Medical Design Home » Engineering/Prototyping » An introduction to inventive problem solving

An introduction to inventive problem solving

May 1, 2007 12:00 PM, Larry R. Smith Fellow of the American Society for Quality

How does any company survive and possibly thrive in this pressure-cooker world economy? One frequent answer is to innovate.

It's easier said than done because pressures from costs, competition, and regulations loom large in medical product design. Triz (pronounced trees) is one way to solve design problems with what some call innovative solutions. Although it's not new, Triz is a tool that provokes creative thinking and hence, deserves more attention.

This article is a brief introduction to the method. In a nutshell, it's a way to dissect problems so users can apply over 40 inventive principles that resolve often conflicting issues that keep designers from ideal solutions. Without the method, most problem solving becomes a compromise.

Thinking about thinking

There are different levels of problem solving to fit the different levels of thinking. For instance, MIT's Peter Senge says thinking comes in three levels: event, pattern, and structure. Event thinking is really just reacting. Something happens, such as a warranty problem, a design does not pass a verification test, or an inspection generates sorting, rework or scrap, and someone has to react. Many companies operate this way generating huge amounts of what some categorize and track as the Costs of Poor Quality.

Six Sigma operates at the event level. When customers complain, or warranty costs rise, or both, Black Belts get assignments to fix the problems.

Pattern thinking involves managing warranty problems and design shortfalls so trends may be corrected before unpleasant events occur. Most quality tools operate at this level. These include Quality Function Deployment (QFD), Value Analysis/Value Engineering (VA/VE), Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA), Design for Assembly/Design for Manufacturing (DFM/DFA), and Statistical Process Control (SPC).

Many engineering departments try to find competitive advantages by preventing problems up-front in product development. Design for Six Sigma tries to integrate and implement these “preventative” quality disciplines.

Structure thinking deals with the architecture of a system. If the basic structure of a design is inappropriate, then functional elements of the system conflict, the prevention quality tools will not work well, and the design or service never meets performance expectations. Methods such as Triz and matrices involved with other problem solving methods such as Axiomatic Design operate at this top level of thinking and may be used to fix problems at the pattern or event level.

Triz in a nutshell

Triz inventor Genrich Altshuller recommended four basic steps to problem solving:

Identify what is known about the problem. One reason problem-solving teams often fail is that its members see solutions to different problems than the one that actually needs solving. Altshuller stressed the importance of deeply understanding what you are trying to do, so that time is not wasted by seeking a solution to something other than what is really needed. Boris Zlotin and Alla Zusman of Ideation International Inc., Farmington Hills, Mich., have developed an Innovation Situation Questionnaire for teams to answer before they begin their problem-solving work. After completing this questionnaire, most teams find themselves evolving to a different problem definition. One guru remarked that a well defined problem is half solved.
Expand your understanding. Another reason problem-solving teams often fail is that they do not understand the resources that are available to them in the system. Find and understand all the information you can about the physical properties and other aspects of the problem. This can include the materials and equipment being used, environmental conditions, work methods, people involved, and available resources.
Define the ideal state. What do you want to achieve? What would be the perfect solution? To answer this question, change your perspective. Rather than focusing on where you are at, focus on where you want to be. Imagine a system in which all functions are performed with existing resources. You may never get to the ideal, but Altshuller recognized that a concept that brings the system closer to an ideal will leapfrog many incremental continuous-improvement suggestions.
Generate relevant solution ideas. Some might call this brainstorming. But Altshuller's original 40 principles drawn from his patent analysis and others that followed (called the Keys to Technical Innovation) channel the process of problem solving and product development. A problem-solving team would ask itself how each principle might be applied to the problem at hand. A few of the principles include:

Segmentation or breaking an object into independent parts. Examples include sectional furniture, modularized computer components, and garden hoses that can be joined together to form any needed length.

Extraction or physically removing one part of an object and putting it somewhere else. For example, placing a noisy engine in isolation.

Local quality is the principle of different parts of an object carrying out different functions. For example, a cable for television can also provide high speed internet and phone service. A hammer can drive nails as well as pull them out.

Merging brings different features together (in physical space or in time) to do a variety of things simultaneously, such as building a network of personal computers, or developing one piece of test equipment to perform several different tests.

The Principles of Innovation have grown beyond the original 40. There has been intensive evolution of the systems connected with Triz. Software has also been developed for applying Triz to complex systems and design problems.

In Six Sigma problem solving, Triz can help teams deepen their insight on possible root causes, discover more solution opportunities, and find more elegant, cost-reduced solutions. Using the method to prevent problems is similar to using it to find their root causes. The only difference is, you do the prevention work ahead of time. For example, suppose you want to prevent vehicle recalls due to fires. A team would use the problem solving method to come up with as many scenarios as possible to create a fire, then preview each scenario. This process works well with FMEA.

Triz at work

Altshuller recognized that Triz would be an adaptable system that would be refined and expanded as users learned more about it. Not all product problems stem from users interactions. Manufacturing a product can be troublesome as well. For example, the method has been used as a means of solving electrostatic discharge (ESD), a common problem in semiconductor-device manufacturing. ESD can plague packaging and the trays that transport devices during material handling.

ESD damage often comes from human and robotic handling during manufacturing of the devices. Their discharge to ground can cause damage, such as breakdown of transfer-gate oxide, transistor drain to source, diffusion punch-through, or charge trapping.

The Principles of Innovation provide guidance for solving the problem. For semiconductor devices, the key focus is on the design of many different ESD protection structures. The objective of these protection structures is to move short pulse (1 to 100 ns), high ESD current (1 to 10 amps) from an affected contact to the grounded part of the device in the shortest period. In Triz speak, ESD protection is based on the Inventive Principle of Skipping in which the ESD current flowing through the device must be quickly moved to prevent heat buildup that would damage internal components. ESD structures prevent damage to internal circuitry by providing a discharge path.

This design strategy also ties in with the principle of Cushioning in Advance. It prepares an emergency means beforehand to compensate for a relatively low reliability of an object. Also applied are Principles of Equipotentiality in which the potential difference between two bodies must be equalized to prevent a charge transfer, and the principle of Merging, in which similar ESD structures, power clamps for the power supply and ground of the device, are distributed evenly across its entire power ring.

Just how critical is innovation?

The American Society for Quality's Fourth Futures Study, conducted in 2005, identified globalization along with “innovation, creativity, and change” as the top forces of change that will affect what the organization calls the future of quality. Although globalization has appeared in each of three past similar studies, this is the first time that innovation made the list of the top six key forces of change.

A brief history of Triz

Triz has turned out to be a useful export from the former Soviet Union. The acronym, Teoriya Resheniya Izobretatelskikh Zadatch, translates to Theory of Inventive Problem Solving. It's a 60-year-old method developed by a team that started with Russian inventor Genrich Altshuller. In the gulag society of Stalin's Soviet Union, Altshuller turned imprisonment into an opportunity to learn and work on this concept. Though Altshuller was quite talented coming up with innovations for the Soviet Navy, he was arrested on vague charges, like many citizens under the Stalin regime, and ended up in a Siberian mine. His knowledge of Triz however, helped him survive the experience, sometimes fool his captors during interrogations, and even solve problems for his penal work assignments in the mines.

After Stalin's death, Altshuller returned to his home in Baku and set to work analyzing patent abstracts, curious to find how innovations take place. By 1969 he had reviewed about 200,000 patent abstracts which led to his concept of technical contradictions and 40 Principles of Invention to resolve them, eight Laws of Technical Systems Evolution, five levels of innovation, and the definition of an inventive problem. Together, this extensive work represents a unique contribution to the development of creativity, inventive problem-solving, and organizing the Triz principles.

Altshuller also invented his own language for modeling systems for problem solving and distilled 76 standard solutions for recurring system issues. He compiled all of his work into an algorithm for team-oriented innovation, called Ariz. This technology has many applications such as finding root cause of problems, preventing problems, developing new products or services that customers may not yet realize they need, and the control of intellectual property. He died in 1998.