Editor | On 04, Jun 2007

By Katie Barry, Ellen Domb and Michael S. Slocum

Editor Katie Barry wrote commentaries reporting on her four days at the Front End of Innovation conference in May. Editors Ellen Domb and Michael Slocum – along with other commentators – regularly share their thoughts and insights, too. Be sure to check regularly for new posts.

The TRIZ Journal papers this month come from Finland, Israel, Serbia and the U.S.A.:

• Celebrating the 10^th anniversary year of The TRIZ Journal, we are delighted to continue the contributions from Gregory Frenklach, who wrote many of the tutorial articles in our early years. “A New Problem-Solving Algorithm” will help many readers who have difficulty organizing TRIZ tools and using the tools together to solve difficult problems.
  
• New contributor Zajim Smajic shares a case study that will appeal to beginners and those with more TRIZ experience. “Case Study: Road Fleet Maintenance” shows that you do not need to be a TRIZ expert in order to benefit from its many tools – applying only a few can reap great rewards.
  
• Kalevi Rantanen has written about TRIZ for technology forecasting before, and in this issue he presents “Predicting Innovations for the Years 2020-2060” based on the system operator (9 windows), the TRIZ patterns of technology evolution and his experience as a journalist.
  
• This month, Abram Teplitskiy’s Student Corner explains sorbents – materials that absorb other materials, starting with ordinary sponges, in “The Optimistic Magic of Sorbents.”
  
• Val Kraev’s lessons continue with Kraev’s Korner lesson 9, “ARIZ,” the algorithm for solving the inventor’s problem, which he applies to the case of the robotic vacuum cleaner. Val’s drawings are easy to understand and people at all levels of TRIZ knowledge will benefit from his examples. (To get maximum benefit, be sure to do the homework problems that are included in each lesson!)
  

Until July, happy TRIZ reading!

Katie Barry, Ellen Domb and Michael Slocum
editor@the-trizjournal.com