Full immersion TRIZ in education

Within the University of Twente, the Netherlands, TRIZ is seen as a powerful methodology that stimulates students in investigating innovative solutions during the product development process. The TRIZ methodology has been part of the Twente curriculum for many years, mainly as small parts of courses and projects. In 2009, TRIZ was presented as an 84 or 140 hour master course for the first time. The course organisation differs from regular university courses both by subject, timing and intensity. The course was offered during the summer break within two weeks, with a workload reaching 10+ hours a day. This paper describes the course itself, course results and the student evaluation of the course

TRIZ: Theory of Solving Inventive Problems to support engineering innovation in maritime industry

The key ingredient, which provides the strongest impact on success of an innovation process, is the stage of generating new inventive solution ideas, which requires creativity and out-of-the-box thinking. Until the beginning of the 2000th, and even still very much today, creative engineering has been random and chaotic as it was not supported by scientifically based methods. As a result, the process has low effectiveness of dealing with situations demanding new inventive solutions. Introduction of TRIZ (Theory of Solving Inventive Problems) has radically changed the situation in many industries. TRIZ provides a structured support to organize engineering creativity based on many years of studies of innovative development of diverse technical systems and technologies. These studies helped to extract and formulate generic patterns of inventive solutions, which can be reused to produce new ideas in a much shorter time period rather than using traditional methods to enhance creative thinking. Although TRIZ has been successfully used in a number of industries, its use in maritime industry has been rather limited, most likely due to the low awareness by maritime engineers. This paper discusses modern TRIZ and presents some of its techniques that can be utilized in maritime engineering

Application of Root Conflict Analysis (RCA+) to formulate inventive problems in the maritime industry

Over the past decades, demand for innovation in diverse industries, including the maritime industry, has been steadily growing. One of the primary sources of innovation has been the finding of inventive solutions to the most challenging problems. Until recently, the search for inventive ideas relied heavily on random and chaotic methods of boosting creative capabilities, thus drastically reducing productivity in the generation of new concepts and solutions. With the emergence of systematic methods for generating inventive solutions, the situation has changed. Modern methods such as TRIZ suggest a process of solving problems in a systematic way whereby each phase of the process is supported by the relevant analytical techniques and heuristic tools. This article presents Root Conflict Analysis (RCA+), a technique for problem analysis developed for the top-down decomposition of problems to chains of causes and contradictions. The article provides an example of applying RCA+ to discover the causes and contradictions which led a ferry to lose stability at sea

R&D in Poland: is the country close to a knowledge-driven economy?

Poland has a strong ambition to evolve rapidly into a knowledge-driven economy. Since 2004, it has been the largest beneficiary of European Union cohesion policy funds among all member states. Between 2007 and 2013, Poland was allocated approximately EUR 67 billion, whereas for 2014-2020 the EU budget earmarked EUR 82.5 billion for Polish cohesion policy. This means that in the coming years, Poland’s R&D intensity will grow. But the question remains: is 27 years of free market economy enough to enable a country’s economy to become knowledge-based ? This paper offers an analysis of Polish R&D expenditures and investments in terms of their sources (business, government or higher edu-cation sectors), types (European Union or state aid) and areas of support (infrastructure, education or innovation). It also characterises the Polish R&D market with its strengths and weaknesses. Then, it examines the process of technology transfer in Poland, comparing it to best practice. Finally, the paper lays out the barriers to effective commercialisation that need to be overcome, and attempts to answer the question raised in its title

Applying the Anticipatory Failure Determination at a Very Early Stage of a System’s Development: Overview and Case Study

Anticipatory Failure Determination (AFD) is a tool used in the TRIZ (Theory of Inventive Problem Solving) methodology. This article introduces its concept and describes the process of AFD in different versions of the method. The article presents the application of the AFD method at a very early state of a system’s development, i.e. its concept formulation stage, which corresponds to a technology readiness level (TRL) equal to 2. The system under analysis is a set of devices used to reduce displacement ship hull resistance. The system was modelled using functional analysis. An analysis of system resources was then carried out. Possible direct, indirect, and accident-related failures were identified. A multi-criteria analysis of the causes of system failures was conducted from which the top 10 potential failures were selected. Observations were made on the applicability of AFD in respect to systems not yet implemented

Is Poland an innovative country?

The potential for innovativeness is difficult to measure, though many have attempted to do so. In order to look at Poland’s innovation potential, its current position and its opportunity to grow, compared with developing and developed countries, this study analysed the patent statistics of the Polish and European Patent Offices. Poland has been a member of the European Union for over a decade now. Therefore, we took into consideration the statistics for patent applications and grants for the last decade, up to the first quarter of 2016. The questions we wanted to answer concerned not only the technology fields that Poland patented its inventions in, but also the types of patent grantees and applicants. In order to determine why Poland is still considered to be only a moderate innovator by the Innovation Union Scoreboard, we also gathered information on Polish inventors abroad in 2015 and the first quarter of 2016, to see their number, technology fields, and types of patent grantees. Finally, we attempted to identify the main barriers that seem to inhibit Polish technology and innovation growth, despite significantly growing R&D intensities (up from 0.56 GDP and EUR 1,139 M in 2004 to 0.94 GDP and EUR 3,864 M in 2014)

R&D in Poland: Is the Country Close to a Knowledge-Driven Economy?

Poland has a strong ambition to evolve rapidly into a knowledge-driven economy. Since 2004, it has been the largest beneficiary of European Union cohesion policy funds among all member states. Between 2007 and 2013, Poland was allocated approximately EUR 67 billion, whereas for 2014-2020 the EU budget earmarked EUR 82.5 billion for Polish cohesion policy. This means that in the coming years, Poland’s R&D intensity will grow. But the question remains: is 27 years of free market economy enough to enable a country’s economy to become knowledge-based ? This paper offers an analysis of Polish R&D expenditures and investments in terms of their sources (business, government or higher edu-cation sectors), types (European Union or state aid) and areas of support (infrastructure, education or innovation). It also characterises the Polish R&D market with its strengths and weaknesses. Then, it examines the process of technology transfer in Poland, comparing it to best practice. Finally, the paper lays out the barriers to effective commercialisation that need to be overcome, and attempts to answer the question raised in its title