Quality Alchemist (品質煉金術師): The 6th International Conference on Systematic Innovation

The 6th International Conference on Systematic Innovation (ICSI 2015) was organized by The Society of Systematic Innovation (SSI), Taiwan and co-organized by Institute of Systematic Innovation, Hong Kong (ISIHK), Manufacturing and Industrial Division of the Hong Kong Institution of Engineer (HKIE) and Department of Industrial Engineering and Logistics Management (IELM), HKUST, held from 15-17 July 2015. Before the last day of conference, we took a photo with Mr. Darrell Mann. (Left: I, Mr. Darrell Mann, Dr. Michael Li, Dr. Victor Lo and Mr. David Kwan)

The morning parallel session, Prof. Surachai Tumtavitikul (Thammasat University) and I were session chair to rate the paper.

The first speaker was Prof. Kazuhiro Takeyasu (Tokoha University) and his presentation entitled “Questionnaire Investigation on Jewelry / Accessory Internet Shopping and its Analysis Utilizing Bayesian Network”.

Prof. Takeyasu had led his research team employed Extended Analysis Method for different topics. The questionnaire research focused on young person in Japan and the survey period from May 2008 to June 2009. There were 421 samples collected from 1500 mail (collection rate is 28.1%).

Prof. Takeyasu employed Structure Equation Model (SEM) and hypothesis test to construct the model below. Arrows showed significant relationship between each element. He concluded that jewelry/accessory buying via the internet was increasing, especially for young people. However, they often had difficulty deciding what kind of jewelry/accessory. Therefore, this study would like to develop online network consulting service to support this decision.

Prof. Kazuhiro Takeyasu (Tokoha University) another project named “Brand Selection and its Matrix Structure in a Brand Bag Purchasing Case”. It also employed the Extended Analysis Method.

Prof. Takeyasu would like to build the ranking table for mapping the brand bags with which class of customers. They did the numerical calculation for simulate consumers’ behavior and to evaluate brand position.

The third speaker was Ms. Asami Shitara (Arknet) and her presentation topic named “Optimization in Allocating Goods to Shop Shelves Utilizing Genetic Algorithm Under the Introduction of Sales Probabilities”. She would like to seek how to optimize in allocating goods to shop shelves in this study. Benefit means Sales Probability x Profit. She built different algorithm to evaluation the sales probability in each time zone and in multiple shelves.

The last speaker was Mr. Daisuke Takeyasu (Social Worker, Shizuoka, Japan) and his topic was “Multivariate Analysis for the Questionnaire Investigation in the Support of High School Teachers by the School Social Worker”. He also used the Extended Analysis Method and Factor Analysis. His study clarified the possibility of utilizing school social worker for supporting and guiding club activities that student feel less burden.

The Conference Forum: The Status, Barriers and Prospects of SI Development: Leveraging Experiences Across Regions was performed.

Mr. Darrell Mann (CEO, Systematic Innovation Ltd. UK) gave speech first. He reviewed TRIZ / SI in Europe and found to fit the Hype Cycle. Then he mentioned that only ICMM Level 4 and 5 companies which TRIZ capability was best suit for them. However, ICMM Level 4 or 5 companies were only 4% of enterprises.

Then Darrell Mann shared the emerging evolution pattern. We would get some hints to promote SI/TRIZ in our region.

Prof. D. Daniel Sheu shared Taiwan situation. He said TRIZ was first introduced to Taiwan around 1998 but it had not been pervasive yet.

Prof. Shen summarized his observation of barriers for promoting SI/TRIZ in the following tables. He added to accumulate and analyze the success/failure causes across regions and sharing more non-industrial cases for more people to understand SI tools.

Dr. Michael Li shared that he also found difficult to promote TRIZ in Hong Kong. TRIZ first promoted in Hong Kong by Hong Kong Productivity Council ten years ago. But it was fail because the mainly industries in Hong Kong were SMEs. They had no this capability.

I was invited by Dr. Li for sharing my view on TRIZ. I said it was difficult both in Academic and Industry. Firstly, there was no high SCI index journal in the field of TRIZ. So it is not attracting professors’ interest. Secondly, there was no big impact on industry like Six Sigma in GE which created Six Sigma wave worldwide.

Prof. Toru Nakagawa shared Japan situation. He said they had enough exposures of TRIZ since 1996. Almost all big industries once introduced TRIZ but a few of them promoted it company-wide (e.g. Hitachi (1997-present), Panasonic (2003-2010) and Olympus (2010)). TRIZ taught only 10 to 20 universities (very weak) in Japan.

Prof. Nakagawa proposed to establish a Public Web site in SI/TRIZ/CrePS in our region and we needed to translate for sharing worldwide.

Dr. Jianhong Ma (Hebei Technology of University) shared China situation. Government supported Systematic Innovation with national policy to train innovation engineers and built multi-level innovation bases in province stage and national stage.

She added CAI tools didn’t work very well in enterprises in China because of language barrier, operation complex and difficult to learn for beginner. Therefore, the future works should be more wise (Do more things for human), more simple and more knowledge and effect to be presented to design. The evolution process of CAI tool was shown in the following diagram.