2 Origins of TRIZ
6131 WHAT IS TRIZ?
TRIZ is the acronym for the Russian words
Teoriya Resheniya Izobretatelskikh Zadatch
(Theory of the Solution of Inventive Problems). TRIZ’s development, evolution, and refine-ment covers over 50 years of rigorous, empirically based analysis.The creativity and innovation mentioned within the context of science are rare. Typically,creativity and innovation are considered spontaneous phenomena occurring in a capriciousand unpredictable way. Individuals such as Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and ThomasEdison appear to have possessed innate, natural ability for creative thought and inventiveness.What characteristics enabled them, or anyone, to perform as a highly creative thinker?The term
theory to the solution of inventive problems
implies there is an innovation and/ or creative thought process (supported by an underlying construct and architecture) that canbe deployed on an as-needed basis. The implications of such a theory, if true, are enormous,suggesting that technicians can elevate their creative thinking abilities by orders of magnitudewhen the need arises.
2 ORIGINS OF TRIZ
The catalyst for TRIZ was a Russian named Genrich Altshuller (1926–1998). His interestin inventions began at an early age, patenting a device for generating oxygen from hydrogenperoxide by age 14. Altshuller’s fascination with inventions and innovation continued throughStalin’s regime and World War II. After the war, he was assigned as a patent examiner forthe Department of the Navy. He found himself helping would-be inventors solve variousproblems with their inventions. Over time, Altshuller became fascinated with the study of inventions and understanding how their inventors’ minds worked. His initial attempts werepsychologically based; however, these probes provided little if any insight on how creativitycould be ‘‘engineered.’’Altshuller turned his attention to studying inventions and reverse engineering them tounderstand the essential engineering problem being solved and the elegance of the solutionas described in the patent application. Patent applications, called Author Certificates (ACs)in the former Soviet Union, were concise documents of three to four pages. The AC consistedof a descriptive title of the invention, a schematic of the new invention, a rendering of thecurrent design, the purpose of the invention, and a description of the solution.
2.1 Altshuller’s First Discovery
The brevity of the ACs facilitated analysis, cataloguing, and mapping of solutions to theproblems. As the number of inventors applying for an AC increased, Altshuller uncoveredsimilar patterns of solutions for similar problems. He developed a scientific, standardizedapproach to a problem and incorporated a latent knowledge base as an integral element of the solution process when he recognized that similar technological problems gave rise tosimilar patents. This phenomenon was repeated in widely disparate engineering disciplines,in various geographical areas, during different time frames.Altshuller postulated the possibility of creating a mechanism for describing ‘‘types’’ of problems and mapping them to types of solutions. This led to a mechanism naming the 39typical engineering parameters, the contradiction matrix, and 40 inventive principles.
2.2 Altshuller’s Second Discovery
As Altshuller assembled chronological technology maps, he uncovered regularity in the ev-olution of engineered systems. He described these time-based phenomena as ‘‘laws’’ and
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