Development of the Next Generation Portable Toilet Through New Product Development Approach Based on the Combined Effects of Three Methods: TRIZ, VE and Marketing ~ Consulting Case Of Company S ~

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This paper was presented at TRIZCON2002, The Altshuller Institute meeting in St. Louis, MO, USA, April 2002 and published in the proceedings of that meeting.

The author was involved in the development of the next-generation portable toilet -- a hot product in an industry related to the elderly -- at Company S, a Japanese leading chemical manufacturer, as a consultant of the Sanno Institute of Management. This paper introduces the case of skillfully utilizing technology management techniques, including TRIZ, with emphasis on its unique development process.

The uniqueness of this development process is that, although TRIZ was at the center, a trinity development approach was realized while organically integrating other technology management techniques: VE (Value Engineering), which is characterized by its functional approach, and the marketing technique, which is essential for new product business strategy.

This development process consists of three phases mainly using the following techniques: Phase 1: Developing a New Product Proposal -- DE (Directed Evolution) of I-TRIZ + VE + Marketing; Phase 2: Generating a New Product Design Proposal -- VE + IPS (Inventive Problem Solving) of I-TRIZ; and Phase 3: Developing of a New Product Business Plan -- mainly Marketing.

Company S originally had developed engineers (in the position as an internal consultant) with profound knowledge of technology management techniques (especially, VE and IE) in the head office organization. Therefore, the support system for new product development and technical problem solution at individual divisions could have been established mainly with these engineers who received the TRIZ training (primarily Classical TRIZ) beforehand. This is a significant factor leading to this project’s success. Thus the actual project promotion system for the techniques such as TRIZ at Company S will be briefly explained at the end of this paper.

The overall flow of the new product development process, which was proposed and designed by the author and actually used in the development of the new-generation portable toilet, is shown in Illustration 1.

During the actual activities, Phase 2 (Phase for development design proposal) was further divided into Concept Design Phase and Basic Design Phase (a more detailed design review level), and DR (Design Review) was conducted four times in total along with this division (see Illustration 1).

DRs and the actual project activities in time series can be summarized in Illustration 2. Illustration 3 shows the objectives of DRs in a series of these activities.

Kickoff: Friday, November 24, 2000, 13:30 - 17:00 (at Plant N of Company S)

The practical process when the next-generation portable toilet was developed will be introduced in this subsection. This activity process can be compiled by each implementation step as indicated in Illustration 4.

　As clearly shown in the illustration, in Phase 1 the first half is based on DE and the second half corresponds to planning phase VE (including marketing technique). Phase 2 utilizes IPS (I-TRIZ) for conceptualizing ideas and compensating defects of ideas, while using development / design VE characterized by its functional approach as a base, and corresponds to the process to effectively implement the valuable design proposal. Then final Phase 3 is allocated to the activities for developing a market development plan in order to introduce the product design proposal, which is output of Phase 2, into the market (product launch). Thus this paper especially focuses on Phases 1 and 2, where the use of TRIZ (primarily I-TRIZ) was emphasized, and introduces its distinctive practical process based on the actual case study more in detail.

These are the first half of Phase 1 and correspond to the activities until preparing a future prediction scenario of a product (portable toilet), which can expect a future improvement in value through DE (one of the techniques of I-TRIZ). These implementation steps of DE (see Illustration 4) can be sorted out in accordance with the basic steps of DE (based on the broader interpretations of DE as a decision making process in a series of corporate activities) as indicated in Illustration 5.

As Illustration 5 clearly shows, the latter half of the DE basic steps (Steps 4 and 5) correspond to all from the second half of Phase 1 to Phase 4 of the implementation process of the new product development activities (see Illustration 4). This means that if DE is defined broadly, DE activities cover the whole new product development activities. This paper, however, limits its focus to Steps 1 to 6 based on the narrow definition of the DE activities.

Around 1970		Standard type (simple)
	ę		ę
		With armrest / storage pocket		With backrest (Can be stored beneath the bed)
	ę
		Heating seat
	ę
		Function to pull out the footrest
	ę
Around 1990		With frame Seat having antibacterial effect Bending cover Bucket with silencer
	ę
		Seat with damper Small-diameter seat
	ę
		Adjustable armrest height With tissue holder

The second half of Phase 1 corresponds to the planning phase VE (0 Look VE) activities, and is the level to elaborate the scenario to comply with a product proposal level aiming at implementation of the scenario adopted at the first half of Phase 1.

More specifically, the functions required in planning to be equipped in a developing product should be defined using the commercialization scenario and the market (customer) information added from the marketing perspective. Then the basic specification (e.g., performance) of the product as corresponding to the functions should be established and incorporated into the proposal. The cost to be allocated to achieve these functions (so-called cost planning activities) should be determined.

A series of these activities are essentially the same as preparing a quality chart in Quality Function Deployment (QFD), but the point aiming at value improvement from the viewpoints of required functions and costs is a characteristic of the planning phase VE. As VE is a function-oriented approach, there is no sketch imagining the product (not to be bound by a fixed concept as object oriented), but only a product scenario in the product proposal of this project. This point is also unique from the conventional product proposals which contain product images (see Illustration 9).

The details of each step contained in this Phase are excluded here, but a part of the product proposal (draft) for the commercialization scenario is shown as Illustration 10.

In this Phase we practiced Development Design VE (corresponding to Steps 14 to 29, but IPS was used from Steps 17 to 28 when conceptualizing ideas) aiming at implementation of the product proposal (actually approved by DR-1) shown in Illustration 10. In this paper due to limitation of the space, the details are not included, but the essence of each step is summarized in Illustration 11.

The objective of this Phase is to strategically develop a sales plan in the market of the product realized in the previous Phase (in reality, the review was started before the design drawings were completed). This Phase is not the main theme of this paper, thus no detail explanation will be provided, but the line map, which shows the positioning of the product developed this time (next-generation portable toilet: actually high-grade type with grain pattern) in relation to the competitors as well as the own existing products, is as below (see Illustration 12).

For the products realized through this development process, two prototypes were exhibited at the International Care and Welfare Equipment Exhibition (in Japan) from October 24 to 26, 2001 and stirred the great sensation.

The prototypes are as shown below:

As a great factor that could lead this project success, the author is confident in the point that he could facilitate the project team as much as possible as a consultant greatly contributed, but as the same level or even more, support from internal consultants of Company S should not be forgotten.

This is because, as mentioned at the beginning of this paper, these internal consultants have affluent knowledge not only in engineering technology but also technology management techniques (e.g., VE, IE, QC) as well as instruction experiences (as an internal instructor). Even if there was no external consultant (the author), there was sufficient support function to the project members. What’s more, it is worth mentioning here that Company S formed the actual project team after these consultants received the training (provided by the author), which combined the development VE and TRIZ fundamentals prepared by SANNO.

Utilizing this experience, the author will continue to support practical TRIZ introduction into the Japanese corporations.

1. Theory of Inventive Problem Solving TRIZ 7. Evolution to Contemporary TRIZ. Monthly Research & Development Management, May 2000 [in Japanese].
2. Manabu Sawaguchi. 20 Steps of Product Development Activities using VE. Doyukan Inc., 1996 [in Japanese]
3. Boris Zlotin and Alla Zusman Edited by Victoria Roza. Directed Evolution Philosophy, Theory and Practice. Ideation International Inc.

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