Rossvik.se

TRIZ is a Russian acronym meaning "Theory of Inventive Problem Solving".

In 1946, Genrich Altshuller, the founder of TRIZ, was a patent reviewer at the Russian naval patent office at the young age of 20. He perceived that there is a definite pattern in the way innovations take place in technical systems. He started a study of 200,000 patents to look for the basic principles and patterns in the world's most innovative patents. He found that...

...each of the most inventive patents primarily solved an ‘inventive’ problem. Altshuller defined inventive problems as those which contain conflicting requirements, which he called ‘contradictions’. Further he found that the same fundamental solutions were used over and over again, often separated by many years. He reasoned that if latter inventors had the knowledge of earlier solutions their task would have been simpler. He, therefore, set about extracting, compiling, and organizing such knowledge.

The collated patent database and subsequent analysis revealed a natural pattern of innovation that can help solve similar technological problems. This study was continued, by Altshuller and his disciples, over the past 50 years and has yielded a systematic approach to definition and identification of innovative problems, a set of problem solving tools, and a vast knowledge database, which can help solve current technical problems in an innovative way. Today, the TRIZ software database includes the essence of over 2,500,000 patents.

He defined 39 basic properties and 40 principles for solving problems containing contradiction in any two-of-39 properties. This he gave in the form of a contradiction table of size 39 x 39 with each cell giving up to 4 principles (and examples from patent data base), that may be used to eliminate the contradiction.

Altshuller also laid the foundation for development of an analytical approach to solving inventive problems with an axiom – "The evolution of all technical systems is governed by objective laws". Improvement of any part of a system which has already reached the highest level of functional performance will lead to conflict with another part. This will lead to eventual improvement of the less evolved part(s). Such a continuing and self-sustaining process will bring the system closer to its ‘ideal’ state.

Su-Field analysis ("two Substances and one Field") is used whenever a new function is introduced or modified (either inadvertently or intentionally) and inventive "standard solutions" (and examples from patent database) are available to find an analogous solution. ARIZ – ‘Algorithm for Inventive Problem Solving’is used when systems mature and become complex thus making it difficult to modify or improve them in an incremental fashion.

Anticipatory Failure Determination and Directed Evolution are some of the more recent additions (1992-) to the tools of TRIZ.