Jurgen Jantschgi, University of Leoben, Industrial Liaison Department, Austria

Abstract: Strengthening the innovation power in European companies as well as encouraging sustainable development are two of the main future goals of the EU (see Lisbon goals, European Council 2000). Also in Austria there are several initiatives from local and the federal government to foster these two issues (among other things - Funding Programmes "Plant of the Future", "Protec 2002+", "Technofit"). In the last three years the Industrial Liaison Department of the University of Leoben, Austria, was engaged in several projects both on the European and the regional level to encourage companies to learn and practice innovation - and creativity-tools in order to strengthen their creativity potential. The idea of this paper is to give an overview about these projects, in which the TRIZ methodology plays a major part.

The Projects which will presented in short are: ·

"SUPPORT" - Training Course in the topic Sustainability and Innovation Tools: Funding Programme Leonardo da Vinci ·

"European SUPPORT" - Dissemination and Valourization of the training course SUPPORT : Funding Programme Leonardo da Vinci ·

"SMEs Innotool" - An Innovation-Toolbox for SMEs: Funding Programme 5th Framework EU, SME?s & Innovation ·

"Technofit" - A set of regional project to foster the use of methods and tools in the product development process in Styrian companies (SMEs).

Further more the University of Leoben is organizing the World Conference "TRIZ Future 2005" - the annual TRIZ-Conference of the European TRIZ Association ETRIA this year.

1) The Industrial Liaison Department at the University of Leoben

The University of Leoben is the most specialised university among the three technical universities in Austria. It enjoys national as well as international reputation for education and research. Science and research at the University deal with the fields of resource engineering, metallurgy, geosciences, materials science and engineering, and environmental science and engineering. The University of Leoben is located in the province Styria, a region located in the Centre of Austria.

The Industrial Liaison Department is responsible for the technology transfer activities at the University of Leoben (building up partnerships between industry and universities for the purpose of active technology transfer).

One of the substantive areas of work of the Industrial Liaison Department can be found in the consultation for companies on topics of the development of new products, the improvement of processes and environmental considerations. In most cases the subsequent projects are managed by the Industrial Liaison Department and the scientific work is carried out by the responsible department. Beneath these projects the Industrial Liaison Department coordinates several scientific and technical projects and involves departments as "consultants" in these projects.

In 2001 the Industrial Liaison Department has started his interest and work with TRIZ.

The following projects are the major attempts and outcomes of the efforts since 2001 to spread the ideas of TRIZ in Austria (mainly among Austrian companies).

2) Projects "SUPPORT" & "European SUPPORT"

The training course SUPPORT has been developed in the framework of the European Leonardo da Vinci programme and shows companies different ways to build up an environmentally sound innovation management system. This approach combines "cleaner production" tools with tools of the TRIZ methodology, which form the main part of the training course. To complete the course programme it has been complemented with tools for the assessment of ideas in respect of their environmental compatibility.

2.1) SUPPORT - Course targets

The most important goals of (the training course) SUPPORT are:

- To highlight the advantages of a methodical approach to innovations

- To convey new tools for problem analysis and idea generation.

- To anchor the ideas concerning sustainabe development

- To arouse interest for creative methods (with emphasis on TRIZ)

The training course mainly deals with the early stages of innovation management - problem analysis, idea generation and idea evaluation. Almost all tools used in the course are taken from the TRIZ methodology.

The topic "environmental awareness" is elaborated with the help of approved tools that have already been used in various projects coping with "cleaner production" and its commercial benefits for individual enterprises. Another central issue is the impact of a sustainable form of business on the global market.

2.2) SUPPORT - The project partnership

The project SUPPORT, launched at the end of the year 2002, was carried out by a group of 16 partners from 6 different countries. (It started at the end of 2002.) The following project partners were part of the development process.

v University of Leoben, Austria

v Joanneum Research, Graz, Austria

v Fa. CREAX, Ieper, Belgium

v Fraunhofer Institute IPT, Aachen, Germany

v AREA, Triest, Italy

v University of Marburg, Slovenia

2.3) SUPPORT - Structure of the training course

SUPPORT consists of seven modules:

1. Introduction module: Innovation / creativity & sustainable development

2. Aspects of Cleaner Production for products and processes

3. TRIZ- tools for problem analysis (innovation checklist, ideality, functional analysis)

4. TRIZ- tools for idea generation I (innovative principles and contradictions)

5. TRIZ - tools for idea generation II (S-curves, evolution lines)

6. Tools for idea evaluation

7. Project management

The modules can either be taken individually (one module a day) or combined to form a whole training course. Modules 1 and 2 explain the importance and the benefit of (that can be expected by) using a methodical approach to "sustainable development" and "creativity" within an innovative process. Modules 3, 4 and 5 cope with innovative tools used for the structured analysis of a given task and the methodical formulation of possible solutions. Module 6 introduces a variety of evaluation criteria to facilitate the assessment of the ideas in hand, taking into account the demands of sustainable development. Module 7 gives an overview of approved project management tools, which can be used to successfully put the chosen ideas into practice.

2.4) SUPPORT - Project products

The main products of SUPPORT are:

· Written materials and CD-Roms for the course participants

· Presentation materials for the course trainers and

· Videos (sequences) of the whole project and its individual modules

In addition to that the participants are given other dissemination materials and can consult the project's homepage а www.leonardo-support.com.

2.5) Project "EUROPEAN SUPPORT"

The project EUROPEAN SUPPORT is running also in the framework of the European Leonardo da Vinci programme and aims to the dissemination of the training course SUPPORT. (It was one out of eight European Leonardo da Vinci projects which were founded in 2004 for further dissemination and valourisation).

The duration of the project is one year and it started in October 2004. Project partners in the following new countries are responsible to foster the idea of the SUPPORT materials: Slovenia, Greece (Cyprus), Estonia, Sweden, Romania.

Most of the training materials will be translated by these partners and the training course will be held in all of these new countries. A further aim is to achieve an international certification of the whole training course SUPPORT and to establish an European platform on product development and technology transfer.

The MA TRIZ Association was engaged to do the TRIZ-certification of the SUPPORT materials. (note: at the moment of writing this paper there are no official MA TRIZ statements - available).

3) Project "SME?s INNOTOOL"

3.1) Objectives of the project "SME?s Innotool"

The project "SMEs innotool" was handed in in the last call of the Fifth Framework programme of the EU, especially in the second horizontal programme "promotion of innovation and encouragement of SME participation (Innovation/SME)".

The objective is to create a practical, i.e. representative of actual circumstances, optimised toolbox which has been developed with and tested several times by SMEs, which will have multiple benefits from the standpoint of the funding agency by:

· creating the prerequisites for an innovation friendly atmosphere in SMEs,

· strengthening the innovation potential by presenting tools for structured problem analysis, idea generation and idea evaluation (а mainly TRIZ),

· imparting the ideas and goals of sustainable development - one of the main economic and social objectives of the European Union &

· encouraging the willingness of SMEs to cooperate with other industries and external institutions.

The project consortium consists of 18 partner institutions from 6 countries in the European Union (United Kingdom, Sweden, Germany, Austria, Slovenia and Italy).

3.2) Target groups of the Projects

The main target groups are enterprises with (entrepreneurs, who have got) their own production plants and R&D departments. The course is designed to help these companies improve the cooperation between innovative (R&D) and environmental departments (environmental or generic management). Additionally, the course aims at students or potential Start-Ups.

3.3) The Toolbox "SME?s Innotool"

At the development of the Toolbox the demands of small and medium sized enterprises are specifically dealt with. This means that the implemented tools can be easily used and without long training sessions and that they are also completely independent from different branches. The Toolbox is meant to supply an overview-knowledge in useful tools, at the same time an application of the tools by means of included working material will also be possible. In addition, the digital version of the Toolbox shall be completely independent from the operating system and an implementation into the company-own intranet shall also be possible.

The structure of the Toolbox can be described as follows:

· After access there will be the selection of the language. Then the start page of Toolbox for the user will have the following structure

· The Toolbox is subdivided into the main issues Innovation Atmosphere - Sustainable Development - Technology Transfer und Product Development , the issue Product Development is again subdivided into the three fields Analysis - Ideas und Evaluation. On the left side the complete structure of Toolbox will be accessible for the user in a navigation frame in tree structure. The Toolbox has a logically comprehensible structure and can be operated just like a normal website. The available navigation frame resembles the Windows-Explorer and can be easily operated. The separate folders can be opened with a click on "+" or closed with a click on "-".

· For each tool there exists a document overview page. The documents are subdivided into three groups: descriptions / working material / examples

All working documents will be embedded in the toolbox in pdf, doc, xls oder ppt file format.

· The "Descriptions " are short explanations in Word format and presentations in Power-Point format

· The "Working Materials" are more detailed descriptions and auxiliary material to the separate tools and also forms which can be used directly for the use of the tools.

· The "Examples" facilitate the application of the methods and tools with the help of a demonstrative illustration and processing of already solved problems.

In total about 40 single tools are inside the toolbox, from which nearly the half of them are out of the TRIZ methodology.

(The project's homepage а www.sme-innotool.com.)

4 - TECHNOFIT-Projects "STURM, Ideenfabrik & Aktiver Technologietransfer"

The Industrial Liaison Department is coordinating one project, and in parallel in partner in two projects of the local government which is running under the Art. 10 EFRE programme. The aims of these projects are to support companies in Styria on their way to develop new products or to improve their processes directly and to organize and offer seminars about the topic innovation management.

In 2002 a one-day Conference with the title "Develop Products Successfully" was carried out. The main topics were new methods and tools in the product development process, esp. TRIZ. The interest and the feedback of the participants were that good, that since 2002 this conference has become an annual event, which is financed through this Project.

With the three mentioned projects also a strong cooperation of the technology transfer departments of the three major R&D-Institutions in Styria was started. This approach of cooperation has led to several further common activities in Austria.

Final Note "TRIZ Future 2005"

The annual TRIZ-Conference of the European TRIZ Association ETRIA is organized by the University of Leoben. The conference will take place in Graz, the capital city of Styria.

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