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3TRIZ IN BUSINESS SECTION, OCTOBER 15, 2023
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Trantin A., Rubin M., Kulakov A. Building the Motivation Management System for Implementation of TRIZ Projects at Production Facilities
Abstract. The project team's motivation management is a hot topic for any system that is based on implementation of projects, especially where project teams are made up of operations staff. The difficulties of handling the motivation in TRIZ projects under implementation at production facilities of non-ferrous metallurgy are caused by the existing model of approach to improvement/change projects, in which contradictions of ensuring the production plan and implementing new solutions coexist. The paper will analyse some of the key specific features of such a project approach, cover the topic of establishing the motivation management system through non-monetary aspects of motivation development, and discuss particular examples demonstrating the efficiency of the authors' solutions for establishment of the motivation management system for project teams that implement projects in non-ferrous metallurgy and related industries.
Key words: motivation, project roles, role matrix, TRIZ infrastructure of a production facility, TRIZ Cup, TRIZ projects at production facilities.
INTRODUCTION
This paper is devoted to research of the topic of TRIZ infrastructure development at the production facility [1, 3]. Before proceeding directly to the description of specific features of the motivation management system for implementation of TRIZ projects at a production facility, it is necessary to dwell on the peculiarities inherent in the integration of TRIZ (theory of inventive problem solving) into the operational activity of production facilities. They include:
1) Availability of small research units that apply TRIZ in their work (or their absence at all);
2) Limited investment opportunities for conceptual leap and innovations at production facilities;
3) Implementation of solutions directly at an operating production plant (with actually minimum time for verification of solutions).
The above peculiarities are largely a consequence of the fact that production facilities, first of all, produce products rather than being a testing ground for innovations for technological processes. And this generates a low interest of managers in long research projects, which need not result in an efficient solution, but, at the same time, require labour and financial resources of the production facility. Hence, there are certain key challenges faced by companies, which decide to introduce TRIZ into the operational activity of their production facilities:
1) Employees do not have time to solve complex problems and even less time to learn how to solve such problems: employees are busy with their core staffing responsibilities to achieve the production plan;
2) Prolonged validation of a solution (by the customer or decision maker) and implementation of solutions: in order to achieve the production plan, the equipment must continue to operate;
3) The price of an error of the implemented solution is failure to fulfil the production plan.
However, it is quite difficult to imagine a situation of top management's deciding to abandon
improvement projects in spite of the existing difficulties. This is where TRIZ may be useful, too. It is possible to formulate a contradiction that is based on the above reasons and to resolve it using the existing tools:
IF "To teach an employee to use TRIZ",
THEN this requirement is met: "To solve complex production problems",
BUT the following requirement is NOT met: "To maintain the operational efficiency".
Working with this contradiction, it is possible to use the following techniques:
1. Fragmentation
a. Split the object into independent parts
b. Make the object sectional
c. Increase the degree of fragmentation of the object
16. Partial or excessive action
If it is difficult to get 100% of the required action or effect, it is necessary to get "a little less"
or "a little more" - the problem may be simplified much.
To develop these techniques, the authors suggested a solution "Competence matrix (role matrix)", which made it possible to simplify implementation of TRIZ projects, while increasing their efficiency and manageability.
PRIMARY PART
Building the motivation management system for implementation of TRIZ projects at production facilities is impossible without a clear and uniform understanding of at least three important components. Firstly, a certain practice of TRIZ projects implementation, which enables to fix "WHAT" a TRIZ project is, what its boundaries, stages, phases and milestones are, should already be in place. Of course, it takes over one month, but without this basis it is impossible to build further measures to improve the efficiency of improvement projects using TRIZ. This problem is solved at the top level by recording these requirements in the Company's regulatory documents.
Secondly, project team participants should clearly understand "WHAT" and "HOW" they can (and should) do as a part of TRIZ projects. And it concerns both certain project management tools and knowledge of TRIZ tools. To implement this area, it is possible to use the tool "Competence matrix", which will be described in more details below.
Thirdly, it is important to realise that the financial motivation shows a limited potential for long-term encouragement for employees to participate in the project activity, and also, in general, does not contribute to improving the quality of resulting project solutions.
Role matrix
In large-scale implementation of TRIZ at production facilities under time constraints, the competence management system is an integral part of the production facility's TRIZ infrastructure. The need for management of TRIZ competences arises due to the fact that it takes more than one year to become an efficient TRIZ expert, while there are not many trained experts in the labour market, and even fewer ones suitable for specifics of a particular production facility. Under such conditions, there is an urgent need to develop TRIZ competences within the production facility. The role matrix is a basis for building the TRIZ competence management system.
Based on the authors' project experience, the necessary and sufficient set of roles in a TRIZ project includes: Problem Setter, Supervisor, Project Manager, Facilitator, Project Team Members. Let's dwell on each of the roles.
The Problem Setter is an owner of the business process, in whose interests the TRIZ project is implemented. He/she generates requirements for project outputs and accepts outputs. Depending on the production facility's size and problems to be solved in the TRIZ project, this role may be performed by anybody from the line manager to the head of the production facility.
The TRIZ Project Supervisor is an employee who assists the Project Manager in resolving issues that are beyond the authority of the Project Manager or require additional resources. The role of the TRIZ Project Supervisor may be fulfilled by the same range of staff as the role of the Problem Setter, depending on the scope of the project and the problem encountered in the project.
The TRIZ Project Manager is an employee authorised to manage the TRIZ project at all stages of its life cycle and is responsible for achieving the TRIZ project goals. His/her responsibilities include creation of an overall project vision and roadmap, planning, execution of project documents, distribution of project works among Project Team Members and their coordination, defence of project outputs before the Problem Setter, communication with the Supervisor and counterparties.
The Facilitator is an employee who provides support to all TRIZ project participants, regardless of their role, as to correct implementation of the TRIZ project according to the life cycle, use of TRIZ methods and tools. This is the most experienced and sophisticated TRIZ project participant. As a consequence, the stronger and more experienced the project team is, the less the Facilitator interferes in its work.
The Project Team Member is an employee who performs separate analytical and/or solving procedures in the TRIZ project with subsequent defence of outputs before the Project Manager. When forming the project team, the Project Manager should pay attention to the balance of the project team: there should be analysts, solvers and critics. Read more about elements of inventive thinking in [2].
In order to form an efficient TRIZ project team, it is necessary to correlate the scope of the TRIZ project problem and the levels of employees in the role. The matrix for selection of staff for the roles is given below:
TRIZ project level Problem Setter or Supervisor Project Manager
Production Facility Head of Business Head of Production Facility
Production Plant/Shop Head of Production Facility Head of Production Plant/Shop
Area Head of Production Plant/Shop Head of Area
For each of the identified roles, the characteristic package of TRIZ competences and the knowledge level as per 5-point scale of the "ICARUS and DAEDALUS" Certification System was developed.
Topic (tools) Problem Setter/ Supervisor Project Manager Project Team Member
Inventive problem. 2 5 3
Technical and physical contradictions (contradictions of requirements and properties) 2 5 3
Operation zone (OZ) and operation time (OT). 2 5 3
Principles and techniques for resolving contradictions. Contradiction's resolution table 2 5 3
ARIZ (algorithm for inventive problem solving) 0 5 3
Function model. Types of functions. Func-
tional analysis + component-structural anal- 2 5 3
ysis
Cause and effect analysis. 2 5 3
Team building 0 5 0
Preparation of presentation materials 0 5 2
TRIZ model 1 5 1
Ideal final result (IFR) 2 5 3
Substance-field resources (SFR) 0 5 3
Description of an undesirable effect; and problem description template. Administrative contradiction. 2 5 3
Compinno-TRIZ 2 5 3
Project management through milestone setting and supervision 2 5 0
Benchmarking 0 5 3
Resource management 0 5 0
FCA (function cost analysis) 0 4 1
Sufield (substance-field). Rules of sufield transformations. Standards 0 4 2
Inversion analysis. 0 4 2
Analysis of processes 0 4 0
Streaming analysis 2 4 2
System operator 0 4 2
FOS (function-oriented search). Information search (FOS, patent search, use of search engines) 1 2 2
Analysis of development limits 0 2 0
Mentoring and online TRIZ Coaching 2 2 1
TRIZ project life cycle 2 4 1
Landscape of problems 3 4 0
Register of initial problems 3 4 0
Roadmaps 2 4 1
Projects matrix 2 5 0
Mission of TRIZ at the production facility. Role of TRIZ in building up and fulfilling the production facility's strategic goals 5 3 0
Where,
0) not required
1) can explain what it means
2) can give examples of use
3) there is experience of use in learning tasks with prompting (help)
4) there is experience of application in learning tasks without prompting
5) there is experience of application in practice
The developed sets of TRIZ competencies form a ground for development of formats, programmes for training employees for the roles in TRIZ projects, as well as methodological materials. Based on the presented set, the authors developed and implemented TRIZ sessions for production facility managers, TRIZ case studies for Project Team Members, a training programme for TRIZ Project Managers, TRIZ sessions for Facilitators. The methodological manual on TRIZ for production facilities was developed.
Motivation
Touching on the topic of motivation, it is impossible not to turn to the topic of employee development. In their professional activities, the authors follow a four-component model of employee development in TRIZ (Fig. 1).
The implementation of TRIZ projects, which at least follows from the term itself and is described in the previous section, implies a certain mastery of TRIZ tools. To maximise efficiency in the application of TRIZ tools, an employee should go through the entire vertical of development "knowledge-abilities-skills-motivation". And each stage corresponds to its own way of interaction (Fig. 2).
r TRIZ Coaching
> Mentoring
r f N Training Counselling
f Knowledge f Abilities c Skills Sustained motivation
\
Professional development of project team participants
Figure 2
As for the first three components, there is a more or less accessible understanding to most people of how and what to do, such as how to carry out counselling or training, although, certainly, much depends on approaches to counselling and training, and it is quite easy to destroy enthusiasm and completely lose the support of top management if these processes are approached unprofessionally. But the formation of sustainable motivation is the most complex area, and the success of the project activity generally depends on the success of its development (Fig. 3).
Figure 3
What are main difficulties of motivation when managing project teams at production facilities? According to the authors' experience, at least 4 such difficulties can be identified for many metallurgical production facilities, with which the authors work.
Firstly, the most important thing for production facilities (as mentioned earlier) is to fulfil the production plan. On the contrary, the implementation of projects may be aimed at destroying already established production foundations (Fig. 4).
Operational activity Project activity
Figure 4
Thus, first of all, the management is interested in fulfilling the plan (making a profit), rather than trying something new, even if it helps to solve any existing problems. What's more, meeting the production plan is often a part of KPI, so it's hard to expect any action from employees at any level to prevent this from happening.
The next difficulty is somewhat related to the previous one, but has an independent significance. It is characterised by a rather long implementation of efficient solutions, which is due to the fact that the production cycles of equipment cannot be reduced: the production cannot be stopped before any scheduled shutdown, otherwise the risks of failure to fulfil the production plan will appear.
While the first 2 items are fairly common to many production facilities, the next 2 items may be more unique and not common to the vast majority of companies, but in some way, in the authors' opinion, they can also be found.
The third difficulty is caused by the existing local regulations, which govern the project activity and tie the financial motivation of employees (project bonus payment in case of confirmation of successful TRIZ project implementation) to the year-end closing. In view of this, there is a time lag where project payments are distant from the actual completion of the TRIZ project. Thus, it is not uncommon for employees to get payments a year or more after the TRIZ project has been completed (and the time between the most active implementation of solutions and the actual payment may be over a year and a half). Therefore, the financial motivation ceases to be a driver for the project activity.
Fourth, from the outside, TRIZ appears to be a complex and confusing methodology for an inexperienced employee. This is due to various reasons: great variety of diverse tools that TRIZ offers; immersion of employees into other methodologies, primarily into the much more widespread Lean Production and TPS; lack of a verified system of TRIZ training where the main emphasis is placed on trying to "seize the unseizable" without looking at actual project roles of employees and their staff positions.
However, overcoming the above difficulties is not impossible. Within this article the authors do not consider in detail, for example, resolution of contradictions "Operational activity - Project activity" or efficient personnel training programmes, but focus on the applied tool for management of employee motivation in TRIZ projects implementation through the system of competitions.
Motivation management through the system of competitions
In order to minimise the impact of the above difficulties, as well as to raise awareness and popularise TRIZ among employees and managers, the authors suggested the system of motivation management and encouragement of project activity through establishment of a system of TRIZ Cups.
In order to maximise the coverage of employees at different levels and taking into consideration the complex holding structure of the company, the authors initially suggested the TRIZ Cup system consisting of 5 nominations (Table 1).
Table 1
Nomination Nomination level Event date
1 Production Facility of TRIZ Technologies Heads of Production Facilities Metallurgist's Day
2 TRIZ Rotor Heads of Production Facility's Business Units Metallurgist's Day
3 TRIZ Project of the Year Project Teams of Production Facility Metallurgist's Day
4 Business Leader in TRIZ Head of TRIZ Areas at Businesses International TRIZ Day
5 TRIZ Professional in Business Head of Businesses International TRIZ Day
To maintain interest and additional incentives for employees for implementation of TRIZ projects (and, consequently, for participation in the competition), the information rating was introduced:
Where,
R is a rating in the nomination,
Fi is factors influencing the rating in the nomination,
N is a number of factors for the nomination,
ki is a coefficient of importance of this factor (the sum of coefficients for each nomination is 100 points).
For each nomination, different factors and coefficients are selected.
Thus, during the period of holding the Cup, its participants can actively influence their position in the rating, for example, by accelerating the implementation of solutions, opening new TRIZ projects or investing in the training and subsequent certification of employees in TRIZ. Each factor was calculated in relative units using the formula:
F/ = F i-result/F i-benchmark
Where,
Fi-resuit is an achieved value of the factor in some or other natural units (RUB, quantity or other measurable values)
Fi-benchmark is a value of the factor in natural units (RUB, quantity or other measurable values). The formation of benchmarks was influenced by the accumulated experience of production facilities, taking into consideration the timing, efficiency, team and other indicators of TRIZ projects since completed 2018.
As an example, let's discuss the structure of benchmarks for some nominations for the 2022-
2023 Cups (Fig. 5).
TRIZ Rotor (shop) Production Facility of TRIZ
TRIZ Project of the Year Technologies (production facility)
Benchmarks Proportions Benchmarks Proportions Benchmarks Proportions
EEE, RUB mln 20 20 50 20 100 10
AEE, RUB mln 20 20 30 80 70 60
AEE density No No No No 1.4 20
Certification 3/1/1 30 1/4/8 (15) 30 No No 10/2/1 1/4/8 (26) 10
Quality of materials 1 30 No No No No
100 100 100
Figure 5
Where,
EEE is an expected economic effect confirmed by technical and financial services at the time of launching the TRIZ project (what we plan to earn/save),
AEE is an actual economic effect confirmed by technical and financial services upon completion of the TRIZ project (what we earned/saved),
AEE density is an indicator calculated in mln RUB per one month of completed TRIZ projects or for a portfolio of completed TRIZ projects (what we earn/save for all TRIZ projects in terms of 1 month),
Certification is an indicator that represents the level of improvement during the allocated period of qualification of TRIZ project participants for the project team or for the production facility in general (how many people were able to certify their TRIZ competences at the levels of TRIZ Assistant Expert / Level 1 / Level 2 as per "ICARUS and DAEDALUS" Certification System [4]),
Quality of materials is an indicator that represents quality of prepared presentation materials regarding the TRIZ project (how TRIZ was used in the project and what outputs were obtained).
As can be seen in Fig. 5, for each particular nomination, a unique combination of factors, benchmarks and proportional weights of each of the factors, taken into consideration, is obtained.
As an example, let's take a closer look at the factors taken into consideration in the nomination "TRIZ Project of the Year". It is worth noting that the economic indicators had a slightly lower priority in this nomination. This is explained by the fact that the competition involves a large number of production facilities of completely different scales: from those producing millions of tonnes of products to just a few thousand a year; and in such instances the scale effect works extremely strongly: a dollar of cost savings per 1 mln tonnes will bring USD 1 mln of economic effect and a very tiny effect for a production facility with the capacity of a few thousand tonnes. For this reason, in order to ensure the possibility of winning by participants from small production facilities, the limiting maximum economic effect per project was additionally used in the final calculation formulas. For example, if the economic indicators of a TRIZ project totalled RUB 45 mln, the economic effect was considered equal to RUB 30 mln in the rating calculation. Thus, such balancing enabled teams from completely different sized companies to compete. It can also be seen that, compared to the nominations "TRIZ Rotor" and "Production Facility of TRIZ Technologies", the proportional weight of the AEE factor is much lower. This is also explained by the level of influence of the persons participating in the nomination: if, at the project level, it is a team with many minor staff members, then, for example, in the nomination "TRIZ Rotor" there are competing Head of Shops, who have quite a powerful administrative resource and can influence the acceleration of implementation of the solution found in a TRIZ project.
The certification had a great significance in the nomination "TRIZ Project of the Year". And this is important, because the lack of qualified staff limits the "project capacity" of production facilities quite considerably, so the authors decided to pay quite a lot of attention to this factor. This resulted in 24 TRIZ certified employees during the competition period, which is 25% of the total number of all the certified employees at the Company (for the period from April 2020 to March 2023, the number of certified employees was 77). Subsequently, this number of qualified participants of the project activity made it possible to initiate 6 new TRIZ projects.
The important task, which was solved using the criterion "Quality of materials", was the one to improve the level of preparation of presentation materials by project team participants. Without this skill it is impossible to defend their outputs before the management staff, and, in general, the ability to process various data is a necessary cross-cutting skill for a modern employee. The additional su-pereffect that the authors obtained from inclusion of this factor into the nomination calculation was a serious replenishment of the "Best Practices Database", as well as methodological examples that are now used at TRIZ sessions held at the Company.
A total of 23 production facilities, 43 business units and 94 TRIZ projects participated in the 2022-2023 TRIZ Cup. The growth of TRIZ-project portfolio for the period of the competition was +45% of the total TRIZ-project portfolio since the beginning of the year.
Based on the above, we can highlight the following key features of motivation management through the system of TRIZ Cup competitions.
1. The system of indicators is dynamic and changes depending on the status of the project portfolio and on plans for its change.
2. Dynamic weighting of indicators to regulate the content of the project portfolio and the quality of individual projects.
3. The Cup sets quality standards for TRIZ projects, as it establishes some kind of project work culture.
4. Media support (corporate newspapers, home Web site, corporate TV and radio, etc.) increase the interest of employees in the project activity quite much.
CONCLUSION
Building the system of non-monetary motivation for implementation of TRIZ projects is a necessary link for successful introduction of TRIZ into production facilities' ordinary activities.
The system of competitions enables to make flexible and dynamic (from year to year) adjustments of growth of the required indicators, as well as to change qualitative characteristics of the TRIZ implementation efficiency depending on particular existing and expected conditions.
The well-developed system of non-monetary motivation allows influencing the speed of the TRIZ project implementation, which is greatly supported by the close co-operation with corporate mass media and other sources of information about the Company's activities.
REFERENCES
1. M. Rubin, S. Lopatin, N. Shchedrin, O. Kraev, Methodological Aspects of TRIZ Infrastructure Development at Production Facilities. / https://r1.nubex.ru/s828-c8b/f3031_93/Rubin_za-vod_TRIZ.pdf
2. N. Rubina, Inventive Thinking: Formation and Diagnosis // Koncept. - 2015 - No 02 (February) Inventive Thinking: Formation and Diagnosis (cyberleninka.ru).
3. M. Rubin, TRIZ Fundamentals for Production Facilities // KTK Galaktika. 2022. ISBN 978-56045098-9-0.
4. On the TRIZ Knowledge Enhancement and Validation System "ICARUS and DAEDALUS", https://triz-summit.ru/certif
