TRIZ

The word systematic conjures up the image of sequential activities that can be performed repeatedly to yield a desired result. Innovation has an association with creativity, which frequently implies unpredictable and erratic processes. Despite this, the term "systematic innovation" is not an oxymoron. The pillar of the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ) is the realization that contradictions can be methodically resolved through the application of innovative solutions. This is one of three premises upon which the theory is built: 1) the ideal design is a goal, 2) contradictions help solve problems, and 3) the innovative process can be structured systematically.

The assumption that we cannot harness and control innovative processes is not only limiting, but also incorrect. Inspiration need not be random. TRIZ practitioners continually demonstrate that applying common solutions for the resolution of contradictions, identified as effective when applied to parallel problem in the world patent base, radically improves the design of systems and products. Once a problem is structured as a contradiction, methods exist for resolving that contradiction. These methods are evolving rapidly and are more widely available. Key to understanding why systematic innovation is possible is understanding the common solutions among the innovative world patents.

Traditional processes for increasing creativity have a major flaw in that their usefulness decreases as the complexity of the problem increases. At some point, the trial and error method is used in every process, and the number of necessary trials increases with the difficulty of the inventive problem. Some solutions may even require more than one generation of problem solvers. It was Altshuller’s quest to facilitate the resolution of difficult inventive problems and pass the process for this facilitation on to other people. His determination to improve the inventive process led to the creation of TRIZ.

In working toward his goal of developing the "science" of creativity, Altshuller’s central questions were:

How can the time required to invent be reduced?

How can a process be structured to enhance breakthrough thinking?

Altshuller initiated a renaissance in heuristics through his process for systematic innovation.

TRIZ is the Russian acronym for the Cyrillic words:

History

In 1946, Altshuller decided that he must create a new science for the theory of invention. His achievements during this period were staggering. Within two years he established a foundation for TRIZ by studying thousands of author’s certificates. These three-page documents consisted of a cover sheet, a one-page sketch and a one-page description of the invention. This simple format made it easy to identify underlying patterns of the inventive process.

Altshuller and his childhood friend, Ralph Shapiro, identified patterns frequently used in the more innovative patents. They defined five levels of creativity based upon: how remote the knowledge used for the solution concept was from the inventor’s field, the theoretical number of trials to a solution, the distance of the solution from the problem, and how substantial the change was from the original design to the solution.

Patents representing a simple modification to a design were assigned to the lowest level. Patents that changed the system in some way were considered more inventive, while patents introducing a new science were considered the most innovative. These innovative patents provided solutions to contradictions, and these solutions often represented identifiable points along repeatable lines of evolution. Altshuller’s research replaced the unpredictable "Eureka!" of the stereotypic mad scientist or absent-minded professor with specific patterns of design evolution which could be followed by the real-life problem solver.

These patterns identified in the development of a design contain two major components: regularities in design evolution, and principles used in innovative solutions. Altshuller’s observations led to an additional breakthrough; since the evolution of engineering design is a process governed by definable laws, it can be taught. Using this knowledge, Altshuller and his colleagues created many effective civil and military inventions. A way to collect spilled oil, a method to rescue the crew from a sunken submarine, an innovative environmental suit for rescuers entering a mine—these are just of few of the technologies the team developed. More important than individual innovation, however, was the fact that a revolution in the field of inventive problem solving had begun.

During the next decades, Altshuller’s results attracted professionals from many disciplines who adopted, adapted and expanded his methodology. Applications in the real world advanced and verified the theory. Methods for solving problems improved. TRIZ methodology was applied to problems in science, business, management and other areas. As TRIZ became a vehicle for creative education, it also became the subject of newspaper and magazine articles, books, and a regularly scheduled TV show for children.

Despite these difficulties, a strong and loyal following continued to grow. During the 1970s, translations of Altshuller’s books and articles circulated in Germany and Poland, eventually reaching Japan, the USA, and other Western countries. Development of TRIZ in the Soviet Union accelerated after Gorbachev’s Perestroika. Private companies were ready to use TRIZ for solving complicated technical management issues and other problems because they could see the advantage it gave them in a free-market economy.

By 1985, Altshuller had written over 14 books. Only two of Altshuller’s books have been translated into English. Altshuller’s key findings are explained in these books, which reflect his study of over 200,000 patents, focusing on 40,000 identified as containing the most innovative solutions.

When failing health restricted Altshuller’s working hours in 1985, he began to concentrate on creativity in more general terms. It is the collection of techniques associated with Altshuller prior to his illness that has become known as classical TRIZ.

TRIZ practitioners estimate that over two million patents worldwide have now been reviewed to identify patterns and regularities that contribute to the further refinement of TRIZ. The tools developed under Altshuller's leadership are:

40 Principles 1946-1971

ARIZ 1959-1985

Separation Principles 1946-1985

Substance-Field Analysis 1973-1981

Standard Solutions 1977-1985

Natural Effects 1970-1980

Patterns of Evolution 1975-1980

The different schools for TRIZ and individual practitioners have continued to improve and add to the methodology.

Two philosophically different software packages exist today to reduce the time needed to solve innovative problems successfully. One has been developed by Valery Tsourikov of The Invention Machine in Boston, Massachusetts, and the other by Zlotin and Zusman for Ideation International in Southfield, Michigan. This text is software free; it will help you solve design/inventive problems independent of any software, and it complements either software package.

Degree of Inventiveness

Altshuller defined an inventive problem as one containing a contradiction. He defined a contradiction as a situation where an attempt to improve one feature of the system detracts from another feature. After initially reviewing 200,000 patent abstracts, Altshuller selected 40,000 as representative of inventive solutions. The remainder involved direct improvements easily recognized within the specialty of the system. Altshuller separated the patents’ different degrees of inventiveness into five levels. It should be noted that a problem cannot be ranked into one of the five levels, only the solution to a problem.

Levels of Innovation

Between 1964 and 1974, patents under review were evaluated to determine relative frequencies for the levels of innovation. Percentages given here are from that period. More recent evaluations are not available to check these numbers.

Level 1 represented 32 % of the patent inventions and employs obvious solutions drawn from only a few clear options. Level 1 innovations are not inventions but narrow extensions or improvements of the existing system, which is not substantially changed.

Level 2 inventions offer small improvements to an existing system by reducing a contradiction inherent in the system but requiring obvious compromise. These solutions represented 45% of the inventions.

Level 4 solutions are found in science, not in technology. Such breakthroughs represented about 4% of inventions.

Level 5 solutions exist outside the confines of contemporary scientific knowledge. Such pioneering work represented less than 1% of inventions.

Once a Level 5 discovery becomes known, subsequent application or invention occurs at one of the four lower levels. For instance, the laser, technological wonder of the 1960s, is now used routinely as a lecturer’s pointer and a land surveyor’s measuring instrument. In 1995, a homeowner could buy a laser device the size of a bar of soap to measure distances up to 7 meters.

This evolution within the laser industry illustrates that a solution’s level of inventiveness is time-dependent. Altshuller focused his investigation on the principles used in Level 2, 3 and 4 solutions. Level 1 solutions were ignored because they need not be innovative. Because Level 5 solutions require understanding a new natural phenomenon, there were no recognizable parallels among these inventions. Altshuller believed he could help anyone develop Level 2, 3 and 4 innovations. His desire to develop this system of invention inspired the study of hundreds of thousands of patents. Through this effort, Altshuller initially identified 40 principles used consistently to resolve technical contradictions.

Inventions involving Levels 1, 2 and 3 are usually transferable from one discipline to another. This means that 95% of the inventive problems in any particular field have already been solved in some other field.

The majority of patents fall within four major technologies: mechanical, electromagnetic, chemical and thermodynamics. Think of how much knowledge an individual has, then think of how much more knowledge is recognized collectively by a corporation, an industry, a society and in the universe. If the investigator’s knowledge base contains all information within an industry, then fewer solutions are available than if the investigator knows everything there is to know in society.

The level of inventiveness within a field can be categorized as having a range from Level 1 (personal knowledge) to Level 5 (universal knowledge). Universal knowledge represents the composite of all known information. If a mechanical engineer is working on a problem and his or her child, studying chemistry in college, can suggest a viable solution, a paradigm shift occurs. Similarly, the level of innovation increases when inventors move outside their normal field of inquiry.

Inventive problems are often mistakenly considered to be the same as engineering, technological and design problems. However, the inventor is looking for ways to solve problems by eliminating contradictions. This is the crucial difference between their work and the efforts of those involved in the design process. Once the concept or inventive solution is found, it is necessary to use the skills of the engineers, technologists and designers. Their work is what transforms the concept into the finished product wanted by the public.

Researchers have their favorite directions for investigation, and these generally look like a line vector located within or near their specialties. Since all professionals have some knowledge in other disciplines, the line vector is more accurately a cone that encompasses pieces of other disciplines in the accepted search region. Psychological inertia influences researchers to move in the same direction as they have on successful project searches in the past. Brainstorming may improve the branching but not go in the direction of the solution.

Psychological inertia also recalls the joke about a person looking for his or her car keys under a street light. A stranger offers to help and asks where the keys were lost. The car’s owner responds, "They were dropped in the shadows by the car, but the light is better here." If you look in the wrong place, innovative concepts will not be found. Processes that encourage creativity provide many branches radiating from one technological direction, but do not access solutions that exist in another technology. Of course, this depends upon team composition. The above demonstrates the futility of looking in the wrong direction. No matter how sophisticated a process you use, it will not find a concept outside the area of research.

Several search directions become possible using the brainstorming technique introduced by A. Osborne in the 1940’s. Recognizing that a problem solving team is composed of some idea generators and some idea critics, he created a structure using both skills. A block of time is provided for any idea to be presented. This time allows the subconscious ideas to penetrate the constraints of the more conservative conscious mind. Such an approach improves random searches, but it is only effective for generating Level 1 and 2 innovations.

Transferable Solutions within Patterns of Innovation

While searching the patent fund, Altshuller recognized that the same fundamental problem (contradiction) had been addressed by a number of inventions in different areas of technology. This was more apparent if the problem was presented in technology-free terminology. He also observed that the same fundamental solutions were used over and over again, and that the implementations were often separated by many years. If some means of accessing the applications of these fundamental solutions were available to inventors, the number of years between applications would decrease. Thus, the innovation process becomes more efficient, the time between improvements is reduced and the technology line separating different disciplines is crossed more often. Let us explore several inventions that all used the same principle—a concept that was not initially considered by a diamond manufacturer.

An organization producing artificial diamonds splits the crystals at the fracture to have usable diamonds. Unfortunately, this process often results in new fractures. A process improvement team of engineers would not be inclined to look at agricultural patents for possible ideas. More importantly, the current world patent base is not structured for easy reference, though it would be useful to be able to look at patents for devices that caused objects to come apart, fly apart or explode apart. Altshuller sorted patents in a manner that enhances innovation. By stripping away the technical subject matter, he found that the same problem was solved over and over again. Only a limited number of principles were necessary to explain the majority of inventions. If the diamond splitting team looked to agriculture, or had access to a data base from the TRIZ knowledge base, they would find that separation can be caused by a rapid pressure drop.

Raising peppers slowly to 5 or 6 atmospheres and dropping it quickly will remove the stem and seeds. This same process with the appropriate pressures and devices is used to remove rust, shell krill, shell sunflower seeds, clean filters, shell cedar nuts. As late is 1985 a patent was granted using this principle to remove the hulls of chestnuts.

We solve problem by analogy. We think of a related problem and convert the solution to our problem. The 40 principle contained in the contradiction table are use to resolve over 2000 contradictions represented by 39 parameters.

For more information check out Glenn Mazur's page on Algorithm for Inventive Problem Solving (ARIZ)