Commentary by Ellen Domb

2nd Iberoamerican Technological Innovation Congress - Day 3

Day 2 ended with a dinner of local specialties and an excellent band—they played regional music from every region of Mexico and from Cuba and Chile to honor the home countries of some of the participants, on beautiful hand-crafted instruments.

Day 3 started directly with the technical papers, in 2 tracks. Professor Edgardo Córdova Lopez from Puebla presented a fascinating view of the use of TRIZ to overcome psychological inertia in the leadership of organizations. He showed how both the inspirational and the aspirational aspects of leadership both benefit from a TRIZ perspective. Many of his former students, now faculty at other institutions, also participated in the conference, showing the practical application of his leadership methods.

For example, Marysol Montes de Oca Basurta has done extensive work in cognitive psychology, and applied this research to an experimental study of how people solve problems. She had both technical scientific reports and personal observations of the people in the university (One chemistry professor was astonished that she wanted to study creativity of his students—“They are chemists!”) A measurement process for creativity was established, using judges from each specialty field to evaluate the work in that field, based on the definitions popularized by Amabile. Students were given a design challenge (building a moving structure from toy parts) as well as tests of psychological motivation, and of their understanding of TRIZ, after five 3-hour classes. Measurement of motivation raised very serious questions—there was no grade and no requirement for the class, and it appears that the university environment destroys motivation. But the results of the practical class were very gratifying—without TRIZ many students did not even know how to start but with TRIZ, many different structures were built using the resources in many different ways. Future research will examine multiple issues of motivation, acquisition of knowledge, and the use of knowledge.

"STRATEGIES OF ENTAILMENT OF A PUBLIC CENTER OF INVESTIGATION WITHIN THE NATIONAL SYSTEM OF INNOVATION IN MEXICO” by Candelario Moyeda Mendoza and Dr. Arturo Serrano Santoyo (presented by Dr. Serrano) detailed the systematic way that is being used to promote innovation throughout the country. The scientific/technical work is done in CICESE agency research laboratories, and in collaboration with universities and industry. The agency acts as a catalyst in the formation of innovation centers and alliances between industry and education, and provides leadership in the development of intellectual property policies. Their goal is a systematic process for stimulating breakthrough innovation throughout the economy. Benchmark data for Mexico relative to Korea, Spain, and Chile showed the areas of work with high potential, but also emphasized the need for local cultural sensitivity and local economic knowledge. Local clusters of business and universities have been formed in the Ensenada-San Diego area, and the Puerto Peñasco-Phoenix-Tucson cross-border areas, with many innovation-development activities in each area.

In many conferences, such a paper by a government official would be greeted by polite applause, then the next speaker would stand up. NOT so here—there was considerable discussion, with some participants pointing out that they had been active in the study and promotion of innovation for years and had never before heard of the government efforts, which led to extended discussion during the break about how to make the programs more effective.

PYMES is Small and medium size businesses. “COMPUTER SCIENCE TOOLS FOR The SUPPORT OF INNOVATION IN The PYMES” by Rodriguez Gutiérrez emphasized the need for project management, with measurement and feedback, to keep projects moving. The unique needs of the small and medium businesses are the need for simplicity of the system, so that it can be useful without extensive training, and simplicity so that there is no expense of system administrators or maintenance. Without the simplicity, the system will fall into disuse, and the innovation projects will be delayed or cancelled.

"APPLICATION of the ISQ TO BREAK PSYCHOLOGICAL INERTIA IN a Non-TECHNICAL ATMOSPHERE: THE CASE OF THE I.T.S.T.N.” by Maria Gabriela Perez Ramos and Maria Allondra de la Llave Hernandez presented an interesting perspective on a non-technical service environment (a university, including the faculty, administration, students, and staff, in the supersystem of the state of Puebla) with dysfunctional traditional hierarchical management, poor communication, and dissatisfied customers. They presented a comprehensive application of the Innovative Situation Questionnaire (developed by Ideation International) with considerable detail, to some amusement of the people from other universities who share their problems. They did an extensive analysis of the available resources in the system, with particular emphasis of the skills and attitudes of the people, information resources, and energy, as well as the physical resources. They emphasized that the main issue was NOT finding innovative solutions to the problem; the primary issue was disrupting psychological inertia so that the leader of the organization would be willing to accept change. Maria got the biggest audience reaction of the entire conference when she got to the question: Has any similar problem been solved? And the answer: yes, at another university, by changing the leader. The experiment was a success and the audience hopes for a second episode of the story next year, when they have implemented the changes, now that the initial resistance has been overcome.

"STRATEGY OF INTRODUCTION And APPLICATIONS OF TRIZ IN The CHILEAN MINING INDUSTRY” was presented by Pedro Sariego of the Universidad Tecnica de Federico Santa Maria. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the flowchart for the introduction of TRIZ that I developed with Jim Kowalick in the mid-90s (TRIZ Journal, October 1997) and then refined for the publication of Simplified TRIZ in 2002 was the foundation of the method that they have used. They selected the strategically important Division of the Andes, 200 km inland from Valparaiso, at a complex mineral concentration facility, for the pilot project. The case study required extensive modeling of the flow of materials, energy and information through the facility, which helped reveal the need for the application of ideality, of the use of scientific effects, and of specific technical and physical contradictions to the development of solutions. Changes in the stresses in parts of the processing machine (called the “digestor” if my translation is OK) resulted in more efficient processing and savings in material and energy. A second set of pilot projects applied TRIZ to giant earth-moving machines, again producing impressive gains. (OK, giant mining equipment is always impressive.) The success of the pilot project system has made it possible to get TRIZ accepted in the organization, and the students involved in the project will be taking those results to other organizations.

THE INTEGRATION OF QFD AND TRIZ IN ORDER TO ENHANCE SUGGESTION SYSTEM EFFECTIVENESS by Sedigheh Khorshid was the most surprising paper of the conference, since she traveled from Iran to Monterrey to participate. But, since we have a global tradition in TRIZ (I always felt that both Korea and California are important to the European meeting) there should be no surprise that Iran is now in “Iberoamerica.” The emphasis on TRIZ in Professor Khorshid’s program at the Shahid Bahonar University is in the solution of management problems. Her case study demonstrated significant improvement in both the submission of suggestions and the implementation of suggestions when the employees were taught QFD, to better understand the needs of their customers, and TRIZ, to formulate ideas that would satisfy those needs.Many organizations are recognizing the need for innovation by all employees. Enhancing existing suggestion systems by giving employees better skills for making suggestions can be a very fast way to get more benefits from the current system.

I2T2 is the program for innovation and technology transfer. Starting from a 10 minute discussion with Noel Leon 3 years ago, there is now a large university/ government/business joint venture to enhance innovation and technology in Monterrey. The power of an idea was visible in the photographs of the industrial park that is being developed to provide an environment that will be conducive to the development of a community of innovation.

The conference concluded with many good wishes for a successful year of innovation, and plans to meet next year in Guadalajara. I’ll be meeting our readers much sooner than that, since I’ll be reporting from the European TRIZ Association TRIZ Futures meeting in Frankfurt next week.

Readers are invited (begged!) to use the comment feature on this column, or the discussion forum, to let us know if these commentaries and conference reports are useful to you. Please!!!

Pictures of Monterrey and the surrounding mountains looking East and South from the conference center:

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