If you haven’t yet setup an RSS reader so you can subscribe to newsfeeds, I’ll try to provide some practical and fun reasons for you to get started now.  For both practical and fun news in one feed, consider subscribing to Cool Tools.  Their recent review of  the book 40 Principles, Lateral Strategies for Innovation, introduced me to TRIZ.

TRIZ was developed by Genrich Altshuller and others in the former Soviet Union beginning in 1946.  TRIZ is based on the hypothesis that there are universal principles of invention that advance technology.  Over the last 50 years, more than 2 million patents have been examined, leading to these 40 principles of innovation,  which you can interact with on the TRIZ40 website.  Go to their home page to try their “interactive contradiction matrix.”

Also checkout the TRIZ Journal where you can find news, resources and learn more about what TRIZ is.

Click here for more about Cool Tools and other personal favorites in RSS feeds.  You’ll also find more here on RSS basics and other peoples’ favorite feeds. 

For another example of a cool tools for process engineers, you can download the free FeedSmart recipe optimizer on K-Tron’s website (requires registration to download).  This has been an exceptionally popular free tool that lets you compute the lowest possible recipe cost for every blend, formulation or compound you process, and calculate additional savings with improved feeder accuracy.

Don Dunnington

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Posted by: FRANK JOHNSON at September 20, 2005 04:26 AM

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