Japan TRIZ Symposium 2010 Paper


From Technical to Business Contradiction :
Example of a New Crane
Seung-Hyun Yoo, Manyop Han, and Ung-Rak Jeong
(Ajou University, Korea)
The Sixth TRIZ Symposium in Japan, Held by Japan TRIZ Society on Sept. 9-11, 2010 at Kanagawa Institute of Technology, Atsugi, Kanagawa, Japan
Introduction by Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin Univ.), Mar. 21, 2011
[Posted on Sept 19, 2011] 

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Editor's Note (Toru Nakagawa, Sept. 18, 2011)

This paper was presented by Seung-Hyun Yoo a year ago in an Oral session at the Sixth TRIZ Symposium in Japan, 2010.  Presentation slides have been posted in PDF both in English and in Japanese translation (by Toshiaki Masaki) in the Members-only page of Japan TRIZ Society's Official Site since last March.  For wider circulation, they are now posted here publicly under the permissions of the Authors. 

Last March I posted an introduction to this paper as a part of my Personal Report of the Symposium.  The excerpt is posted here again in English. 

This paper reports an excellent case study of technical problem solving, i.e. a proposal of a new type of gantry crane where the trolleys rotate vertically and which can have about 3 times of thoughputs according to their simulation.  But the authors are facing with a new business contradiction that any company would not dare to try to build the giant crane for the first time. 

Top of this page Abstract Slides in PDF Slides in Japanese, PDF Nakagawa's Introduction Nakagawa's Personal Report of Japan TRIZ Symp. 2010 Japan TRIZ Symp. 2010 Japanese page

[1] Abstract

From Technical to Business Contradiction :
Example of a New Crane

Seung-Hyun Yoo, Manyop Han, and Ung-Rak Jeong
(Ajou University, Korea)

Abstract

A new vertically rotating type of gantry crane is developed. The new concept was evolved from the main contents of TRIZ, such as Dynamicity, Spheroidality, Periodic Action in 40 principles. The new idea was implemented in new system and usual design activities were followed. They system is designed in system and element level. Engineering simulation shows the concept was successfully realized and the dynamic simulation reveals the exact clockwork of the system. But the real problem appears after this real engineering accomplishment. As the system is so huge, it is not possible to sell so far. The problem emerged in business not the technology. The business problem falls in quite reasonable to an example of a business contradiction.

Extended Abstract

A gantry crane is a big structure used in a harbour to transfer cargos from ship to harbour and vice versa. Current traditional system is not perfectly optimized in the sense of efficiency. Sway problem is always a restriction and the speed of crane is not fast enough to cover ever increasing cargos. A new concept of circulating type of crane is perceived and implemented after several years of R&D efforts. Fig. 1 shows the view of the conceptual diagram of the crane.

Fig. 1. A Picture of a New Rotating Gantry Crane

Current system runs in a mono way which cannot be speed up dramatically. Instead, new system uses circulating roller spreader. The system is boastful of high speed of 70 – 150 van/hr. As many successful TRIZ solutions provide additional good effects, this system has many more merits. As this system avoids sway problem, there is no need of skilled operator. In a sense, the new system is overwhelmingly better than current system technically.

But there appears a more serious problem in business sense. Even the developers (mainly engineers) spent many efforts to develop and finished design successfully, there is a big problem to sell this system. Basically the system is so huge that people are reluctant to buy for the first time. Here is the contradictory situation.

If the sample is small and can be shown with small investment, there is no problem to make people see and believe. As the system is so big and expensive, people are not sure about the reality of the system with computer simulation. One suggestion is to make a 1/n model and show. But it is still big money and we are sceptic that the people would make an order by a working miniature. To the author, it is truly an example of a business contradiction and it is not yet solved. The presentation will give details of the design and simulation of the new gantry crane and explain the business contradiction. If the authors (who are the developers) solve this problem before the presentation, they would happily report the results. If it is not possible, they would ask a collective wisdom from the TRIZ community.


[2]  Presentation Slides in PDF

Presentation Slides in English in PDF (32 slides, 2.4 MB)

Presentation Slides in Japanese in PDF (32 slides, 2.5 MB) (Japanese translation by Toshiaki Masaki (Nitto Denko))

 


[3]  Introduction to the Presentation (by Nakagawa)

Excerpt from: 
Personal Report of The Sixth TRIZ Symposium in Japan, 2010, Part D
by Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin University),
Posted on Mar. 21, 2011 in "TRIZ Home Page in Japan"

 

Seung-Hyun Yoo, Manyop Han, and Ung-Rak Jeong (Ajou University, Korea) [E04, O-2] gave an Oral presentation with the title of "From Technical to Business Contradiction: An Example of New Gantry Crane".  The Authors' Abstract is quoted here:

A new vertically rotating type of gantry crane is developed. The new concept was evolved from the main contents of TRIZ, such as Dynamicity, Spheroidality, Periodic Action in 40 principles. The new idea was implemented in new system and usual design activities were followed. The product is designed in system and element level. Engineering simulation shows the concept was successfully realized and the dynamic simulation reveals the exact clockwork of the system. But the difficult problem appears after this real engineering accomplishment. As the system is so huge, it is not possible to sell so far. The problem emerged not in the technology but in the business. The business problem reveals quite reasonable example of a business contradiction. Struggle with this problem without success is described.

In the slide (right), the Authors show a brief overview of the current business situations of container terminals in ports.  Ever increasing size of ships urges more efficiency/productivity in loading/unloading the containers.  Thus the Authors worked for the development (or designing) high performance cranes. 

By using TRIZ on this technical problem, the Authors obtained a basic idea of using cyclic motion of the trolley instead of linear back-and-forth motion.  As shown in the slide (below-left), their first solution concept was a horizontal rotation system just like the one used in Ski Lift.  Then, by overcoming the Psychological Inertia, they developed a new solution concept of vertically rotating system (see slide (below-right)).  The new Gantry Crane has two sets of trolley rails (i.e., upper and lower rails for going and returning, respectively), and at the ends of the rails the trolley is moved up and down by using an elevator.

 

The Authors developed their engineering model, as shown in the slide (center).  As summarized in the Features (slide (right-top)), 5 trolleys are working in a cyclic manner.  No-sway is resulted from the vertical setting of every load.


 

The design of Operation Cycle of the system is most interesting.  The slide (right) is the schematic of the Operation Cycle, for the case of lifting the containers at the land (left-side) and loading them onto the ship (right-side).  At the stage 1), the land-side Hoist for Trolley 1 is going to descend the Spreader (without container); a container is coupled at the stage 3) and is lifted up at the Stage 4).  Then in the next cycle, the same Trolley (now named Trolley 5) is waiting for a while and moved to the ship-side Hoist.  In the 3rd cycle, the container of the Trolley (No. 4) is lowered and unloaded on the ship.  In the 4th cycle the Trolley (No. 3) is moved to the upper rail, and in the 5th cycle the Trolley (No. 2) is transferred to the position next to the land-side Hoist.  The time analysis is summarized in the slide (below).

The Authors further carried out static and dynamic simulation analyses of the system and developed well a new Gantry Crane.  The features and advantages of the system are shown in the slides (below-left and below-center).  Real-time performance is 4 times faster than ordinary crane.  The Authors summarize the results very positively in the "technical" viewpoints, as shown in the slide (below-right).

     

The problem for the Authors is now the business problem, they say (See the four slides (below)).  They have started a small venture company for the business of the new Gantry Crane.  But they face with the Business Contradiction: Customers want a proven, real working system but without order (or fund) the venture company cannot make a real product.  Since the new system is huge and expensive, nobody wants to take the risk of building the first model.

The following 3 slides (below) discusses on possible solutions, real problems, and strategic suggestions.  These are of course typical problems for technology-oriented venture companies, but are particularly serious in the present case because of the huge technical system. 

     

The Authors shows the slide (right) as the conclusion.

After this presentation, there were various discussions and suggestions on the business problem. Since business problems depend much on specific situations, such suggestions may not be applicable to the present case.

[*** This is a nice case study of a technical problem. The development of the solution concept and brushing it up with simulations into a practical solution are a nice work for a university laboratory and its venture company.  Since the solution seems excellent, we wish the Authors find some opportunities to make it in reality.]

 

[Note: We have now posted the original presentation slides in the present Web site in English and in Japanese . (Sept. 19, 2011)]

Top of this page Abstract Slides in PDF Slides in Japanese, PDF Nakagawa's Introduction Nakagawa's Personal Report of Japan TRIZ Symp. 2010 Japan TRIZ Symp. 2010 Japanese page

 

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Last updated on Sept. 19, 2011.     Access point:  Editor: nakagawa@ogu.ac.jp