An Approach to Solve Inventive Problems based on the Substance-Field Analysis and Systems Dynamics

Abstract

The Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ) has their foundations on the knowledge extracted from the evolution of technical systems, scientific knowledge, and an effort to capitalize knowledge from several domains. Despite the TRIZ capacity to solve inventive problems, it lacks from three competencies: (1) TRIZ does not have a tool to observe the causality among the most important variables within an inventive problem; (2) It cannot follow the transformation of a system through time; (3) TRIZ cannot unveil the hidden relationships among different conflicts in a system to determine the right problem to solve and the most promising solving path. Nevertheless, there is a technical approach to explore the behavior of a system that can deal with the TRIZ drawbacks: The System Dynamics (SD) Modeling and Simulation Framework. This article demonstrates the feasibility to combine both approaches to produce a different problem-solving tool that can deal with inventive problems, particularly with problems modeled through a set of functions. The TRIZ tool that best deals with such kind of problems is the Substance-Field Modeling (SFM) tool. Once the user proposes a model, the next tool to use is a set of solving strategies (known as 76 Standard Solutions). These strategies suffer an adaptation process to propose at least one solving path. The combination of SFM and the SD approach is illustrated through a case study to discuss the advantage and limitation of a different solving framework.