“Our life would never be as advanced and comfortable as it is if not for the application of tantalum and niobium.” And this is right. This is what I wrote at the very beginning of my book about tantalum and niobium chemistry. Tantalum capacitors are everywhere: in our cellphones, computers, in about any electronic device you use. Due to the unique properties of tantalum, these capacitors provide a champion performance within the smallest size. Defibrillators and pacemakers contain tantalum capacitors because of their reliability. Tantalum is the only material that is fully compatible with the human body; therefore, parts made…

Many agree that problem-solving tools can speed up the innovation process—but when asked if they use them regularly, most say, “No, I don’t have time for tools.”This contradiction highlights a major challenge: people don’t play chess without rules or perform surgery without training—but often try to solve complex problems without the right instruments. That’s where the innovation platform comes in. Understanding the Role of an Innovation Platform Let’s explore how structured systems operate—and how the same thinking applies to innovation. Engineering System StructureAccording to Genrikh Altshuller’s Law of System Completeness, any engineering system includes: For simplicity, we can group the…

In today’s world, every company is trying its best to innovate. Some are very successful at that, but the majority are not so much. In this article, I wanted to share some of my personal experiences with how many people solve problems and innovate. A typical example Here is a common situation in many problem solving workshops I am conducting. Teh audience is split into small groups. Each group is working on a certain problem. As a facilitator, I am moving from one group to another to see how are they doing and to provide guidance. I am approaching one…

Have you ever tried to understand what an Innovation Platform is? Do we really need an Innovation Platform in the business? What is its position and function in the business system? In this post, we’ll try to answer these questions. As we have already proved in our previous blog (You can’t buy yourself an innovation), the innovation level of a company is not correlating with the R&D expenses. Here, we want to use the same data and look at this from a bit different angle. The top 40 innovative companies We picked 40 of some of the best and well-known…

The expenses on R&D is the most popular indicator of company innovation level. And many organizations are following that. They dump money on R&D with the hope to innovate more. But the question is, Is there a correlation between innovation rank and R&D expenses? There is a lot of related information you can find on the web, we, however, made our own analysis that confirmed that high R&D spending does not mean high innovation level of a company. In short, you can’t buy yourself an innovation. High innovation rank at low R&D cost should be the preferable target for a…

A microchip processing consists of only two types of operations to either deposit something or remove something. Nothing more than that. Modern microelectronic production is mainly based on processes using plasma. Even if we take into account diffusion and some other wet processes,  plasma remains the main instrument in microelectronic manufacturing. In this article, we want to analyze the plasma-based processes using 9 Windows and predict what will replace the plasma in microchip manufacturing. 9 Windows is an excellent tool that helps us think in space and in time. This tool helps us to predict the future. Analysis using 9…

We all remember the well-known aphorism by Robert Atkins “Don’t fix what’s not broken.” The meaning is clear – do not change something that works well. Let’s take it to the next level as innovators and problem-solvers: “Don’t fix what’s broken.” Indeed, do we really need to fix something that is not working well? Why should not we fix what’s broken? Fixing something is the most expensive and the least productive process. The only goal of fixing the broken part is to get it back to where it was before, to return it to the previous state. Fixing is an…

The term Kaizen originated from Japan. The meaning of the word Kaizen is “change for the better.” Over time, Kaizen became one of the leading business philosophies and converted into a competitive strategy – continuous improvement. Both words are critical For a better chance to succeed with your business, you should implement Kaizen as a way of life. PRIZ Innovator & Kaizen PRIZ Innovator helps organizations to implement and adopt Kaizen. All Creative thinking tools that the Innovator offers are driving our thinking in a direction of better organizational performance. As we all know, time is the most expensive commodity….

As we already discussed in one of our previous blogs (What is the problem?), the main issue in the problem-solving process is to identify the right problem and to separate between a failure and the actual problem. We should always be concentrating on problem-solving and not wasting the time on fixing the failure. As a quick reminder, a single failure can, and usually does cause several different problems.Some recommendations on how to define a problem statement described in the blog How to define a problem statement? The concept The concept is that failure can cause a wide variety of problems….