Integrating TRIZ and other methodologies in product/process re-engineering

A structured workflow for an integrated product/process optimization is presented. This workflow is intended mainly for cost-reducing objectives and is based on an integrated usage of different methodologies along with TRIZ. Introduction It’s well known that TRIZ is a powerful way to address and to solve difficult technical problem, but, due to several causes we won’t address in this article, its successful introduction to day by day activities in product development seems still to be demonstrated. The same seems to be happened to other methodologies, such as various Design for X, QFD, and so on. The reasons for this partial success are to be investigated, but perhaps one of the main reason is related to complexity. When dealing with complex technical systems, i.e. systems delivering more than one function, or composed of many different subsystems or very large number of components, the need for a complete set of tools, methodologies and skills arise. Another important aspect is the strong link existing between product and process: the more a product is mature, having a long lifecycle, high capital invested in production, and the more the process will be influencing product features. So for industries facing this reality, it’s important to design a process of product optimization in which: 1. The process is taken into account 2. T he methodologies helping product conceptualization are used maximizing their potential 3. The point of observation could be easily zoomed and de-zoomed from microscopic to macroscopic Background Many works have evidenced in the past the synergetic power of using TRIZ as complement to Quality Function Deployment, Six Sigma, Design for Manufacture and Assembly, Axiomatic Design, Taguchi etc. Unfortunately, system/product complexity makes these approaches very difficult to apply in a structured and scalable way, and whereas for well defined and confined problem or objectives, methodology synergy offer great advantages to users, for others, undefined, fuzzy and more generic ones, they just help some phases of the work. We could call this approach, bottom-up: using a combination of methodologies to address micro-problems or well defined objectives. On the other hand, companies need to innovate in order to achieve competitive advantages, and they need to have tools with a different perspective, more strategic than tactical, in order to decide where, when, what and how to innovate, for example to decide whether it would be better to make incremental or radical innovation on a technology. Both of the approaches, bottom -up (providing powerful ways to combine tools to solve micro-problems: i.e. tactical approach) and top -down (or providing the indication on what-when-how to innovate a product) need to be combined. Smith [1] offered a new and more completed view on these subjects. His work is an attempt to locate each methodology in a two-dimensions array, one related to Suh’s domains of design, and the other related to reality perception according to Senge’s Systemic Thinking. The highest level of perception, according to Senge, is Systemic Thinking, that allow to formulate structural explanation to reality, while the lowest are Event Thinking, and, Pattern Thinking.