2016

TRIZ is an innovation technique that professionals systematically apply according to a defined set of principles. Originally developed in Russia by Genrich Altshuller in the 1940s, TRIZ took a number of years to cross the ocean and become available in English. By the early 1990s, TRIZ gained a foothold in the U.S. and slowly began spreading globally from its Russia and USA “centers of excellence.” TRIZ is now practiced in at least 50 countries.

TRIZ is likely the most powerful innovation tool on the planet, and has been for the past twenty-five years. Altshuller set out to identify the common inventive principles that run across patents.  After examining a sample population of forty-thousand patents, he identified “76 Standard Inventive Solutions.”  As well, he found there are only “39 Characteristics That Technologists Seek To Optimize” and only “40 Inventive Principles To Optimize Characteristics.” Altshuller reduced many of the acts of innovating to a systematic process.

Rubbish you say?  Over the past twenty-five years others have analyzed larger sample sizes of up to two million patents. The new findings were not significant enough to change Altshuller’s published works.

Why hasn’t TRIZ become more prevalent at this time?  There are several possible reasons, and the answer is likely a combination of them.  With origins in Russia, and most of the world’s original experts coming from Russia, TRIZ didn’t hit western civilization with a running start.  The methodology is also complex.  Few westerners look at a rule-driven 39×40 matrix and want to dive in.  There is also a significant amount of time to learn the process to reasonable proficiency, about the same time it takes to become a six-sigma black belt.  And, until the past ten years, the priority across industries was supply chain optimization and operational excellence.  Innovation, in the big picture of time, is only recently at the top of the list – except for a blip in the late 1990s.

TRIZ is still not catching fire with western companies, but it is catching fire with eastern companies.  Very quietly, over the past decade, South Korean companies are rapidly adopting TRIZ.  Chinese companies are not far behind, and both groups are growing rapidly.

There are a handful of companies in the USA that each have hundreds of people practicing TRIZ.  That is a huge number.  Why haven’t we heard anything about it?  Because TRIZ is giving them a tremendous competitive advantage. Employees are discouraged to discuss the subject outside of the company, never mind to present their work at conferences.  TRIZ does not have a Jack Welsh that is going to get his company ahead first, then bring his best practices to the world.  Absent a Jack Welsh, TRIZ risks being just another tool in a long list of tools – except in Asia where its value is quickly being understood.

There are TRIZ-inspired designs all around us, but no one talks about it for competitive reasons.  If you have held one of those new water bottles that has a waistline and a much smaller cap, and uses half the plastic, you are holding a TRIZ-based design.  It seems a bit flimsy because we have become used to sturdy water bottles, but it stands the drop test like the cylindrical bottle with twice the plastic.  Imagine the cost reduction if you are a bottle manufacturer.  And, less water bottles slip out of one’s hand.  This thought process is now making its way into laboratories where dropping bottles can be a real problem.  The old fashioned cylindrical beaker, with the single lip at the very top, may eventually go the way of the dinosaur.

GGI has been following TRIZ, and its several manifestations in processes and logic engines for software, since the early 1990s. By the early 2000s, enough of Altshuller’s work had been translated and TRIZ became generally available to western companies.  In 2008, GGI researched the penetration of 67 innovation tools and included TRIZ.  Next to the usage of the USPTO web site and the use of internal wikis, TRIZ was the third most used technique of the 67 techniques we researched. The CTO of Invention Machine, one of the software companies with TRIZ underpinnings, had been speaking at GGI’s Summits since 2005 which continued until IHS in England purchased IM.

The Altshuller Institute for TRIZ Studies (Worcester, MA) found out about our research and our long-time interest in TRIZ about a year ago.  They invited us to keynote the annual USA TRIZCON2016 conference which was just held March 3-5, 2016 in New Orleans.  To prepare for TRIZCON2016, we performed original research on the global adoption of TRIZ since its translation into English twenty-five years ago.  We were told at the conference that our research was new-to-the-world, and was previously only anecdotally understood by a handful of people.

TRIZ Is Now Practiced In 50 Countries [Machine Design – April 2016] focuses on the rapid global adoption of TRIZ, which grew at a compounded annual growth rate of 40%, during the past decade.

TRIZ is an innovation tool and methodology that is based on an analysis of the inventive attributes of patents.  It is unique when compared to the some 350 innovation tools and enablers that are available to corporations.

GGI has been following the growth and evolution of TRIZ since the 1990s when its body of knowledge was first translated into English.  Originally the work of a single person, Genrich Altshuller, a low level officer in the Navy of the former Soviet Union in the 1950s, there are now some 18,000 people around the globe that have become certified in the application of TRIZ.  And, many more are practicing TRIZ without yet formally applying for certification.

As we know, for a myriad of reasons, it takes years and some times decades for techniques developed in the East to become accepted and adopted in the West.  Such is the case for TRIZ, translated from its Russian name as “the theory of inventive problem solving.”

Since 2008, the adoption for TRIZ has been growing steadily.  This growth has been driven by a combination of the power of the tool, the efforts of several non-profit and for-profit organizations that espouse its usage, the incorporation of TRIZ’s logic into several increasingly popular innovation software packages, and some large influential corporations that have made commitments to TRIZ within their company.  The companies that have allowed their interest to become public knowledge include Intel, General Electric, Boeing, DRS, Samsung, and Hyundai.

GGI’s most recent research on TRIZ was conducted late in 2015.  This “secondary research” effort involved the analysis of a number of public web-based sources and privately disclosed information to GGI.  This research built on our several previous “primary research” efforts on TRIZ during the past fifteen years.

To our surprise, after observing fairly uniform and even growth across countries in prior research efforts, our recent findings indicate that growth in Eastern Europe and especially in Asia now dwarfs the growth in most Western countries.  In fact, South Korea’s adoption is now approximately 15x that of the next nearest country on an absolute basis.  The skewing is so severe that it is necessary to remove South Korea from the data set in order to analyze the rest of the countries that use TRIZ.  Some 50 countries now have certified TRIZ practitioners, but, as you can see from the diagram below, South Korea’s overwhelming presence obscures their slivers of the pie at a global level.

As a result of GGI’s unbiased research, Brad Goldense has been invited to deliver the keynote address at the largest TRIZ Conference in North America this year. TRIZCON2016 will be held in New Orleans on March 3-5, 2016 at Tulane University. Greater than half of TRIZ’s global rock stars will be presenting at this conference making it a worthwhile venue in which to learn more about this powerful innovation tool and method.

If you are interested, The Altshuller Institute for TRIZ Studies who produces TRIZCON has extended a 10% discount to anyone from GGI’s network that might like to register.  If you decide to attend, please use the code “TRIZGOLD” when registering to receive your discount.  Just so you know, GGI receives no financial remuneration for anyone registering from our network.

If TRIZCON2016 sounds too immersive to you, but you would like to learn more about TRIZ, GGI’s Innovation Summits have contained a “TRIZ Module” since 2005.  Along with some 65 other generally available innovation tools, we’ll be sure to up your awareness of what TRIZ may offer to you and to your company.  GGI will be holding our 14th R&D-Product Development Innovation Summit on March 29-31, 2016 in Norwood, Massachusetts.