The improvement system for marketing, sales and development

For marketing, sales and development of a successful operation it is crucial to keep launching new and innovative products on the market. This is not a new challenge but the cycles in which new products have to appear on the market are constantly getting shorter because with extremely fast information and logistics systems goods can be supplied to customers worldwide and very quickly.

The Innovation-System "TRIZ" originating from Russia (a theory for solving problems using invention techniques), has been drawing more and more attention since the 1990ies. Using three steps,"TRIZ" helps finding the right solution more quickly. During the first step the task or challenge is systematically analysed. This is carried out using methods which are not very widely known yet. "9-Field-Thinking", the "Innovation-Checklist" and the "Function-Analysis" and their components "Component-Analysis + Interaction-Analysis + Function-Modelling" are becoming more and more popular. 65% of the total TRIZ-project are thus used for the analytical part.

The second step structures the solution-finding process. The "40 Principles of Invention" by Genrich Altschuller, who discovered these principles during his work for the Russian patent office in 1948, are regarded as major success factors of TRIZ. Moreover the "innovation experts" "Substance-Field-Analysis" and the "Separation-Principles" very successfully. This second process step takes up about 25% of the overall project time.

During the third step the solutions that have been worked out are prepared for decision making in order to select the right ones with the decision makers from marketing, sales and development and to develop products and processes that secure a competitive edge. This process takes up the remaining 10% of the project´s time.