The Innovation Tools Handbook, Volume 3

Creative Tools, Methods, and Techniques that Every Innovator Must Know

H. James Harrington, Frank Voehl, H. James Harrington, Frank Voehl

• Publisher: Productivity Press
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781315350684
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Commerce
• Subtopic: Management

This book focuses on the creative tools and techniques, decisions, activities, and practices that move ideas to realization generate business value. It has a unique leaning on learning and mastering the improvement tools for managing the investment in creating new opportunities for generating customer value. It includes the discipline of managing the creative tools, methods and processes involved in innovation. It can be used to develop both product and organizational innovation. This Handbook includes a set of tools that allow managers and engineers to cooperate with a common understanding of goals and processes.

1

76 Standard Solutions

Dana J. Landry

CONTENTS

Definition

User

Often Used in the Following Phases of the Innovative Process

Tool Activity by Phase

How the Tool Is Used

Putting the 76 Standard Solutions to Work

Example

Software

Reference

DEFINITION

76 Standard Solutions is a collection of problem-solving concepts intended to help innovators develop solutions. A list was developed from referenced works and published in a comparison with the 40 principles to show that those who are familiar with the 40 principles will be able to expand their problem-solving capability. They are grouped into five categories as follows:

1. Improving the system with no or little change: 13 standard solutions

2. Improving the system by changing the system: 23 standard solutions

3. System transitions: 6 standard solutions

4. Detection and measurement: 17 standard solutions

5. Strategies for simplification and improvement: 17 standard solutions

USER

The 76 Standard Solutions can be used effectively by one individual focused on solving a problem or designing a new product or service. It can also be used by a team of individuals working together to solve a problem or to develop a new product, process, or service.

OFTEN USED IN THE FOLLOWING PHASES OF THE INNOVATIVE PROCESS

The following are the seven phases of the innovative cycle. An X after the phase name indicates that the tool/methodology is used during that specific phase.

• Creation phase X

• Value proposition phase X

• Resourcing phase X

• Documentation phase

• Production phase X

• Sales/delivery phase

• Performance analysis phase

TOOL ACTIVITY BY PHASE

• Creation phase—During this phase, the tool may be used to help develop a better understanding of the possibilities of implementing a particular idea. When an idea seems impossible, it can be beneficial to use the 40 Inventive Principles and 76 Standard Solutions to quickly see if maybe there are paths to success that escaped the initial idea review. This analysis effort can help prevent the elimination of an idea before its time.

• Value proposition phase—In this phase, the methodology can help the innovator see uses for a redefined product that may offer a feature or value proposition not originally considered. It is the process of looking at creation in the variety of new ways forced by the methodology. The astute innovator can often see a new way to satisfy the customer’s need, stated or not, or directly affect the job to be done by the customer.

• Resourcing phase—While the effect here is not direct, it should not go unmentioned. In financing, either for a corporate project or a venture capital effort, it is beneficial to be able to demonstrate how you arrived at the value proposition. A carefully crafted story that shows how a formal analysis method led to new insights and directly affected the outcome generally has a more beneficial effect than an innovator explaining how much they know and why they think the customer will love the new product. Sometimes, some of the 76 Standard Solutions are used to creatively define ways to better utilize the personnel assigned to the project and the other resources that the project will need to utilize.

• Production phase—The production phase is often filled with challenges of how to commercially realize the new invention. These often present themselves as fairly standard engineering problems amenable to standard engineering solutions. If, however, the innovator runs into a seemingly insurmountable problem that endangers the viability of the project, turning to the various TRIZ methods can be beneficial. It is often better to look for a new and better solution than to quickly fall to a lowest common denominator solution that results from looking for quick and easy manufacturing solutions.

HOW THE TOOL IS USED

The following are some key definitions to understand 76 Standard Solutions:

• TRIZ is the Anglicized acronym for the Russian phrase for theory of solving inventive problems.

• TRIZ analysis is a problem-solving methodology based on logic and data to solve problems creatively. As such, TRIZ brings repeatability, predictability, and reliability to the problem-solving process with its structured and algorithmic approach.

• Substance–field (Su–field) analysis is a TRIZ analytical tool for modeling problems related to existing technological systems.

• ARIZ is an evolutionary development of the TRIZ methodology.

• I-TRIZ is a software suite of applications that takes Altshuller’s TRIZ 40 principles of conflict resolution and combines them with his 39 characteristics of technical systems. Once the opportunity description is entered into the software package, it analyzes the problem and proposes a number of approaches to improving the design or solving a problem.

Putting the 76 Standard Solutions to Work

In use, the 76 Standards Solutions would be employed after the innovator has become well versed in the 40 principles and learned the concept of Su–field analysis. The 76 Standard Solutions can be used by innovators to significantly improve existing systems, for example, by resolving a system contradiction through the introduction of some entirely new element. Examples include replacing the standard transmis...