Triz Applications

Write a ten to fifteen page paper, select two different problems from your own experiences. Describe both problems, the improving principle and the principle that you do not want to worsen. Identify what the contradiction matrix identified as suggested principles, and describe each of the principles and if you think they helped guide you to a good possible answer to resolving the contradiction. What could that solution look like? Be sure to identify the Tool-Action-Object model in your analysis.

To succeed and sustain a competitive advantage in a world where business gets tougher, organizations need to increase the rate of innovation. The theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ) is an approach that can increase a person's ability to generate creative solutions and help almost every organization to develop innovative capabilities. Below we will how TRIZ Contradiction Analysis method is used when seeking to solve inventive problems.

The TRIZ Contradiction Analysis method was defined by Genrikh Altshuller, a Russian patent clerk who noticed that many patents were solving very similar problems. Over many years he analyzed over 200,000 patents where he noted that most inventions were about solving contradictions, and that most solutions could be classified into 40 categories.

Firstly, the problems were always defined as a contradiction between two parameters, one improving and the other worsening. The number of parameters was found to be a set of 39 engineering parameters in all. So, every problem could be described as a conflict between a pair of parameters (2-out-of-39 parameters). Many patents had, in the past, solved these individual conflicts - in several different fields and over and over again, sometimes spaced several years apart. Only 40 inventive principles were used to resolve these contradictions fully, and not as a trade-off or compromise. Altshuller argued that if these earlier results were known to the latter researchers, they would have solved their own problems with more ease. He, therefore, set about to extract and to organize the frequently occurring contradictions and the principles of the resolution of these contradictions. He put it in the form of a matrix of 39-improving parameters and 39-worsening parameters (39 X 39 matrix) with each cell entry giving the most often used (up to 4) inventive principles. This matrix is known as the "CONTRADICTION MATRIX" and remains to be the simplest and the most straightforward of TRIZ tools.

Below are the steps that one needs to follow why trying to solve inventive problems using TRIZ contradiction matrix method.

Identify Functions:

Identify the main functions that your idea or invention is seeking to achieve. Primary functions are those that deliver key value, while secondary functions support the primary functions. Think about the solution only in terms of functions. For