Sanhua’s First TRIZ Application Competition was Launched

TRIZ (also known as Theory of Inventive Problem Solving) was developed in 1956 by Soviet scientist Genrich Altshuller. Based on the summary of effective and innovative solutions in different areas, it is not incidental, but logic to generate systematic evolution for engineering. Hence, through learning TRIZ, people can make use of successful problem-solving approaches from all parts of the world, to solve technological problems in a creative, logic, and effective way. Against this background, Sanhua’s First TRIZ Application Competition was launched.

On Apr. 20, the opening ceremony of Sanhua’s First TRIZ Application Competition was held in the training room of Sanhua Automotive’s office building. The guests of this opening ceremony included Shi Chuliang (CTO of Sanhua Holding Group, president of Sanhua R&D Center and general manager of Sanhua Automotive), Mo Yang (supervisor of Board of Directors’ office), Hu Meiyan (the director of Patent Department), Zhang Rongrong and Zou Jiang (both of them are the vice general manager of Sanhua Automotive), Gao Qiang (the vice general manager of Sanhua Micro-Channel), the managers from technological departments in Leaderway Electronics and Sanhua R&D Center, and the experts from different business units. Yao Wei, the executive director of China TRIZ Research Association, PhD supervisor and associate professor of Zhejiang University, was invited to attend this ceremony as the tutor of this program.

Due to the impact of COVID-19, this ceremony was also live online. Online attendants were: Yuan Ze, CTO of Sanhua Residential, Wang Meng, the general manager and chief officer of R&D center from Fuerda’s plant for Japanese automotives, Wu Chenghua, the vice president of Fuerda’s Innovation Institute, Li Zhouyang, the director of Sanhua Commercial’s technological center, and managers and experts responsible for technological development.

At the beginning of opening ceremony, Hu Meiyan, the director of Patent Department delivered a speech. She talked about the endeavors and fruition during the study of TRIZ. Different from the past, this time, TRIZ would be promoted to every company, every department of Sanhua, to speed up R&D, reduce waste and improve efficiency.

Yao Wei, the tutor of this program, introduced the useful application of TRIZ in one case with a question, “How many ways can we measure temperature?”. He explained the meaning of learning TRIZ to everyone in this program, “TRIZ summarizes the experience and rules in innovation, to help us with finding the solutions to problems in the fastest way”. Meanwhile, Yao Wei shared three ways to learn TRIZ:

Firstly, “Teachers open the doors, but you must enter by yourself”. Innovation is a life-long career. One must keep learning and using TRIZ to step up.

Secondly, “Practice makes perfect”. Learning TRIZ is not only for winning this competition, but also for the application of it in work and life.

Thirdly, what matters more is the courage behind innovative spirit. Innovation is a tough journey that requires us to try every possibility with confidence and bravery. The spirit behind innovation is the most important thing spread by this competition.

General manager Shi Chuliang shared some tips. He reminded everyone to stand on giants’ shoulders and utilize knowledge and skills of antecedents in the process of innovation. He mentioned, methods are more important than recognition. As an innovation-oriented enterprise, Sanhua hopes to promote innovative methods, thinking and atmosphere to its employees, and improve innovation outcome through this competition.

After the ceremony, the first class began. 19 teams (including 8 teams that took part in this competition online) attended this class. Tutor Yao Wei presented a vivid class with interactions like questioning and answering, to make every team focus on learning and thinking. He gave a brilliant presentation about TRIZ by illustrating function analysis and segmentation tools. This class ended as every team has n great interests in keeping learning TRIZ.