4 powerful strategies to deal with "Physical or Logical" Conflicts. Interactive examples and exercises.

Function Analysis - Learn the power of performing a comprehensive Function Model/Analysis on your Engineering Situation. Function Analysis is a structured method of formulating problems for optimum solvability, and will prepare the Engineering Situation for more Ideal Solutions and Concepts.

The "Trimming Technique" - This is a structured technique for complexity & cost reduction. Several Algorithms are used to help eliminate "Non Value Added" elements of your system. Interactive examples and exercises.

Day 2

Trends of Technology Evolution - Historical Technology Trends are useful to extrapolate likely future systems. Learn numerous technology "Trends and Patterns" that can be useful in solving engineering problems as well as "predicting" where your technology is heading. Interactive Examples and Exercises.

Introduction to TRIZ Software - Demonstration, explanation, Case Study, and "Hands on" interactive activities using TRIZ related software.

Integrating TRIZ with other Product Development Tools - Learn how TRIZ can integrate into a Product Development Process, which includes QFD, FMEA, Value Engineering, Robust Engineering using Dr. Taguchi Methods, Pugh's Concept Selection. Integrating TRIZ into Six Sigma is also discussed.

Start Class Projects (Optional) - Students begin applying the TRIZ techniques learned on real projects. The rest of this day is spent on individual or group projects. Students may be temporarily loaded with software tools to aid their project work.

Recommendations & Next Steps - Discussion on rough spots, keys to success, and recommendation of next steps for each project team.
Wrap-up & Adjourn