Many of Detroit’s most pressing public problems are—by necessity—being solved outside of the public sector. As prolonged financial troubles and the consequent bankruptcy prevented city government from ...

In my consulting practice, innovation challenges that dogged teams having very good and experienced engineers for months or even years were resolved in a matter of days or hours. It was not magic; we ...

TRIZ (pronounced “trees”) is the (Russian) acronym for the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving – a methodology for systematic innovation. It was developed in the former Soviet Union beginning in the ...

When I joined Machine Design three years ago, my No.1 goal was to expand my knowledge of engineering best practices and its relationship to the manufacturing industry. To be successful, I would need ...

Identify the specific problem that you have. You need to get to the root cause of the problem. It often calls for asking “why?” many times, until you found that root cause. Find a “generic” TRIZ ...

David Conley found himself on a team of experts who were attempting to design satellite superstructures, a challenge not specifically covered while earning his college degree in nuclear engineering.

Imagine taking concepts that can be seen around you every day, and using them to solve technical problems in your business. Well, that’s the type of training that Worcester’s own Technical Innovation ...

There are many different frameworks for finding a product or startup idea. In this article, I'd like to discuss one framework you probably haven't heard of and also talk about a counterintuitive way ...