An Idea Creation Support System to Develop Creative Problem-Solving Skills for a Cross-cultural Engineering Project

The Cross-Cultural Engineering project (CEP) aims to acquire synthetic problem-solving capabilities by promoting an international collaboration program. Thus, participation requires suggestions of procedures and proposals of creative solutions for resolving problems. In order to assist the activities of participants, this paper presents the Idea Creation Support System (ICSS) as a method to obtain attractive ideas and solutions for solving problems. For the creation of ideas, the ICSS consists of two understanding processes: problem understanding and Kando understanding processes. The problem’s requirements, defined from consumer needs and Kando quality (via the World Café method), are assigned as targets to enhance solutions. The Quality Function Development (QFD) matrix is then utilized with a contradiction solving method to define the essential solutions to satisfy all the problem’s requirements. The application of proposed methodologies enables participants to effortlessly obtain attractive ideas using the most effective solutions to solve problems.