Using TRIZ to Make Great Cappuccino Foam Without the Hassle

Have you ever tried to make a real cappuccino drink with espresso coffee and steamed fresh milk? If you have, you know that heating the milk fully and getting the milk to foam properly is a precise art.Read More

Design of an Adaptive Liquid Vending Machine

Students were given the task of designing and building a new vending machine that was adaptable. Students were given some training in TRIZ, and to a lesser extent axiomatic design, but were allowed to innovate and come up with their own solution.Read More

Theories of Everything and TRIZ

TRIZ builds on a solid foundation of knowledge and is based on the idea technological improvement results from studying excellence. This paper looks at excellence and what occurs when knowledge is integrated into a theory of everything (TOE) whole.Read More

Welcome to the July 2008 Issue of The TRIZ Journal!

Beverages are this month’s unexpected theme – liquids from vending machines and cappuccinos to be exact, making them more accessible and with less hassle. This month’s bounty also includes looks at how TRIZ fits in and around other tools and techniques.Read More

Eat Soup With a Fork to Learn Innovation

Ellen Domb

My colleague Jim Belfiore at the Invention Machine Company has a great blog, with a mix of personal stories, professional observations, and just plain good writing.   

This column is a reprint of his recent blog, which is the … Read More

Perspective

Jack Hipple

$140 a Barrel –

By the time you read this, it may be higher. If you’re in Europe, the price has also gone up, but no where near as much. Why? Because we currently price oil in dollars and … Read More

The Hidden Innovator

Praveen Gupta

Recently, I came across the Invisible Employee book written by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton. I read some statistics such as 25% of employees being driven to tears and 50% being verbally abused. My experience has taught that almost … Read More

Seven Killers of Innovation

Praveen Gupta

Corporate leadership understands innovation is important for success, employees understand how to innovate, and innovation occurs in every business. However, the extent and rate of innovation have been insufficient. I believe that following seven killers innovation suppress our innovation … Read More

Bad News Is Good!

Jack Hipple

Using Negatives as Positives for Innovation Strategy —

Frequently, we get caught up in “reacting” to what we believe is bad news or negative trends. We spend huge sums of money and divert resources from other activities to head … Read More

Managing Emotions: Applying the Substance-field Theory

Substance-field theory is a powerful analytical technique in TRIZ and helps define a problem in detail and formulate solutions. This technique can also be used to manage people by modeling people and their emotions in place of substances and fields.Read More

Welcome to the June 2008 Issue of The TRIZ Journal!

Some issues of The TRIZ Journal have unexpected themes. This month we have two: 1) offices and 2) conference papers that needed to reach broader audiences.Read More

Improving Travel Infrastructure in Mumbai

Population explosion is a curse as well as a boon for India. It is the second biggest market of the world. It is a strength, but at the same time it causes a scarcity of infrastructure and results in other infrastructure related issues.Read More

Applying TRIZ to Air Traffic Control Display Design

Few people have as stressful a job as the air traffic controller. This challenge was figuring out how to optimize the air traffic control display to be as helpful as possible.Read More

Remote Team Problem Solving with TRIZ

Many companies are not able to perform product development on their own. Companies may cooperate with other companies or subsidiaries in project-based joint ventures – often the teams are geographically separated.Read More

Case Study: Use of TRIZ in Software Design

The use of ideality from structural perspectives led to a cleaner software product design that is easier to maintain and evolve than what existed before.Read More

Can Innovation Be Learned?

James Todhunter

Reader Tim de Jardine raised the perennial question of “Can innovation be taught?”  It’s a question that comes up from time to time because of the persistent myth of the great thinker in the back room who is singularly … Read More

It’s Innovative, But Is That a Good Thing?

Cass Pursell(Or, Your metrics don’t go with those shoes)

Innovation Popcorn

James Todhunter

There are parallels visible in all aspects of life.  Recently, my personal experiences in the kitchen served as a reminder of how even small changes can have hidden complexities.

Years ago, based on concerns over the possible connection between … Read More

Why Is Innovation a Competition?

Ellen Domb

Business Week’s annual list of the top 25 innovation companies came out the same week (April 28, 2008) as the Fortune 500 list.  Big difference:   the Fortune 500 has an explicit algorithm involving revenue, profit, and other measurable factors.  … Read More

All Solutions Are Not Equal

Michael S. Slocum

Regardless of how extensively you deploy TRIZ, or some other systematic innovation engine, one of the first steps you take is to define your ideal state. In TRIZ, this is your Ideal Final Result (IFR), a philosophical construct … Read More