Inventive Thinking through TRIZ: A Practical Guide

Citation

Narasimhan, K. (2006), "Inventive Thinking through TRIZ: A Practical Guide", The TQM Magazine, Vol. 18 No. 3, pp. 312-314. https://doi.org/10.1108/09544780610660040

In the global market, retaining customers has become imperative. Customers are looking for innovative products and services that offer value for money and, to ensure survival, organizations have to use innovative methods to design and produce products and market them. This book is really a practical guide to the application of TRIZ (Theory of Inventive Problem Solving), as it contains over 300 examples.

Michael A. Orloff is a former student of Genrikh Saulovich Altshuller, the originator of TRIZ from the former Soviet Union, and has all the credentials to write an authoritative book. His design firm, TRIZ‐ART Academy International is based in Berlin; and can be accessed at: www.artis‐inventum.com/

The book comprises 21 chapters grouped into 8 parts, concluding remarks, 10 appendices, and answers and solutions to exercises included at the end of each part. A glossary of terms and mnemonics is also included. Part 1 contains two chapters dealing with the development of TRIZ by Altshuller and the progressive development of pens from the use of feathers as quill to the modern electronic pens.

Part 2 on methods of inventing contains three chapters. A very brief first chapter explains the differences between discovery and invention. The next chapter deals in some depth the topic of inventive creativity, by analyzing the process of inventive thinking from the time of ancient Greece and China to the modern day's application of the 5Ws (Who, What, Where, Why, When) and an H (How), brainstorming, synectics, lateral thinking, etc. Chapter 5 explains the ideas underpinning TRIZ, the development of classical TRIZ from 1950s to the present day. However, is the use of other inventive tools such as DeBono's “Six Thinking Hats” (Mann, 2001) is not covered.

Part 3 comprises 4 chapters and on the basics of TRIZ developed from analyses of thousands of patents, and confirmed by investigations of 2.5 million patents. Chapter 6 briefly deals with the three essential foundations of TRIZ: the classification of problems based on administrative, technical or physical contradictions, solutions based on four classes of transformations (fundamental, specialized, complex and basic), and a progression of steps from rational investigation of problems to selection and testing of solutions' effectiveness. Nine examples of technical solutions are given to explain the process. Discipline of creativity is the topic of Chapter 7, which culminates in a model of meta‐algorithm of inventing. The following two chapters explain, respectively, the Operative Zone (the entire set of components of a system and its environment that are directly related to a contradiction) and how to uncover and invent means to remove the contradiction. A number of examples are provided to explain these concepts and tools in some depth.

The next four chapters form Part 4; and deal, respectively, with navigators for developing standard solutions, solutions to technical contractions, solutions for physical contradictions, and for searching for new functional principles.

The following four parts contain two chapters each and focus, respectively, on strategy of inventing, tactics of inventing, art of inventing, and the development of TRIZ. In the final part, it is emphasized that the main principles of TRIZ are timeless and constant and that the instruments of TRIZ can help overcoming psychological barriers to innovation. A review is provided of computer software tools “Invention Machine” developed in the 1980s and the Idea Navigator software, developed under the direction of Orloff. These computer systems can be used for searching for analogies in patents or access to facts in encyclopedias to accelerate the process of invention.

Ten appendices include tables of “Specialized A‐Navigators” (Orloff's name for Altshuller's “Forty Principles”) and “Fundamental Transformations” (Orloff's name for Atshuller's “Separation Principles”). Appendix 4 (Specialized A‐Navigator's Table) briefly lists the Forty Principles and the examples in which those principles are applied. The use of special terms could cause problems for readers who are familiar with the conventional TRIZ vocabulary.

This book would become a very valuable resource for teaching TRIZ if some of the deficiencies were ironed out. Two main deficiencies encountered were the lack of an index and poor spelling and grammar encountered quite frequently. Appendices 8, 9, 10, respectively, on physical, chemical, and geometric effects need examples just as those given for the Forty Principles, to make them more useful.