Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Day 1, afternoon, 8th Iberoamerican Innovation Congress, Merida, MX
Five papers are scheduled for the after-lunch session at the
Iberoamerican Innovation Congress in Merida, Mexico—2 USIT case studies, one
TRIZ case study and one TRIZ methodology paper, and one paper on innovation
portfolio management. One was later
postponed until tomorrow.
Vicente Gonzalez Ladino from the Engineering Faculty of
Quintana Roo started with a USIT application, Caso Sellador de PVC for the
automotive industry. He guided us through the steps of the problem definition,
the analysis, and the generation of alternative solutions. A lot of chemistry goes into the problem
definition phase in this example, since “simple PVC” is a complex product. (These things always look easy in
retrospect! Here the hydrochloric acid
reacts with one of the filler materials –calcium carbonate—creating calcium
chloride, water – both liquid and gas- and
carbon dioxide) So the simplified (or ideal) state is to use the minimal
materials to produce the useful product with no side effects (such as gases
that damage the material.) General USIT rules for using the system
resources, plus knowledge of the effects operating within the system, rapidly
produced an elegant solution – use CaO instead of CaCO3 to avoid production of
CO2 (with much joking from the audience that this solution was discovered in
pre-historic Mexico by the Mayas.)
Juan Carlos Nishiyama reported on his group’s work at the
Universidad technologica nacional in Argentina, in “Functions en el marco del
USIT.” He showed a combinatorial logic
method for generating the closed world functions in USIT, and the OAF (object, attribute, function) model
that is a fast way to analyze and diagram root cause analysis. The specific
case study looked at improvement of a rotary cutting tool.
Carlos Flores from Siemens worked with Noel Leon’s group at TEC in Monterrey. He reported on the methodology, based on
TRIZ, using semantic search of global knowledge. The practical case from Siemens was an
electromechanical low amperage circuit
breaker with low capacitance. More than
30 high-potential ideas were found, several patents are in progress, and the
search took less than a week. Both the
FAST (function decomposition) diagram and the IWB Problem formulator™ analysis
were used. The formulator identified 33
directions and combinations of directions for innovation. The Goldfire ™ semantic search tools were
then used to look for methods of achieving the goals described by the
formulator. Natural language search
found >50,000 documents which were not very relevant, but a tightly
controlled keyword search found 11 highly relevant documents. Some of those ideas were then further
developed using Goldfire’s device analysis/trimming tool, which lead to further
problem identification (don’t initiate an electric arc, thereby protecting the
life of the components while leaving the utility unimpeded.) The solution was not shown in detail since
the group is pursuing patents now.
Jorge Antonio Lechugas and Jose Carlos Peraza from the University faculty of chemistry in
the Yucatan reported on the production of MgO recovered from saline pools called “Las Coloradas” in the Yucatan, after
the direct evaporation of sea water has been completed. A solar thermal system both heats the salt
residues and operates a generator for electric power production. The details of the solubility of the MgSO4
in the brine as a function of temperature is the key to the development of the
system that takes best advantage of the heat available. There are 14 industrial saline areas in
Mexico, and these methods could be used to recover Mg salts in all of them. Other similar areas in Spain, France, and
elsewhere may also benefit.
Cultural event: We
will meet at 8 for a bus trip to the Mayan Cultural Museum.
