Editor | On 05, Jun 2003

By: Carsten Gundlach, Horst Nähler und Rolf Herb

3rd European TRIZ Conference 2003 at ETH Zuerich
authors Carsten Gundlach, Horst Nähler und Rolf Herb
As a cooperation of the European TRIZ-Center for Innovative Problem Solving1, the ETH Zuerich and the Methosys Company the 3rd European TRIZ confernce took place in Zuerich, Switzerland. In 1999 this conference very successfully took place in Vienna, Austria and in 2001 Mozart city Salzburg hosted this event. In addition national german TRIZ meetings with remakable high numbers of attendants took place in 2000 and 2001 in Kassel.
40 Speakers from all over the world (USA, Korea, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Great Brittain and others) subscribed in the call for papers with the common aim to exchange TRIZ experiences and to communicate TRIZ as well as related methods and examples of application to a larger community. Finally the Eidgenoessische Technische Hochschule (ETH) hosted approximatedly 100 participants, whereas the well known TRIZCON 2003 of Altshuller Institute attracted only two thirds of this number.

Initial Hours of conference gave the opportunity to all participants to attend introductory workshops for TRIZ and methodology. Also advanced participants had the chance to contribute to a special workshop dealing with systematic characterization of each individual TRIZ tool. Official start of conference was given by chairman Prof. Dr. Alois Breiing (ETH Zuerich).

First conference highlight was the keynote lecture of Ellen Domb (founder of TRIZjournal). She gave instructive insight to applications of TRIZ outside classical technical engineering. Second highlight and keynote was the presentation of Prof. Sergei Ikovenko (MIT): development of software and computer applications by using TRIZ. In addition S. Ikovenko brought warmest greetings of Marat Graffitulin (prfesident International TRIZ Association – MATRIZ – ) to the audience.

The large number of oral contributions opened the opportunity to have three lecture streams in parallel, giving the chance to every participant to decide for a highly personal sequence of lectures fitting well to individual requests and interests. A large number of contributions – especially from native german speakers like Prof. Möhrle, D.Zobel, Prof. Schweizer, but also from european speakers like D. Mann – dealt with
· TRIZ and its individual tools,
· the connection of TRIZ to other methods,
· TRIZ in application for Management and organizational problems,
· TRIZ and CAI (computer aided innovation) in product development,
· Recent developments in CAI and
· Acceptance issues during the corporate introduction of TRIZ.
Actual examples of TRIZ applications and TRIZ derived products were presented by DaimlerChrysler, Bosch, Samsung and others. Professor Geschka, one of the most prominent creativity experts in germany, introduced participants both by lecture and as well by workshop to the vast number of creative problem solving methods.
Social program included a visit to Rhine falls at Schaffhausen with a lot of chances to communicate on personal and private levels to each other.

Picture 6 shows the organizing tream around Ellen Domb from left to right: Veit Kohnhauser (BMW), Peter Schweizer (Methosys, co-chairman), Thilo Herb (Quality Engineers), Dirk Geisinger (MTU Friedrichshafen), Rolf A. Herb (Roche Diagnostics, speaker of TRIZ-Centrum and co-chairman), Carsten Gundlach (University Kassel and TRIZ-online) , Arthur Löbmann (Wacker Siltronic). Missing on this picture is chairman Prof. Alois Breiing (ETH Zuerich, see picture 2).

The European TRIZ-Center for Innovative Problem Solving took the chance of such a lot of TRIZ enthusiasts meeting in Zuerich to accomplish the annual member meeting. The speaker of the boards of directors, Rolf A. Herb, as well as the crew of 7 directors directly informed all members about activities, plans and status of this non profit organization.

A remarkable meeting and information exchange took place between well known founder of TRIZ journal Ellen Domb and the organizers of the german TRIZ-online magazine, Carsten Gundlach and Horst Naehler. The interview with Ellen Domb and Sergei Ikovenko was recorded on tape in order to make it available to a broader audience.

View into future: upcoming 5th European TRIZ Conference 2005 will take place in an attractive european city, deatils currently „under construction“. Planning phase will start during summer 2004. The next german TRIZ symposium will take place in 2004. Details for both meetings from Carsten Gundlach (gundlach@triz-online.de), Horst Naehler (naehler@triz-online.de) or Rolf A. Herb (rolf.herb@roche.com or rolf.herb@trizcentrum. de)
Greeting address of Marat Grafitulin, presented by Prof. Sergei Ikovenko:
Dear friends and TRIZ colleagues!
I am happy to send my warmest greetings to the Third TRIZ Congress in Zürich. It is very encouraging that TRIZ deployment gains strength, and more and more people get interested in TRIZ, study it, apply it for solving problems and become real professionals in the field.
Spreading both geographically and also into various areas of knowledge, TRIZ successfully merges other methods and tools: RCA, semantic technology, etc. TRIZ success has two explanations. The first one is TRIZ tremendous capability, and the second one is a very high potential of people who use TRIZ.
Training and practice bring up that potential. Many engineering school included TRIZ in their curriculum, both as theoretical courses and software-supported workshops and projects.
One of the best Altshuller’s books „To Find and Idea“ clearly shows how knowledge of TRIZ increases the creative potential and allows to reach new horizons.
I am sure that sharing experience in TRIZ, constructive discussions and exchanging opinions will be extremely beneficial for all the participants of your great event. I wish you all interesting work and creative TRIZ-solutions.

Marat Gafitulin,
President of International TRIZ Association (MATRIZ)
Zhukovski City, Russia
March 18, 2003