Systematic decision making process for identifying the contradictions to be tackled by TRIZ to accomplish product innovation

This paper presents a systematic decision making process for accomplishing product innovation in accordance with the target quality, i.e. the target values and relative weights of the relevant quality characteristics of the product to be developed, with the help of TRIZ (the Russian abbreviation of the theory of inventive problem solving). Since TRIZ methodology deems innovation as resolving a contradiction, the proposed approach first reveals the contradictions that block the target quality from being reached, based on the engineering solutions that the current base product employs and the phenomena that take place while the base product is performing its function. Then, the approach structures the contradictions and distinguishes the causal conflicts from the resultant ones. It also calculates the criticality of each causal conflict according to the relationships with the quality characteristics. These steps make it possible to properly highlight the focus of innovation within the whole function and mechanism structure of the base product. The proposed method is described using a die-casting machine as an illustrative example, and the example confirms that some innovative conceptual design solutions can be successfully derived through the proposed decision making process.