Credentials

From Lab Floor to CRA Approval—Innovation That Holds Up in Audit

Led by Dr. Alec Zhou, Ph.D., with over 20 years of R&D leadership in cannabis, food, biotech and chemical processing.
Inventor of a patented stem-removal process. Expert in TRIZ, CFD, pilot scale-up, and SR&ED strategy.
We help clients structure and scale their innovation—so it performs in real life and passes audit.

Tools That Power SR&ED-Ready Innovation

 

Built for engineering rigor, CRA compliance, and innovation velocity

 

  • TRIZ (Contradiction Matrix, ARIZ) – to break out of “just optimise” loops and uncover real advancement
  • Cognitive Bias Audit Toolkit – to remove the subtle thinking traps that hide uncertainty or inflate conclusions
  • Live Engineering Log™ Framework – to capture contemporaneous documentation CRA reviewers trust
  • AI tools – to design better hypotheses and reduce uncertainty faster
  • Design of Experiments (DOE) – to validate learning with scientific credibility

Case Snapshot: Potency Precision in Infused Edibles

 

Problem
A food R&D team needed to meet strict regulatory requirements by maintaining cannabinoid potency in edibles within 99.75% accuracy.
Their initial solution—reducing batch size—improved precision but led to excessive waste and under-utilized production capacity.


TRIZ Insight
Using the Contradiction Matrix, we surfaced a hidden conflict:

“Reducing batch size improves control, but increases waste cost.”
This revealed a new path forward—one that maintained dosing precision without sacrificing scale.

 

Bias Removed
The team had originally classified the work as quality assurance, and excluded it from their SR&ED claim.
We reframed it as a technological uncertainty around formulation control and process stability—making it fully eligible under SR&ED guidelines.

 

Outcome

  • Production resumed at full capacity
  • Potency stayed within the 99.75% target range
  • All associated process optimization costs qualified for SR&ED
  • No CRA pushback on the claim

“We thought it was just QA compliance testing. Alec showed us it was R&D.”