Bio: Victor Fey, TRIZ Master, is a former student and close associate of Genrikh Altshuller, the founder of TRIZ. With over 35 years of experience in TRIZ research, training, and application, Victor has over two decades of consulting experience serving Global 1000 companies. His work spans teaching, coaching, consulting, facilitating, and leading cross-functional teams to deliver critical breakthroughs in product and technology solutions. Specifically, at Hyundai- Kia Motors, his consulting efforts have led to an estimated ROI of $100 million. From 1997 to 2014, Victor served as an Adjunct Professor at Wayne State University, where he taught the first graduate-level course in TRIZ in the West. He has lectured at institutions such as MIT, Stevens Institute of Technology, Chalmers University, Technion, National Tsing Hua University, and Luiss Business School. Currently, he serves as Vice President of the International TRIZ Association Official. Victor Fey is the author of Effective Innovation: The Development of Winning Technologies (ASME Press) and Innovation on Demand: New Product Development Using TRIZ (Cambridge University Press), a widely adopted reference in engineering innovation education. Innovation on Demand is currently used as the primary textbook in the Mechanical Design using TRIZ course at Purdue, providing students with direct access to the same structured innovation framework implemented in leading industrial organizations worldwide.

Abstract: Developing a winning product is often like navigating uncharted territory without a map. Companies need tools to uncover what customers actually want - especially since customers aren’t always great at articulating their own needs. Meeting existing customer needs isn’t enough to stand out. The real opportunity lies in uncovering latent needs - ones customers themselves may not yet recognize. That’s where Voice of the Product (VOP) comes in. VOP is a TRIZ-based tool that complements the familiar Voice of the Customer (VOC) approach. While VOC gathers feedback directly from customers, VOP analyzes the product itself to reveal unmet needs that aren’t readily apparent (needs ripe for innovation). In this seminar, we’ll explore how to identify these opportunities using real examples of market winners developed with TRIZ. The takeaway: innovation doesn’t have to be an art, it can be a science.