History

The Italian Center of competence for Systematic Innovation has been promoted by three universities: Politecnico di Milano-Mechanical Department, University of Bergamo –Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Florence – Department of Mechanics and Industrial Technologies. Since 2000 these three Departments have shared similar interests and objectives and they collaborated in industrial research projects on methods and tools to support product development activities and they promoted TRIZ theory as a leading methodology.

The initiative “Systematic Innovation” was started with the Italian project “TRIZ-Systematic Innovation for Lombardy SMEs – TRIZ-Innovazione Sistematica per le PMI lombarde” (link MAIN PROJECT/ TRIZ for Italian SMEs- 2006) carried on by Consorzio Politecnico Innovazione in 2005 with the objective to promote a structured approach based on TRIZ methodology to the technological innovation process in the small and medium enterprises.

In the cited project, nine SMEs from Milan district and operating in the automation and manufacture markets made the first experience with TRIZ tools and patent information techniques with the support of university experts.

The project was finished in October 2006 and based on the achieved positive results and objectives, in February 2007 the three Universities founded the Italian Center of competence.