Lean TRIZ

How to Dramatically Reduce Product-Development Costs with This Innovative Problem-Solving Tool

H. James Harrington

• Publisher: Productivity Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138216778
• eBook ISBN: 9781351642996
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Lean TRIZ is a new workshop-based process that brings together teams to focus on specific processes, evolutionary product designs, and improvement opportunities. It combines the insight of TRIZ with the simplicity of Value Engineering, EXPRESS, or FAST methodologies. TRIZ is the most advanced problem solving tool available. By combining TRIZ's simplest concepts with those in the EXPRESS methodology (used by Ford and Ernst & Young), it is feasible to apply this new methodology to new concepts that are not traditionally applicable to the TRIZ methodology. This combination is guaranteed to greatly improve the quality and breakthrough results of a team that works on the problem within two days.

1 Introduction to LTM

We live in a world where it seems like everything was needed yesterday.

H. James Harrington

Introduction

Definition: Lean TRIZ methodology (LTM) is an improvement methodology that is designed to bring about rapid improvements/changes to products and processes by defining and implementing the changes that can be quickly identified and easily implemented, thereby reducing the cost and time to bring about improvement and change.

LTM is a workshop-based process that brings together teams to focus on specific processes, evolutionary product designs, and improvement opportunities. During the workshop, issues are identified, recommendations and action plans are developed, and unfiltered feedback is provided to the project LTM sponsors. The sponsors decide immediately whether or not the recommendations should be implemented.

LTM is also effectively used in designing new evolutionary products based upon a current product. It is sometimes called picking the low-­hanging fruit. (See Figure 1.1.)

Figure 1.1 Picking the low-hanging fruit.

At long last, there is a quick fix that really works. LTM is a magic pill that produces a superior evolutionary product and fixes your business problems without taking the time required to change the organization’s culture. Just as penicillin changed the way doctors treat pneumonia, LTM will give you the same type of miracle results within your organization. It is quick, easy, and painless. Now this may sound too good to be true, but LTM can do it for you.

LTM has been producing solutions in as little as one day and, at the most, two days. It doesn’t require four months of training, such as is necessary for a Six Sigma Black Belt. It does not require top management to be trained, nor does it require directing their time to the initiative in order to make it work. After all, top management is already very busy doing strategic planning, defining new products, hiring the right people, and just running the day-to-day business.

As we discussed earlier, there are basically two types of LTM. They are as follows:

1. Process design or redesign LTM is directed at a specific process or subprocess that is not functioning at the level that the organization would like. It uses the people who live within the process with the help of one or two facilitators. The future-state solutions are implemented within 30 days by the people who suggested the improvements.
2. Product design or redesign LTM is based upon taking a current product that is near the end of its life cycle and redesigning it to extend its product life cycle. The project stays in line with the already-­established development, production, and marketing procedures once the basic design is completed using the LTM.

Five Levels of Invention

There are many ways to improve processes and develop new products. Based upon Genrich Altshuller’s studies of more than 200,000 patents and technological systems, he identified that five levels of invention exist. (See Figure 1.2.) They are the following:

Figure 1.2 Five degrees of design complexity.

1. Level 1—Apparent solutions
2. Level 2—Minor improvements
3. Level 3—Major improvements
4. Level 4—New paradigms
5. Level 5—Discovery

Definition: Five degrees of design complexity is a way of grouping new inventions into five categories that reflect the complexity of the thought pattern that goes into each of the five categories. (See Figure 1.2.)

• Level 1 inventions are obvious and apparent solutions involving well-known methods and knowledge requiring no new invention of any consequence.
• Level 2 inventions constitute minor nonobvious improvements to a system, using methods known within the domain of discourse but applied in a new way.
• Level 3 inventions include fundamental improvements to a system involving methods known outside of the domain. This involves applying an idea to the domain that has never been used in the domain previously.
• Level 4 inventions entail the development of an entirely new operating principle and represent radical changes.
• Level 5 inventions represent a rare scientific discovery or the pioneering of a totally new industry altogether.

After analyzing thousands of patents, Genrich Altshuller established the following curve that indicates the percent of inventions that were recorded based upon the five levels of complexity. (See Figure 1.3.)

Figure 1.3 Percentage of inventions registered in each level of complexity.

Traditional TRIZ focuses primarily on Levels 3 and 4 with some minor impact on Level 5. LTM is designed to assist in generating ideas in Levels 1, 2, and 3. You will note that Levels 1 and 2 account for over 95% of the improvements. As you will see, LTM is designed to assist teams to come to a consensus related to selecting the best design or problem solution for less complex situations. As a result, the LTM team is not required to have a thorough knowledge of the TRIZ methodology. This allows the facilitator to lead the group to reach the best decision in a minimum amount of time.

LTM is not a training or educational process. The main purpose of LTM is to develop a future-state solution that is approved by management during a two day workshop. All too often, approaches like Six Sigma, process reengineering, streamlined process improvement, and Total Quality Management build upon the base where all the people involved have been trained and understand the methodology. Rather than focusing upon education and training, LTM focuses on accomplishing the desired results.

Figure 1.4 shows the five degrees of complexity plotted as a block diagram without LTM applied.

Figure 1.4 Five degrees of complexity plotted as a block diagram without LTM.

If you add the LTM to the activities that were used to construct the five degrees of design complexity curve, it should have a major impact on the curve. Figure 1.5 is our estimate of how the five degrees of design complexity curve would change as a result of applying the LTM to each of the levels. We believe that a more detailed study needs to be done to get the correct percentages in Figure 1.5, but this shows the concept we are presenting when LTM is focused upon Levels 1 and 2 with some positive impact on Level 3.

Figure 1.5 Five degrees of comp...

Table of contents

• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Books by H. James Harrington
• About the Series
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Appendix A
• Appendix B
• Index