Review of the Annual Altshuller Triz Conference
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This year's TRIZCon was held in Louisville in conjunction with the American Society for Quality's 75th anniversary conference. Specialists in techniques such as QFD and Six Sigma have slowly discovered that clearly identifying the problem but only using "within company" and psychological techniques are insufficient to achieve truly breakthrough solutions.

We had the privilege of presenting two papers, one on the use of TRIZ in "reverse" (Predictive Failure Analysis[TM])for business continuity planning and a conference opening presentation on the use of TRIZ 9-Box thinking for new product development analysis. The proceedings from this conference are available from the Altshuller Institute web site, www.aitriz.org.

Some highlights and learnings from these presentations (our top ten list, not counting our own!):

1. The combining of the 9-Box analysis (which we've discussed many times) with function analysis and contradiction analysis in analyzing a large transportation infrastructure as well as a fleet management system, allowing an optimization that no one single tool could achieve. These presentation demonstrate the robustness of TRIZ and other tools outside their original pure technology applications.
2. Combining TRIZ problem solving tools with perception mapping.
3. The use of TRIZ in patent portfolio mapping (again, you've heard a lot about this from us and is an area in which we have unique skills). The Taiwan Textile Institute made this presentation.
4. Dr.Sawaguchi presented on the subject of risk management in the IT field, including harmful function analysis, weak and dangerous zone concepts as applied to IT risks.
5. Understanding of TRIZ acceptance via Hermann's brain dominance theory.
6. The use of TRIZ in software innovation by Darrell Mann.
7. Use of the TRIZ concept of "super-effects" in circuit board design. This is the multiple combination, usually starting with an idea for trimming and/or resource use, that compounds the impact of TRIZ analysis on a system.
8. Experiences with introducing TRIZ into the graduate education program at a major Japanese university.
9. The use of TRIZ to optimize Tailor Welded Blank Technology used in the auto assembly area (Dr. Noel Leon, a colleague from Mexico).
10. Integration of TRIZ with "S" curve analysis by IWINT. Again, this is not a new topic for us, but it's good to see others using.

What you can see from this list is the broadening of TRIZ applications in a significant way and that is the proof of the robustness of a technology. Will be glad to discuss any of the above presentations and topics with you.