Annotated list of TRIZ techniques.  

© Valeri Souchkov, January 1998.   

Note: This list presents those TRIZ techniques which have proven to be successful during the long-term use. Although there are many TRIZ schools worldwide which developed their own modifications of original Altshuller’s works or introduced their own techniques, we are not completely sure in their effectiveness yet.  

The Theory of the Technology Evolution. 

A theoretical foundation of TRIZ. A philosophy behind the theory of the technology evolution is that every design product or a technical system evolves in a systematic way according to certain regularities. Altshuller made this conclusion on the basis of comprehensive studies of hundreds of thousands of patents, books and articles presenting the history of the technology evolution. The TRIZ laws and the trends of the technology evolution are independent of any specific technological area. 

Specific laws and trends of the technology evolution. In total, TRIZ presents nine laws and trends of evolution. Each trend is comprised of a number of specific patterns indicating how a system or its parts evolve over the time. The TRIZ trends and laws are very powerful tool to predict the further evolution of a selected design product or a technical system. 

Although may be used independently of the rest of TRIZ, the laws and trends are difficult to apply directly to predict product evolution without practical experience with the other TRIZ techniques and understanding the TRIZ basics. 

The multi-screen diagram of thinking specifies that any specific object of the world can be viewed from three layers: system (the object itself), its subsystems and supersystem. Besides, at each layer, the past and the future of the object, subsystems or supersystem has to be presented. This helps to deeper analyze the product evolution and observe interactions of the product with an outer world, as well as predict further evolution of each layer. According to Altshuller, this way of thinking is a feature of outstanding inventors, artists, musicians – those, who create new breakthrough artifacts by seeing the world in a systematic way. Although not easy to use, the multi-screen diagram of thinking is a very powerful tool of system analysis. 

The imaginary goal which enables a designer to formulate technical problems in terms of ideality. The ideality is defined as a ratio between the performance of a design product and costs necessary to achieve the performance. Ideality is a qualitative measure which can not be directly calculated. However, formulation of the Ideal Final Result helps to correctly set up goals, tackle mental inertia and design costs-effective products. 

The first technique and still the most popular, developed by Altshuller in the sixties. Based on the analysis of over 400.000 patents intentionally drawn from different areas of engineering. It enables formulating problems in terms of contradictions: a technical parameter to be improved versus another parameter of the system that gets worse when implementing such an improvement. 

TRIZ states, that to obtain inventive solution the contradiction has to be eliminated while no compromising is allowed. The necessity to eliminate contradictions is the driving force of technological progress. 

The principles for technical contradiction elimination are used to eliminate similar types of technical contradictions. They describe either solution pattern which can be applied to resolve the contradiction, or a direction in which a problem has to be solved. There are 40 inventive principles available in TRIZ. 

The Altshuller’s Matrix allows the principles for technical contradiction elimination to be used in a systematic way. The matrix was designed on the basis of 39 generalized parameters any specific parameter is claimed to be possible to associate with. The same lists of parameters are placed along vertical and horizontal axes of the matrix. A point of intersection of two generalized parameters indicates which inventive principle(s) is to be used in each particular situation. 

Any technical system can be modeled in terms of substance components interacting with each other via physical fields. Abstract physical modeling of the system’s part which causes a problem helps to identify and classify a specific physical interaction which does not meet the specifications. 

The unsatisfactory interaction might be of four types: I) insufficient to obtain the desired result, ii) excessive and produces more action than required, iii) harmful, when the interaction is necessary to obtain a positive effect but results in side negative effect, and iv) missing interaction – an interaction is necessary in the system but we do not know how to introduce it. 

Substance-Field Modeling and Analysis are used for problem modeling while Inventive Standards are rules which support problem solving in terms of substance-field models. 

Once a system was modeled in terms of physical components and a problem is indicated as the unsatisfactory interaction, TRIZ recommends to use special rules which contain abstract patterns indicating how the physical model given has to be modified by: a) replacing the existing components with another components, b) introducing new components, or c) modifying the existing components.   

There are 76 inventive standards available. Although inventive standards are more specific then Inventive Principles, their use requires more learning and practice.  
 

The most powerful and most complex analytical TRIZ technique which helps to solve those problems that can not be solved with the use of the other TRIZ techniques. Since the above mentioned TRIZ techniques operate with direct modeling of a problem and finding a relevant solution pattern or a rule of the TRIZ database, it is not always possible to formulate the problem in the right way. ARIZ helps to extract a core problem through comprehensive study of the problem conditions and tackling mental inertia.   

ARIZ consists of a set of operators specifying how to perform the steps of analysis. However, learning ARIZ and mastering skills with ARIZ is not an easy process and can not be done within a short time. Being more analytical tool rather than the tool for synthesis, ARIZ requires the designer to restructure and reorganize his thinking process that might be found time-consuming but necessary.   

Although there are several versions of ARIZ proposed by different TRIZ schools which are claimed by authors to be more effective than the Altshuller’s work, we, however, recommend the Altshuller’s version of ARIZ due to its proven efficiency. 

Complementary technique for ARIZ although can be used independently. Very often, inventive problems can be solved on the basis of available physical or information resources or their derivatives. This helps to achieve the highest ideality ratio. 

If a problem can not be solved by the application of the Principles for Technical Contradiction Elimination, this situation indicates that the problem involves the physical conflict: the same physical parameter of a system has to have two contradictory values at the same time.  

Although this technique can be used independently, formulation of the correct physical conflict is non-trivial task. For this reason, the use of ARIZ to formulate physical conflicts is recommended. The aim of using ARIZ is to formulate and eliminate a correct physical conflict. 

The principles for Physical Conflict Elimination indicate how to change the physical structure of the system to eliminate physical conflicts. 

Complementary technique, mostly used in combination with ARIZ (in TRIZ, this method is included into ARIZ). The technique helps to represent physical interactions within a system in terms of "controllable dwarfs" which can be associated with system parts, molecules, elementary particles, etc. The technique is directly aimed at tackling the mental inertia and better understanding the problem. 

A part of TRIZ knowledge base. Emerged from the analysis of hundreds of thousands patents by finding a relevance between a technical function delivered by a design product described in a patent and a physical effect used as a principle for the product. Specific technical functions then were generalized and presented in the catalogue.   
In many cases, knowledge the designer possesses is not enough to find the required solution. Physical handbooks also can not provide fast access to the needed information since they are not designed with respect to engineering needs. For these reasons, the use of the pointers helps to bridge the gap between physics and engineering by identifying technical functions with physical effects, laws and phenomena. 

Similarly to the pointer to physical effects, this structures information on the use of chemistry in inventive design. 

Similarly to the pointer to physical effects, this structures information on the use of a variety of different geometrical shapes in inventive design. 

Function and Cost Analysis (FCA) is a modification of traditional Value-Engineering Analysis (VEA). Utilizing the same basic approach to modeling the existing design products in terms of components and functions delivered by the components, FCA differs from VEA in a way of how functions are defined. In FCA, the function is regarded as a physical action between two components. This helps to present the interactions within the system at the level of physical interactions. 

Besides, FCA has algorithms for ranking functions and problems. FCA is very useful to conduct a systematic analysis of design products and formulate problems in terms required by the other TRIZ problem solving techniques. 

A technique which helps to simplify the existing products without impairing their performance, and quality. Usually performed after a technical system is represented in terms of a function model. 

A technique which helps to design new products on the basis of two competitive products. Usually competitive products are featured by different sets of advantages and disadvantages. The Feature Transfer technique helps to design the product that has advantages of the both competitive products.   

However, direct feature transfer might be difficult due to a number of technical contradictions arising during attempts to design such the product. For this reason, other TRIZ techniques are recommended to use. 

A number of specific techniques aimed at the improving personal creative imagination skills. The most popular technique is "Size-Time-Cost Operator" which suggests imagining what would happen with an object and its environment if to increase or decrease the values of parameters of the object many times. 

A number of techniques which help to avoid mental inertia during the problem solving process. For example, replacement of specific terms describing a problem with general terms helps to broaden the search space of possible solutions.