TRIZ Forum: Position Paper and Discussion 
Introducing TRIZ into Thailand
on September 1, 2007 at Toshiba Kenshu Center, Yokohama
| TRIZ Forum: Position Paper and Discussion |
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Introducing TRIZ into Thailand |
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| Position Paper by Kritaya Suparnpongs, Saranya Chandravat, Chiraphon Rayakaeo, and Yuthapong Matejitkul (SCG, Thailand) | |
| Discussions in the Special Session | |
| Presented at The Third TRIZ Symposium in Japan, on September 1, 2007 at Toshiba Kenshu Center, Yokohama |
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| [Posted on Nov. 18, 2007] |
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Editor's Note (Toru Nakagawa, Nov. 17, 2007)
This page is a record of the Special Session on the topic of "Introducing TRIZ into Thailand" held on the final day of The Third TRIZ Symposium in Japan, held on Aug. 30 - Sept. 1, 2007 at Toshiba Kenshu Center, Yokohama.
Four people coming from Thailand gave a joint presentation of their position papers with the title of "Introducing TRIZ into SCG", for 20 minutes. Their slides are posted here in the PDF format
(25 slides, 1065 KB).
The latter 20 minutes were devoted for discussion. On three questions posed by the people from Thailand, TRIZ leaders from USA, Belgium, UK, and Japan shared their experiences and thoughts frankly and positively. The discussion was so informative in spite of such a short time that we have found it worthy of taking notes and reproducing with annotations by the discussants. The discussion note is shown here in HTML and in PDF
Introduction: Background description (Toru Nakagawa):
On receiving four people from Thailand at the Symposium, a Special Session of 40 minutes was set at the end of the final day. About 15 people attended this session held in the sub-conference room of double tracks.
The topic was "Introducing TRIZ into Thailand". On this topic the four people from Thailand gave a 'Position Paper' for 20 minutes for introducing themselves and their background and current activities related to TRIZ.
"TRIZ in SCG" by Kritaya Suparnpongs, Saranya Chandravat (Siam Cement PLC, Thailand), Chiraphon Rayakaeo (Thai Paper Co., Thailand), and Yuthapong Matejitkul (SCG Paper PLC, Thailand). [See the slides in PDF
The latter 20 minutes of the Session were dedicated to free discussions. People from Thailand posed three questions, or requests for advices, and the participants in the room answered one after another under the coordination by Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin Univ.).
The three questions posed are:
(1) How TRIZ is applied with service business, e.g. logistics?
(2) From your experience, what are pitfalls in introducing TRIZ and how to avoid them?
(3) TRIZ is a technical tool. How to make top management buy-in quickly?The discussions are done on (1) quickly, then on (2) for a while, and on (3) briefly, and finally again on (2). The discussions were done with frank and positive attitude all the way, and are useful as something like a closing discussion of the Third TRIZ Symposium in Japan, in spite of such a short time and a small number of participants.
The notes below are originally recorded by K. Suparnpongs et al., and are annotated later by the participants who made the comments.
Question 1. How TRIZ is applied with service business, e.g. logistics?
[Paul Filmore (Univ. of Plymouth, UK)] Find the answer in the book recommended in the session 'Systematic Innovation for Business & Management: Experiences 1994-2007' by Darrel Mann (Read by P. Filmore) of this Symposium. Apart from having the TRIZ tools related to business and management, the book is a useful reference book as the trends and principles have many business & management examples.
Book ‘Hands-On Systematic Innovation for Business & Management’
from: http://www.systematic-innovation.com/Products/products01.htm
Question 2. From your experience, what are pitfalls in introducing TRIZ and how to avoid them?
[Larry Ball (Honeywell, USA)] Don’t try to train all people. Train a small group of people deeply and then hope that these people have spectacular results.
[P. Filmore] People who are trained, need motivation to get them to try it on their own. After the training session, it is important that the participants know that the trainer will be back in one month, when they will have to each give a 7 mins presentation of their use/ problems of use of TRIZ. The rest of the session should be used for support and further updating, again so that participants feel supported.
[P. Filmore] Training should be designed to take participants twice (at least) around the Learning Cycle (doing – reflecting – theorizing – planning for action).
[S. Dewulf (CREAX, Belgium)] Free Software of TRIZ can be downloaded from CREAX website. Here are the links to some of them:
- Free function database: http://function.creax.com
- Free innovation resources: http://www.creax.net/
- Free software download (including management matrix): http://www.creaxinnovationsuite.com/download_form.aspx
- Free example database: http://www.moreinspiration.com/
[P. Filmore] “Don’t rush to buy software”. Software introduced too early can stop people trying to understand and use the TRIZ tools, i.e., leads to dependency and mediocrity.
[L. Ball] Training key persons among engineers is most important. Pick influential engineers to mentor.
[L.Ball] Establish a “TRIZ community” within the company. These people can be at all different levels of understanding. Familiarity with others that are using TRIZ will help to spread TRIZ.
[L. Ball] Establish TRIZ forum where you invite Guest Speakers from outside and inside the company. These people bring different perspectives that keep people interested. ”
[L. Ball] In addition to 'Learning TRIZ' and 'Applying TRIZ', you should also advise people to ‘Teach TRIZ’. Once someone comes in a position of Teaching, he/she realizes a lot of questions to answer.
[Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin University, Japan)] Build a "TRIZ Home Page in Thailand". Start it in a simple way. For example, a report of the Japan TRIZ Symposium is good enough for an article to start. Post various articles one by one, and you will find your Web site growing together with your readers.
[Shinsuke Kurosawa (SANNO Institute of Management, Japan)] TRIZ is not a tool which is able to solve everything. Set the expectation level not too high before implementing and do it effectively.
[T. Nakagawa] I have been conducting Training Courses of USIT (i.e., a simplified and unified method of applying TRIZ) arranged in 2 days with group practices. Introduction to TRIZ and USIT is given first, and then lectures and group practices are done along the course of problem solving with USIT. There are 5-7 members in a group and 20 members in a class. Three real problems are brought in by the participants and are to be solved by group practice in two days. Since they are unsolved real problems, nobody (including the Instructor and the problem owner) knew the solution beforehand. Thus the solution ideas obtained by the group practices prove the capability and effectiveness of the problem solving method. This is a practical way of teaching the method and penetrating it in industries.
[S. Dewulf] Show several examples of TRIZ application to members (e.g., CREAX’s examples).
[S. Kurosawa] Don’t give the problem solving team a solution but give them the alternatives. Let them select the best option by themselves.
[Mikio Adachi (Denso, Japan)] An internal consultant should act as a facilitator and be one of the team. He/she should understand the real difficulty of the problem and share the feeling of the problem owner(s) who have been struggling with the unsolved problem for a (long) time. An external consultant may show or guide the team to certain solution(s), but the team often cannot say to him/her, except polite thanks, that the solutions are not satisfactory or applicable yet in their real situations. Internal TRIZ consultants should be able to listen to the team's real needs and guide the team to achieve real applicable solutions. The ultimate goal of activities for internal TRIZ consultants should be to effectively achieve profitable solutions for the company with the use of TRIZ (and/or any other methods). For this purpose, the internal consultants should stand at the same position with the team. This is the key point I have found from my experiences of committing about 40 projects as an internal TRIZ consultant.
Question 3. TRIZ is a technical tool. How to make top management buy-in quickly?
[L. Ball] Be careful what you ask for. While we would all like to have management support, management may demand a rapid deployment or may dictate that it be deployed in an ineffective way. It is best to start small and have the foundation for deployment such as books, classes and training materials before management decides to launch a big training program.
[P. Filmore] It may not be necessary to start with Top Management. Pick a very possible and very high value cases to solve would make management see its usefulness.
[S. Dewulf] Top management is also important since he supports financial resources.
| Top of this page | Position Paper PDF |
Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Discussion PDF |
Japan TRIZ Symposium 2007 (Official Page) |
Nakagawa's Personal Reoprt of Japan TRIZ Symp. 2007 |
Last updated on Nov. 18, 2007. Access point: Editor: nakagawa@utc.osaka-gu.ac.jp
