Mostafa Jafari and Hamid Reza Zarghami
Regarding the important roles of creativity and innovation for accomplishing innovative missions in aerospace industries, this study aims to explore the impact of a three-month…
Abstract
Purpose
Regarding the important roles of creativity and innovation for accomplishing innovative missions in aerospace industries, this study aims to explore the impact of a three-month TRIZ (an engineering problem-solving toolkit) training workshop on enhancing three important creativity- and innovation-related characteristics of employees in Iran aerospace industries.
Design/methodology/approach
A three-month TRIZ educational program was run. Three standard questionnaires were used for assessing creative thinking (CT), need for cognition (NFC) and interest in work innovation (IWI). From different scientific sectors of aerospace industries, 290 participants took part in completing pre- and post-test questionnaires. The collected data were analyzed by the related statistical methods (the sign test, correlation analysis and descriptive statistics).
Findings
The results indicate that the TRIZ training workshop directly enhanced CT, NFC and IWI scores, and that there is a statistically significant positive correlation between these characteristics. Also, the results of the correlation analysis of these variables and the demographic features of the participants shed light on interesting facts that can be used for decision makers and researchers of aerospace industries.
Research limitations/implications
This study opens a new way for further research in the analysis of the impact of problem-solving techniques on improving creativity and innovation in aerospace and other high-tech industries.
Originality/value
This paper may be of high value to researchers in creativity and innovation fields in the high-tech industries, including the aerospace industry. This study further facilitates decision-making by enhancing inventive problem solving in these industries. It gives valuable information and guidelines that hopefully will help managers to consider the important issues during TRIZ toolkit establishment in their organizations.
Details
Keywords
Mostafa Jafari, Peyman Akhavan, Hamid Reza Zarghami and Naser Asgari
The purpose of this paper is to explore the efficacy of 40 inventive principles of TRIZ for developing researchers' innovative capabilities and to evaluate the extent of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the efficacy of 40 inventive principles of TRIZ for developing researchers' innovative capabilities and to evaluate the extent of application of “40 inventive principles” by inventors in the Research Center of Intelligent and Signal Processing (a successful research center that is producing new products in the field of signal processing and medical engineering).
Design/methodology/approach
A range of relevant literature is explored initially. A questionnaire about 40 inventive principles of TRIZ was developed based on literature review. Finally, a data analysis including descriptive statistics, correlation and regression analysis was designed by using SPSS software.
Findings
The results showed that about 71 percent of the researchers have employed TRIZ above the average in their innovative products. Also these studied researchers used TRIZ principles unintentionally. Therefore, if this research center and similar institutes want to make full use of their researchers' abilities, they can facilitate innovation through offering courses on TRIZ, the principles of TRIZ and its other tools to them.
Originality/value
This study is probably the first to provide an exploring of TRIZ inventive principles applications through a research center.