Advances in Systematic Creativity

Creating and Managing Innovations

Leonid Chechurin, Mikael Collan, Leonid Chechurin, Mikael Collan

• Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan
• Jahr: 2018
• ISBN:
  9783319780757
• Thema: Computer Science
• Thema: Databases

This book presents a collection of the most current research into systemic creativity and TRIZ, engendering discussion and the exchange of new discoveries in the field. With chapters on idea generation, decision making, creativity support tools, artificial intelligence and literature based discovery, it will include a number of instruments of inventive design automation. Consisting of 15-20 chapters written by leading experts in the theory for inventive problem solving (TRIZ) and adjacent fields focused upon heuristics, the contributions will add to the method of inventive design, dialogue with other tools and methods, and teaching creativity in management education through real-life case studies.

Part I

Advances in Theory and Applications of TRIZ

The nine chapters in Part I are dedicated to advances in and applications of the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving, better known as TRIZ. Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 present a diversity of novel approaches to extend and to support the use of TRIZ in systematically creating innovations and offer the reader a good overview of the directions in which systematic creativity with TRIZ is evolving.

© The Author(s) 2019

Leonid Chechurin and Mikael Collan (eds.)Advances in Systematic Creativityhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78075-7_1

Begin Abstract

Current Stage of TRIZ Evolution and Its Popularity

Oleg Abramov¹ and Sergey Sobolev²

(1)

Algorithm Ltd., Saint Petersburg, Russia

(2)

Siemens LLC, Saint Petersburg, Russia

Oleg Abramov

Email: [email protected]

End Abstract

1 Introduction

Since Genrich Altshuller introduced the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ) at the end of the 1940s, it has been greatly developed and refined both by Altshuller and by his numerous colleagues and followers.

Over time, TRIZ has demonstrated great efficacy in solving difficult technical problems, many books on TRIZ have been issued, and thousands of people have been taught TRIZ and become certified TRIZ specialists.

TRIZ has not, however, become a standalone best industry practice for developing new products, technologies and services. In fact, very few innovations have been developed using TRIZ.

Moreover, even after years of intensive development, TRIZ still has not manifested itself as a serious science. For example, as shown in a recent review by Chechurin (2016), only 1200 publications with the word “TRIZ” were indexed in Scopus (the largest database of peer-reviewed literature from scientific journals, books and conference proceedings) by July 2014; another paper by Chechurin et al. (2015) indicates 1333 publications indexed by mid-2015. Considering that Scopus indexes about 21,000 scientific journals and contains about 50 million records, this number is quite small.

The goal of this work is to clarify the current status of TRIZ and its acceptance in the world, and to identify why TRIZ does not play the important role it deserves.

Research on these topics was recently done by Abramov (2016). In this chapter, the authors present further elaboration on the matter.

2 Method

The current status of TRIZ was determined by studying the following parameters:

• How far TRIZ has spread around the world;
• How much world interest in TRIZ there is;
• How intensively TRIZ is used in industry and what its recognized area of application is; and
• How aware the world is of TRIZ compared to other innovation methodologies.

The first three items were evaluated by analyzing available reports and research papers, while the last parameter was assessed by analyzing the number of web pages relating to TRIZ and other popular innovation methodologies revealed by advanced Google search.

3 Results of the Research

3.1 Worldwide Propagation of TRIZ Is Decelerating

At first glance, TRIZ has circulated around the world fairly successfully: as pointed out by Goldense (2016), the number of certified TRIZ experts worldwide has grown steadily, reaching the impressive number of 18,000 in 2015. Based on the International TRIZ Association (MATRIZ) data, in 2017 the number of certified TRIZ experts exceeded 24,000 (see Fig. 1).

Fig. 1

The total number of certified TRIZ specialists: growth over years

This number, however, is distributed across countries very unevenly (Goldense 2016):

• Of certified TRIZ specialists, 65% are now located in South Korea, where the government has actively supported the propagation of TRIZ;
• Most of the remaining 35% are in China, Germany and Russia; and
• A few other countries have a miniscule share of TRIZ specialists.

Using Goldense’s data, Abramov (2016) has shown that, after peaking in 2014, the number of specialists certified annually has begun decreasing (see Fig. 2), which likely reflects the fact that the popularity of TRIZ in South Korea, a major contributor to the number of TRIZ specialists, started to decrease at that time.

Fig. 2

Number of new TRIZ specialists certified annually

From Figs. 1 and 2, it can be concluded that the popularity of TRIZ reached its peak in about 2014; that is, TRIZ in its current/classical form is either at the third (maturity) stage of its evolution or in the beginning of the fourth (stagnation) stage.

3.2 World Interest in TRIZ Is Declining

Research conducted by Patrishkoff (2012) revealed that world interest in TRIZ is currently diminishing. The research is based on Google statistics of web searches, which shows that since 2004 worldwide interest in “TRIZ” has steadily decreased, and in 2011 it was down 55% while worldwide interest in “Innovation” decreased only ~25% by 2007 compared to 2004, and after 2007 it remains stable (Patrishkoff 2012b).

In contrast, worldwide interest in “Lean Six Sigma” has steadily increased and in 2011 it was up 110% relative to 2004; worldwide interest in “Lean” demonstrated only a slight down trend during 2004–2011 (Patrishkoff 2012a).

The current decline of world interest in TRIZ is confirmed indirectly by the dramatic reduction in the amount of web pages containing the word “TRIZ,” which has been observed in the last few years (Abramov 2016).

Based on this data, we can conclude that worldwide popularity of TRIZ has already passed its peak and is now declining, despite the fact that world interest in innovation remains stable.

This most probably means that competing methods for innovation, such as Lean Six Sigma, have become more widely adopted than TRIZ.

3.3 World Awareness of TRIZ Is Low

In order to identify how well TRIZ-related information is presented in the public domain, the authors have conducted a brief study. This involved a Google web search for a few popular competing methods and processes for solving technical and business problems, and developing new products (NPD). Besides TRIZ, these methods included Lean methodology, Theory of Constraints (TOC), Six Sigma, crowdsourcing and Design Thinking.

The following keywords were used to perform the search: Lean Method; Theory of Constraints (TOC); “Six Sigma”; “Design Thinking”; crowdsourcing; TRIZ. Only exact matches were searched.

The authors performed the search twice: in July 2016 and in January 2018 (see Fig. 3).

Fig. 3

Results of Google search for innovati...