In view of the demand of many readers about the TRIZ methodology, I preferred to complement the first article that was published in this Blog that I titled in July 2018 as: TRIZ - The theory of solving inventive problems.
It is necessary to remember that this method is born from the direct observation of the methodology of patents defined by a relationship between a certain conflict and an immediate and ingenious resolution proposal. From this observation, cause and effect associations are born that are interconnected.
There are many companies today that have implemented the practices of this methodology in the manufacture of products, with which they improve their capabilities and at the same time many of them reduce costs in the process until they are brought to market.
When a product has a problem, people try to solve it by trial and error. This methodology is usually time consuming and expensive; as a result, a huge gap in the process. In this sense, TRIZ is the methodology that directly attacks this void. A person who uses this methodology will become more experienced; consequently, it will be more innovative. With regard to learning time, as new products or systems are made and developed in different fields, they will be shorter and less expensive.
Application experiences of the TRIZ methodology
Since its resurrection, the use of the TRIZ methodology has been successfully expanded to other areas different from the traditional industrial areas, such as biomedical research, medicine, computer programming or business management, among others.
Today many of the 500 richest business organizations as indicated by the Fortune 500 Magazine, successfully use the TRIZ methodology, this list of companies: Bank of Montreal, Boeing, Chrysler Corporation, Deere & Company, Emerson Electric Company, Ford Motor Company, General Motors Corporation, Goodyear, Hewlett Packard Company, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Motorola NASA, Nortel (Northern Telecom), Rockwell International, Tel Aviv University, Unisys, United States Air Force, United States Army and Xerox Corporation among many others.
The application of TRIZ is spreading by leaps and bounds in the business field through parallel paths being, for example, increasingly common in Six Sigma processes, in project risk management and management systems and in organizational innovation initiatives.
What are the benefits of using TRIZ?
Around this methodology, the direct benefits for large companies or corporations are evidenced and that they do it by thinking differently in terms of seeing, analyzing and solving a problem, as well as a general increase in creative skills. Companies that integrate a continuous innovation process based on TRIZ can achieve a sustainable competitive advantage.
Long-term benefits are measured in terms such as:
1. Improvement of the innovation skills of a wide section of employees.
2. Productivity is increased
3. Accelerated time to market
4. Reduced costs
5. Improved quality, safety and reliability
6. Warranty claims for your reduced products
TRIZ's tools and applications, which are based on a broad theoretical base, have been used successfully to overcome technological obstacles and dilemmas. It has been estimated that thousands of technicians in hundreds of industrial companies have received some type of training, mainly in TRIZ. No other technique is comparable to TRIZ, as most of them are based on psychology (like brainstorming, lateral thinking, etc.) rather than technology.
Nine points or factors to believe in TRIZ
TRIZ methodology is different from other methodologies and can be summarized in nine main points and these become an advantage compared to other methodologies.
1. It is general purpose.
2. Generates comprehensive and comprehensive solution guidelines.
3. It connects with knowledge based on the study of existing patents in the world.
4. Generates patterns that break with psychological inertia and the paradigm that limits our knowledge.
5. It can be inserted into any process.
6. Reduce the resources required to generate a solution.
7. It is fast, compared to other methods.
8. It can be taught and applied at any level of education, from children in school to senior management consultants, scientists, doctors, and so on.
9. Helps people deploy their problem-solving skills from one domain to another, even in areas that would require years of study in order to gain experience.
As mentioned in the previous article TRIZ - The theory of solving inventive problems, TRIZ is based on 40 inventive principles, which have been obtained from thousands of patents considered as the best. The methodology considers that in any invention or innovation at least two of these principles have been used as part of the solution. These 39 parameters could be understood as a characteristic of the system that suffers a loss or improvement, which will define the technical contradiction. Next, I share the web address where the detail of the 39 parameters is specified for them to carry out their exercise. Matriz TRIZ
TRIZ is a methodology that can be applied together with the different methodologies existing in the market, such as, for example, the deployment of the quality function (QFD), the Taguchi method or Six Sigma, to create a direction in the innovation process systematic.
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