Computers in Industry 82 (2016) 119–134

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Computers in Industry
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compind

Understanding TRIZ through the review of top cited publications

Leonid Chechurina , Yuri Borgiannib,*
a
Lappenranta University of Technology, School of Business and Management, Skinnarilankatu 34, 53850 Lappeenranta, Finland
b
Free University of Bozen/Bolzano, Faculty of Science and Technology, Piazza Università 5/Universitätplatz, 5–39100 Bolzano/Bozen, Italy

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Article history:
Received 5 March 2016 The development of the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ) has not followed the usual patterns of
Received in revised form 10 May 2016 scientific validation required by engineering methods. Consequently, its outreach within engineering
Accepted 30 June 2016 design is interpreted differently in the scholarly community. At the same time, the claimed powerful
Available online xxx support in tackling technical problems of any degree of difficulty conflicts with TRIZ diffusion in
industrial settings, which is relatively low according to insights into product development practices. The
Keywords: mismatch between ambitious goals and moderate spill-over benefits in the industry ranges among the
TRIZ various open issues concerning TRIZ, its way of thinking, its effectiveness, the usability of its tools. In
Conceptual design
order to provide a general overview of TRIZ in science, the authors have attempted to analyse reliable and
Industrial practice
influential sources from the literature. The performed survey includes the top 100 indexed publications
Information processing
Computer-Aided Innovation concerning TRIZ, according to the number of received citations. Variegated and poorly interconnected
research directions emerge in the abundant literature that tackles TRIZ-related topics. The outcomes of
the investigation highlight the successful implementation of TRIZ within, among the others, biomimetics
and information processing. The traditional borders of mechanical and industrial engineering have been
frequently crossed, as the use of TRIZ is also witnessed in the domain of business and services. At the
same time, computer-aided platforms represent diffused attempts to boost TRIZ diffusion and
applicability.
ã 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Contents

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
2. Research about TRIZ: selection and clustering of relevant contributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
2.1. Identification of a set of reference scientific publications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
2.2. Analysing and grouping the gathered material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
3. Review of the most cited TRIZ-related contributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
3.1. Cluster 1: TRIZ diffusion and development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
3.2. Cluster 2: TRIZ in biomimetics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
3.3. Cluster 3: Computer-Aided Innovation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
3.4. Cluster 4: research studies about the benefits from using TRIZ and its employment in the practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
3.5. Cluster 5 and 6: TRIZ for ideation and conceptual design used as a stand-alone methodology and in combination with other techniques 125
3.5.1. Case Based Reasoning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
3.5.2. Axiomatic Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
3.5.3. Design for X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
3.5.4. Cognitive and analogy-based ideation approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
3.6. Cluster 7: quality, customer satisfaction and business innovation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
3.6.1. Quality Function Deployment and other techniques for customer-to-engineering mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
3.6.2. Value Engineering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
3.6.3. Theory of Constrains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: leonid.chechurin@lut.fi (L. Chechurin),
yuri.borgianni@unibz.it (Y. Borgianni).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compind.2016.06.002
0166-3615/ã 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
120 L. Chechurin, Y. Borgianni / Computers in Industry 82 (2016) 119–134

3.6.4. Six Sigma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

3.6.5. Other employments of TRIZ in business and innovation management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
3.7. Cluster 8: sustainability, safety and ergonomics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
3.8. Cluster 9: decision making and integration with Analytic Hierarchy Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
3.9. Cluster 10: information processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
3.9.1. Knowledge management of technical documents through TRIZ concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
3.9.2. TRIZ at the baseline for information gathering in engineering design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
4. Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
4.1. Findings and authors’ understanding of the literature about TRIZ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
4.2. TRIZ and engineering design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
5. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
5.1. Limitations of the research approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
5.2. Final remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

1. Introduction Making ideation phase of engineering design much more

The Theory of Inventive Problem Solving, developed in the
former USSR and commonly known as TRIZ, is rated among the
most articulated and effective sets of techniques for supporting the
initial stages of engineering design. Many contributions stress the
capability of TRIZ to enhance ideation and problem-solving
performances; we can mention [52,45,35,25] among the most
rigorous recent research studies.
On the other hand, several works remark the limited employ-
ment of TRIZ in industrial settings and argue about its effective-
ness. Rese and Baier [91] highlight how TRIZ is seldom used in
innovation networks, as well as its exploitation has resulted in
several unsuccessful experiences. Similar results had already
emerged in the analysis of German industry performed by
Schneider et al. [95]. Sakao [94] mentions an experiment within
eco-design, in which solutions obtained through TRIZ were
outperformed by concepts elaborated with other design method-
ologies. Howard et al. [48] underline that the use of TRIZ for
concept generation is effective just when designers master the
theory proficiently. Most significantly, the limited use of TRIZ in the
industrial environment clearly emerges in Graner and Mißler-
Behr’s [43] review of the literature concerning the diffusion of New
Product Development methods in the practice.
Methodological deficiencies are mentioned also within the TRIZ
community, but they are insufficient to justify the difficulties in
crossing the borders of academia. Cavallucci et al. [22] point out
how classical TRIZ does not tackle complex problems appropriate-
ly. The concept is shared by Becattini et al. [8], but it is shown how
more articulated TRIZ-based techniques can overcome the claimed
inefficiency. de Carvalho et al. [33] shed light on limitations
concerning the laws of engineering systems evolution, but this
does not seem to affect the usability of these tools, as they have
been widely exploited in the practice (see Section 3).
Still according to literature, the main reasons of low TRIZ
popularity are constituted by problems connected with the
dissemination of the theory, as well as difficult underlying
principles, which characterize a not structured collection of tools
[51]. Moreover, negative judgements could be affected by what is
intended as TRIZ, but it does not fully comply with the
conventional exploitation of the original teachings: misuses,
over-simplifications and intentional deviations from classical TRIZ
are claimed frequently in the literature [34,56,81,6,133]. More
explanations are provided in the followings.
Although not truly pervaded by an air of mystery, as addressed
by some scholars [51], the development and refinement of TRIZ
have not followed the common criteria of scientific diffusion and
discussion. Genrich Altshuller introduced the elements of more
productive thinking in inventive engineering through a publication
in “Vorprosy Psikhologii” (Issues on Psychology), dated 1956.
systematic and therefore gaining popularity among practicing
inventors, the method evolved into a toolset for systematic
creativity under the name of “Theory of Inventive Problem Solving”
by the 1980s. Altshuller and his followers deployed TRIZ through
extensive public activities, training seminars, articles and books.
Consequently, TRIZ gained new instruments and chapters. The
main method application roadmap, named the Algorithm for
Inventive Problem Solving (ARIZ), evolved through several editions
from 1965 to 1985. At the same time, the discussion, intentionally
or not, never left the closed circle of TRIZ developers and all the
possible developments had to be approved by TRIZ founder rather
than peer-reviewed. In other words, the development of the
“theory” (as it was named by the adepts) was never supported by
the traditional mechanisms of scientific validation. However, many
of these developments have proven to be useful in practice,
becoming the subject or instrument of current research activities.
As TRIZ crossed the borders of former USSR, the first scientific
publications appeared in the late 1990s (more precisely in 1997,
according to Scopus database). Starting from the 2000s, TRIZ
increasingly attracted scholars’ interest, as demonstrated by the
steady growth of the number of TRIZ-centred scientific publica-
tions [14]. In this way, the presence of TRIZ among the topics of
papers concerning design has surpassed other acknowledged
methods and tools, although still distant from the diffusion of the
most popular instruments [26].
Nevertheless, as aforementioned, the popularity within acade-
mia is still insufficient to ensure a wide diffusion of TRIZ mind-set
at an operative level. In this sense, the long training required to
master TRIZ effectively represents a considerable obstacle [84,9].
Problems are exacerbated by the supposed misalignment between
industry expectations about TRIZ support and the structure of
traditional training courses [82]. In such a context, University
training represents a chance to boost the diffusion of TRIZ
knowledge to novel engineers and technicians. The literature does
not lack the description of experiences about the introduction of
TRIZ in educational programs; we can mention [87,10] as
illustrative contributions. However, as a result of a survey
conducted in the top 30 technical universities worldwide
(according to Quacquarelli-Symonds index), just two courses
(out of 294) about engineering design and New Product Develop-
ment mention TRIZ in their syllabi [3].
As contradictions are the focus of problem analysis and solving
in TRIZ, a huge dichotomy invests the theory paradoxically: TRIZ
enables the disclosure of first-class creative technical solutions,
but it does not succeed in carving out a primary role in the context
of engineering design and New Product Development practices,
where innovation is besides a mantra.
As several aspects of TRIZ development and employment are
unclear, the purpose of the paper is to review scientific
 L. Chechurin, Y. Borgianni / Computers in Industry 82 (2016) 119–134
contributions about Altshuller’s theory systematically in order to
find out whether the claimed open issues and limitations have
been addressed adequately. The survey aims at disclosing how TRIZ
concepts are exploited most commonly, thus revealing whether
the trajectories followed by TRIZ users have divaricated from
Altshuller’s initial intent. These results did not emerge from
previous reviews of TRIZ, which have limited their scope to specific
features; more in detail:
 Ilevbare et al. [51] point out the frequency of use of the most
known TRIZ tools in a sample of British enterprises; akin
observations about the popularity of the single heuristics are
reported in [13,102];
 Hua et al. [49] report the combinations of TRIZ with other design
techniques in previous ten years;
 Spreafico and Russo [102] perform a critical survey about the
industrial fields in which TRIZ has been employed, by benefitting
from the information gained from numerous scientific papers;
 other surveys concentrate on the suitability of TRIZ instruments
and parts of its body of knowledge for the scopes of particular
technical areas, design objectives and specific kind of designers,
e.g. experts in Axiomatic Design [60,98].
The paper is organised as follows. The next section illustrates
how the authors have chosen the reference literature contributions
to be analysed and the criteria through which these scientific
publications have been clustered. The subsequent section
describes the contents included in this corpus. A discussion
section follows, which aims at highlighting the main evidences of
the review. Eventually, the final section concludes the paper by
including the limitations of the presented research approach.
The authors do not commit to explaining the fundamentals of
TRIZ and its instruments, which are taken for granted as abundant
literature is available and clarifications would supposedly result
redundant.
2. Research about TRIZ: selection and clustering of relevant
contributions
2.1. Identification of a set of reference scientific publications
The Introduction has clarified that the scope of the paper is to
explore scientific literature about TRIZ and check whether the
posed questions have been faced appropriately. In particular, the
authors aim at achieving a general overview about what is deemed
relevant and agreed in the scholarly discussion, rather than
verifying whether specific issues have been tackled, no matter the
scientific relevance of the published material. Indeed, while the
authors are interested in analysing the most authoritative
divulgations, findings of certain literature contributions should
not be considered significant, due to absence/lack of peer review
and limited impact on the scientific community.
Consistently with this vision, the authors extracted the
publications to be analysed from an acknowledged scientific
dataset, i.e. Scopus, in January 2016. The authors opted to use this
database by attempting to find a compromise between reliability of
the sources, availability of a large number of publications, ease of
cataloguing the results according to certain criteria, provided
support in processing bibliographic data. For instance, while the
indexing of Web of Science resulted too restrictive, thus excluding
supposedly relevant peer-reviewed material, the employment of
Google Scholar would have led to difficulties in identifying the
fundamental literature due to overabundance of data [80], likely
populated by a large number of divulgations characterized by loose
review processes. Besides, the latter does not allow the search of
keywords in the main parts of papers (abstract, keywords) and this
121
implies the overwhelming number of poorly pertinent results
potentially obtained through this instrument.
The search query to individuate pertinent results was “TRIZ” or
“Theory of Inventive Problem Solving” in Title or Abstract or
Keywords (TAK). The search retrieved a set of papers that
approximated the sample of publications dealing with TRIZ.
Indeed, several articles on a chemical compound with the name
TRIZ should be eliminated, leading to a corpus of about 1400
papers. A complete state-of-the-art of all these publications is
unfeasible, besides possibly including material with a poor impact
on the scientific community. In order to focus on the most
influencing material, the results were ordered according to the
number of received citations, which can be considered as a proxy of
publications’ relevance. The use of the reference count as a
criterion for assessing the quality of research is an arguable issue,
especially for what concerns the evaluation of scholars’ and
research institutions’ performances [92]. However, this strategy is
frequently used in order to perform selection of papers also in
technical fields, see e.g. [61], as well as a link has been found
between number of citations and practical utility of the
publications [4]. Then, attention was dedicated to a subset of
publications, i.e. those English-language journal and conference
papers that have been cited at least 10 times. The introduction of
the criterion concerning the language of the full-text moves from
the need of identifying publications that are addressed at a
worldwide audience. This led to the exclusion of a dozen of papers,
which, additionally, could not be read and analysed by the authors.
In order to check the robustness of the selection criteria, the
authors simulated a similar procedure by using the Web of Science
database. The great majority of the top-cited articles indexed by
Scopus also range among the contributions in Web of Science
database with the largest number of forward references. This
suggests that the choice of the database just limitedly affects the
individuation of a group of publications that are selected according
to citation criteria.
2.2. Analysing and grouping the gathered material
The resulting quantity of contributions to be analysed resulted
in a sample of 102 papers. The publications were classified
according to authors first, so to identify main research teams and
cooperation works, and, second, to their content.
The authors’ classification was performed as follows:
 The number of authored contributions belonging to the defined
sample was determined for each scholar;
 Research cooperation has been identified by means of co-
authorship, starting from the authors with the largest number of
entries and, subsequently, the same procedure has been applied
to their contacts;
 Groups of authors have been defined based on mutual relation-
ships in the co-authorship of papers.
This has led to the identification of 58 groups, meaning that (at
least) 58 different research teams have contributed to the sample
of publications with no mutual co-authorship with the members of
other sets. Fig. 1 illustrates the main emerged groups in a graphical
format, i.e. those including the highest number of manuscripts and
including an author to whom at least 5 papers belong. In the
graphic, the radius of circles is proportional to the number of
authored papers belonging to the sample. Intersections between
circles show the fact that the representative authors share one or
more papers: the reported number indicates the quantity of co-
authored manuscripts. For clarity’s sake, with reference to the top
left cluster of the figure, the author “Cavallucci, D.” is author of 6
out of the 102 considered contributions. 3 out of these 6
122 L. Chechurin, Y. Borgianni / Computers in Industry 82 (2016) 119–134

Fig. 1. main groups of selected publications organised according to co-authorships with the most prolific scholars.

publications were authored also by “Roussellot, F.” and “Zanni-
Merk, C.”. A paper has been written together with “Khomenko, N.”,
but this does not represent the whole contribution of the latter,
who has indeed authored 3 manuscripts of the sample. On his turn,
he shows two co-authorships with other scholars, both of which
regard a single manuscript. The illustration of the main clusters
enables the readers to extrapolate that the presented research
macro-groups mainly operate in France, Taiwan, Italy, Mexico and
United Kingdom. Beyond the 5 presented groups, the remaining
manuscripts are distributed as follows:
and strived to keep the clusters small in number and independent.
The fine-tuning of completely independent classes of papers was
not possible, as some publications contribute in a large variety of
aspects. However, it has been checked that the highest number of
overlaps was less than half of the whole population of a cluster, as
this circumstance would have led to the elimination of the cluster
itself and its unification in a similar category. The finally chosen
classification organizes the papers into 10 separate clusters and
Table 1 documents the number of overlaps between them. The full
list of papers with their matching clusters is reported in

 2 groups in which the most prolific author has contributed with 4

publications;
Table 1
 a group in which the most prolific author has contributed with 3 Number of overlapping papers among the above-defined clusters: numbers in the
publications; diagonal clearly represent the population of each cluster.
 7 groups in which the most prolific author has contributed with 2
Cluster 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
publications;
 43 articles for which each author appears just once in the sample 1 18 1 3 1 0 1 2 2 1 1
2 1 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
of selected contributions.
3 3 0 10 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
4 1 0 0 5 0 1 0 0 0 0
Subsequently, the authors of the present paper have defined 5 0 0 0 0 13 1 1 2 0 1
clustering criteria concerning the discussed topics in order to 6 1 0 0 1 1 15 0 0 0 1
7 2 0 0 0 1 0 21 3 1 3
include the whole set of papers. A specific classification of TRIZ-
8 2 0 0 0 2 0 3 13 1 1
related contributions does not exist yet, thus it had to be created on 9 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 5 1
purpose. The authors have evaluated various classification ways 10 1 0 0 0 1 1 3 1 1 23
 L. Chechurin, Y. Borgianni / Computers in Industry 82 (2016) 119–134
Appendix A, which can be extrapolated by the review Section 3 and
in which the contributions are ordered according to the above
authors’ groups. The clusters follow:
(1) Presenting classical TRIZ, developing the theory and adapting
it to specific purposes;
(2) Studies of TRIZ within biology and biomimetics;
(3) Computer-Aided Innovation and computer-based frame-
works that favour the use of TRIZ;
(4) General studies about experiences of increasing creativity
through TRIZ; investigation of TRIZ diffusion and its use in the
industrial practice;
(5) Application-oriented contributions, where TRIZ is used in
conceptual design, problem-solving and ideation;
(6) Conjoint use of TRIZ and other techniques for engineering
design and ideation;
(7) Use of TRIZ to support business innovation and to achieve
customer satisfaction; synergic employment of TRIZ with
quality/management tools;
(8) Sustainable design using TRIZ;
(9) Decision-making procedures that include TRIZ;
(10) TRIZ within Information Processing and Intellectual Property.
The first 4 clusters basically concern studies about TRIZ, its
introduction in the scientific arena and means to boost its
diffusion: they are reported in Sections 3.1–3.4, respectively.
Conversely, the final 6 clusters have a more practical orientation.
While clusters 5 and 6 describe TRIZ application in its classical
domain (Section 3.5), the application scope increasingly diverges
in the residual clusters (Sections 3.6–3.9). It can be inferred that
clusters sharing a large number of contributions show particular
affinities or complementarities. For example, the implementation
of TRIZ teachings into computer frameworks (cluster 3) has kept
pace with the development of the theory in several contributions.
It is worth noting, however, that the mutual relationships between
research-oriented and use-oriented clusters, i.e. 1–4 vs. 5–10, are
not particularly large in number.
3. Review of the most cited TRIZ-related contributions
3.1. Cluster 1: TRIZ diffusion and development
Within the pool of analysed documents, many of the oldest
contributions introduce classical TRIZ and disclose its potential
usefulness for design and engineering [38,109,41,55,122]. In a
certain sense, these papers represent an early promotion to TRIZ
for those interested in new methodologies for increasing design
efficiency. Besides, the first two citations provide a wide
illustration of TRIZ toolkit.
For what concerns further developments, the introduction has
already highlighted that this has happened outside of the classical
scientific circuits primarily. As the number of papers belonging to
the considered sample that directly deal with theoretical develop-
ments is quite low, we can assume that this approach is still taking
place, also after the time TRIZ has crossed the borders of former
USSR. For instance, none of the papers directly deal with significant
branches of TRIZ evolution, besides mastered by eminent fellows
within the TRIZ community, such as General Theory of Innovation,
Directed Evolution or TOP-TRIZ, just to mention some of them.
OTSM-TRIZ is a partial exception to this tendency. OTSM is
another Russian acronym, standing for General Theory of Powerful
Thinking [57]. The cited paper points out how OTSM aims to
overcome limitations of ARIZ employment and considers the
opportunity of using the Problem Flow Network, which is capable
of managing complex problems and systems. Complexity is hereby
understood as a situation in which chains of contradictions exist in
123
the analysed problem. Still within OTSM, the instruments
presented in Cavallucci and Khomenko [20] and Cavallucci and
Eltzer [19] still reflect the efforts of developing more complex
frameworks and Contradiction Networks as powerful tools for
problem analysis. These kinds of schemes are mirrored by [16],
which presents an algorithm for the systematic analysis of
engineering system. More details about the OTSM’s way of
thinking and specific toolkit are given in [7], but these peculiar
aspects are just mentioned, without proposing the validation of
their supposed superiority with respect to classical TRIZ. A new
“Thinking Approach” targeted for learning has been reportedly
based on TRIZ and OTSM in [99], where, however, only its
application results are presented and discussed.
Furthermore, the developments affected the classical TRIZ
tools just partially. No attempt is witnessed, at least in the
selected documents, to expand and redefine the most popular
techniques. Thus, we cannot record, for instance, new Laws or
Trends of Engineering Systems Evolution (TESEs), additional
Inventive Principles (IPs) or Standard Solutions. The attempts
ended up with trying to modify the Contradiction Matrix or to
adopt IPs for specific fields of application. In Ref. [103],
Altshuller’s matrix is adapted to chemical engineering: it is
smaller, has different features, IPs and topology with respect to
the original version. Conversely, new 7 chemical engineering-
related features are added to the classical matrix in [85]. Still
within chemical engineering, Kim et al. [59] group IPs into 6
reference clusters for practical usage in the field. Duran-Novoa
et al. [36] reformulate IPs in the light of dialectics. In this
contribution, Genetic Algorithms provide a heuristic evolutionary
strategy aimed at identifying the best combination of elements
(genes) for a system (chromosome). The amount of combinations
rises with the growing number of involved elements, making
systematic morphological design numerically impossible. There-
fore, a Darwinism-like heuristic strategy is suggested. The study
contributes to a novel research direction, where new conceptual
designs emerge as a result of optimization techniques, e.g.
topology optimization performed by the Genetic Algorithms. A
limitation of the approach stands in the fact that an “out of box”
solution is not viable to appear and human creativity and
inventiveness are still required to the scope. Chai et al. [23] show
how Ideal Final Result, Function analysis and contradiction
elimination can be interpreted for business, management and
services. Each original TRIZ inventive principle and separation
principle is explained through a smart inventive business
solution. The employment of TRIZ for addressing problems in
the public sector is discussed in [112]. The paper illustrates an
attempt to reinterpret IPs for the scopes of the public sector
services, so as to generate smart ideas in healthcare, environment,
transportation and other areas.
Eventually, the construction of a biology-tailored matrix is the
subject of [117]. The interplay between TRIZ and the biology
domain are the specific subject of the next subsection, in which
more details will be given.
3.2. Cluster 2: TRIZ in biomimetics
Some of manuscripts concerning biomimetics studies in TRIZ
are among the most cited within the sample of analysed
contributions. It is worth mentioning that the power of biology
in inspiring inventive design was acknowledged in TRIZ since its
early days. For example, the 1985s version of algorithm for
inventive problem solving, ARIZ–85B included a recommendation
to look at biology as one of the most promising sources for
retrieving required principles.
There is no surprise that the creation of a taxonomy of biology
effects is still an ongoing process and TRIZ is found useful in
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addressing this kind of studies. The idea was taken up mostly by
Julian Vincent with co-authors and produced a series of papers
(included in the bottom cluster of Fig. 1). First, Vincent and Mann
[118] acknowledge the potential of specific TRIZ tools for
systematic technology transfer from biology to engineering. In
Ref. [115], the “design” of biological material (arthropod cuticle) is
analysed from the perspective of contradiction elimination: it is
shown how certain smart cuticle’s features can be “reinvented” by
IPs application. However, the study shows also that the recon-
struction of contradictions would often recommend different IPs.
In other words, it is shown that there is a difference in resolution of
design conflicts in biology and technology. This resulted in the
construction of a biology-tailored contradiction matrix (named
BioTRIZ) in a subsequent paper [117]. The difference between
BioTRIZ matrix and Altshuller’s original one is highlighted through
a systematic biology-based idea generation process concerning a
winter tire design. Statistics of patents’ growth according to bio-
inspired principles are presented in [12], which discusses, besides,
biomimetics’ main characteristics at that time and its possible
future developments. Craig et al. [31] provide an exhaustive case
study (inventive design in the field of roof insulation) about the use
of the abovementioned BioTRIZ. Finally, a review on biomimetics
[116] includes a chapter on TRIZ, where the peculiarities of using
TRIZ in the field are discussed. In particular, it is pointed out how
biology can enrich TRIZ-based design and which measures should
be undertaken to ease the technology transfer between technical
and biological domains.
3.3. Cluster 3: Computer-Aided Innovation
Computer-Aided Innovation (CAI) concept came to life about a
decade ago with the aim of automating new product development
at various design stages. However, CAI’s development has reflected
its tight connection with the TRIZ world [50] and it has hardly
crossed the borders of conceptual design, thus disregarding the
automation of other important aspects, such as market analysis,
financing, business planning etc. As a result, CAI tries to integrate
all the relevant computer-based approaches with TRIZ at its heart
and more than 60% of Scopus-indexed papers with the string
“Computer Aided Innovation” in the TAK, contain also TRIZ in the
same search fields (73 out of 115 in May 2016).
Leon [65] presents an overview on the CAI concept, its main
components, approaches and perspectives. It is an interesting
attempt to connect TRIZ capabilities with other concepts and
techniques classically belonging to the conceptual design field:
optimization techniques and evolution algorithms, sematic web
and data mining, integration to Product Lifecycle Management and
even chaos theory. In a certain sense, the work attempts to
delineate the extent of the domain in which CAI can operate.
Consistently with this view, Cugini et al. [32] and Albers et al. [2]
already present interesting examples of CAI-based mechanical
designs: a scooter wheel and an engine crankshaft, respectively.
The former presents the design flow, integrating stages of new
concept generation (based on TRIZ) and optimization. Further
integration to PLM is also discussed. The latter develops previous
findings of León-Rovira et al. [66] and suggests genetic algorithms
to be used for embedding the new conceptual solutions into a CAD
interface. Both the papers highlight the possibility of using
computational (topology) optimization to retrieve design contra-
dictions, which can be seen as an important contribution for design
automation development.
Other contributions aim at developing computerized platform
that support the employment of TRIZ concepts for engineering
designers. The effort is attributed of great importance in [58],
that sees the availability of effective software applications as
the key to success of design methodologies. TRIZ is seen as a
reference technique for which great investments are paid in this
sense, as two major software houses were working on the
development of TRIZ-based computer applications at the time of
the publication. Little information is available in indexed
publications about these efforts; indications about the activities
of Invention Machine Laboratories are given in [109], which,
besides, stresses the importance of supporting designers through
computer frameworks, especially in terms of managing knowl-
edge.
Zanni-Merk et al. [130] introduce an ontology for the whole
body of TRIZ; in this sense, it is the most systematic attempt known
so far and it represents a fundamental step forward in the
perspective of developing computerized systems exploiting TRIZ
potential. Not surprisingly, the idea is developed into a problem
solving software prototype in a subsequent work [131]. Becattini
et al. [7] propose a computer model for inventive problem solving
in the form of a designer’s coach. It helps formalize complex
situation analysis and convert them into a contradiction form, thus
allowing TRIZ to generate new ideas. All this is done through a
natural-language dialog-like interaction with a software applica-
tion. The paper reports three industrial examples for the system’s
application within a successful testing campaign performed by
Mechanical Engineering students. As mentioned before, the work
leverages some concepts belonging to OTSM-TRIZ, as the idea of an
OTSM-based software was already presented in [57].
3.4. Cluster 4: research studies about the benefits from using TRIZ and
its employment in the practice
As TRIZ is supposed to be a reference technique for improving
people’s creative capabilities, especially within technical problem
solving, some papers of the sample deal with the evaluation of
creative results for designers employing TRIZ. The education
setting is the common context in which experiments are carried
out.
Ogot and Okudan [87] compare TRIZ and brainstorming in the
context of learning styles, meant as the preferred ways in which an
individual absorbs and processes information. The study shows
how TRIZ way of thinking reflects the learning approach of a
majority of students and this allows to suppose that Altshuller’s
theory can represent a prolific tool to improve creative idea
generation. The results of an experiment on the influence of TRIZ
knowledge on engineering student’s creativity are reported in [67].
Differences are highlighted between a control group with no
exposition to TRIZ and a sample of trained students. As mentioned
above, Sokol et al. [99] perform an empirical study on an OTSM-
TRIZ-based learning approach. The setting is the language classes
of an upper secondary school. The outcomes show the increased
thinking skills for those exposed to the described thinking
approach.
Eventually, two papers of the analysed pool review peculiari-
ties of TRIZ employment and, indeed, they are already recalled in
the Introduction. Moehrle [82] presents a study based on over 40
reports about the employment of TRIZ made by practitioners. The
statistic shows that the way TRIZ is used unexpectedly differs
from the way it is generally taught. For example, ARIZ is almost
neglected. Instead, specific tools are applied separately or in
combination with each other. The study provides a frequency
analysis of TRIZ tools’ usage. The contribution of Ilevbare et al.
[51] surveys people’s experiences of TRIZ exploitation. The results
highlight advantages and, more importantly, challenges of
using TRIZ. Not surprisingly, the latter include “diversity and
complexity of methods”, “difficulty in application and acquisi-
tion”, “lack of standard”, difficulty of application of TRIZ for non-
technical fields and even “differences in Russian and Western way
of thinking”.
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3.5. Cluster 5 and 6: TRIZ for ideation and conceptual design used as a
stand-alone methodology and in combination with other techniques
As already recalled, TRIZ was born as a tool to boost engineering
creativity. In this sense, conceptual design is, within engineering,
the privileged grounds for the TRIZ toolset. In particular, the
mechanical field has been traditionally the main domain for TRIZ
application, as Altshuller was focusing on mechanical solutions
when he pointed out the first evidences and regularities in the
patterns leading to inventive solutions. Therefore, not surprisingly,
many papers of the examined sets include examples of brilliant
solutions to mechanical problems achieved through TRIZ, e.g.
[15,86,72]. However, the exploitation of TRIZ is widespread also in
other contexts. A list of application-oriented contributions follows
that focus on the potential of TRIZ within specific areas.
The value of [37] stands in an introduction of TRIZ to the
ceramic manufacturing research community. Two papers focus on
the use of TRIZ in the construction industry. Mohamed and
AbouRizk [84] illustrate a case study concerning the design of
tunnels, while Lee and Shin [64] apply TRIZ to improve the
behaviour of existing structures with a specific reference to steel
tube diagrid.
Beyond the development and design of physical products, the
literature demonstrates a not negligible diffusion of TRIZ in the
field of services. For instance, Lin and Su [74] and Lin et al. [73]
apply the Contradiction Matrix to new service design. Besides, TRIZ
is employed to improve service quality in [108] and to solve design
problems for IT-enabled healthcare services in [126]. Many other
publications refer to the design of new services, although this is not
the central topic of the contributions, e.g. [77].
Goepp et al. [42] address an unusual application field for TRIZ,
namely the architecture design of information systems. The study
discusses the peculiarities of application of TRIZ (more precisely,
OTSM-TRIZ) in the area, suggests a generic approach of designing
information systems with TRIZ and provides a case study.
In the following paragraphs, the employment of TRIZ still deals
with conceptual design and ideation, but its value arises in
combination with other techniques, thus elucidating the contri-
butions belonging to cluster 6 according to the above categoriza-
tion of manuscripts.
3.5.1. Case Based Reasoning
Case Based Reasoning (CBR) and TRIZ present deep similarities,
but also inherent remarkable differences. CBR establishes a
procedure of design, based the use of previous successful similar
cases, and a system that helps to adapt them to a specific situation.
TRIZ is grounded on (and derived from) best inventive practices
too. The difference is that TRIZ systematically classifies these cases
and provides its successful ontology instead of outlining adapta-
tion patterns. Nevertheless, it seems very natural to investigate
ways of integration or synergy between them.
Cortes Robles et al. [30] provide an extensive comparative
review on CBR and TRIZ. A roadmap and an algorithm are
presented in which TRIZ formulates problem’s contradiction(s),
while CBR retrieves previous successful cases based on contradic-
tion similarity. A case study from chemical process engineering is
given. Another paper from the same research team [85] further
develops the previous study: environmental aspects are included,
case-similarity criteria comprise more features and adaptability is
introduced and discussed as an evaluation parameter. The
approach is illustrated through a case study from chemical process
engineering too. Jou et al. [53] face problems in a similar way. First,
CBR and TRIZ are compared and TRIZ is claimed to lack memory
(dissimilarly from the opinion of the authors of the present paper).
Then, a design procedure is suggested, in which TRIZ is integrated
to look for solutions outside of the given engineering domain
125
covered by the CBR database. The whole article is devoted to the
design of an educational system for a robotics class. A roadmap
including CBR and TRIZ is also the focus of [124], which integrates
environmental considerations with respect to the above contri-
butions. The paper evolves in [125], where a simplified Life Cycle
Assessment is used to judge if a new concept is better than the
currently available ones. The design of a mobile phone display
serves as an illustrative example.
3.5.2. Axiomatic Design
There are two distinctive features of Axiomatic Design’s (AD)
paradigm that can be seen as complementary aspects of TRIZ
application domain. The first is to focus on functional requirements
and on relating them to physical requirements. In this sense, the
approach seems to fulfil the same function of other methodologies,
such as Quality Function Deployment (QFD). The second feature
consists in two axioms that help to distinguish good from bad
designs.
This has led to hypothesize a framework integrating AD and
TRIZ: AD is firstly used to formulate technical requirements
(problem setup), then TRIZ is entrusted to invention, and, then,
solutions are evaluated from axioms’ viewpoint. Two exhaustive
contributions support the opportunity of deploying said design
procedure. In the former [60], AD and TRIZ are thoroughly
compared according to many aspects, as well as their differences
and advantages are comparatively studied. The latter [98] analyses
design case studies, where AD was used in integration with TRIZ.
The suggested integrated roadmap particularly underlines the
benefits of using AD for the formulation of functional requirements
and TRIZ for the generation of concepts.
A deeper integration is proposed by Ogot [86], but this
contribution starts from TRIZ rather than AD’s perspective: in
other words, an integration is described of AD into TRIZ-based
design practice. AD’s independence axiom is used for evaluating
not just TRIZ-generated concepts, but also TRIZ instruments to be
used. An example of the design of a mechanical device is described.
Kremer et al. [63] combine TRIZ and AD in a different manner. At
first, AD decomposes the problem to the level of several sub-
problems or independent functional requirements. Then, TRIZ is
used as a “systematic ideation technique” to generate solutions. At
last, the cost of chosen concepts is quantified and subsequently
optimized by means of linear programming, inspired by principles
of design for manufacturability (the topic of the following
paragraph). Thus, differently from other contributions, axioms
are not employed to evaluate solutions. An extensive case study
within mechanical design illustrates the approach.
3.5.3. Design for X
Design for Manufacturing (DFMA) provides design guidelines to
take into account manufacturability problems beyond product
performances. Otherwise said, DFMA focuses on design simplifi-
cation in such a way that it is easy to manufacture and assemble.
Such an issue does not conflict with the driving concept of ideality
for TRIZ, as simpler systems (less elements, simpler operation
principles) generally result in cheaper manufacturing and assem-
bly. This consideration opens [5], but further discussion reveals
that these two approaches are complementary rather than similar.
DFMA helps to evaluate the existing design (at the detailed design
stage), while TRIZ mostly helps to create new design solutions (at
the concept design stage). An algorithm combining TRIZ and DFMA
is illustrated, together with a design example concerning a satellite
antenna.
Still with the scope of reducing costs, the “opposite” design
strategy, namely, “design for disassembly” has been also integrated
with TRIZ. Chen and Chen [27] make use of TRIZ tools (a modified
contradiction matrix and Substance-Field analysis) to generate
126 L. Chechurin, Y. Borgianni / Computers in Industry 82 (2016) 119–134
ideas for smart active fasteners that enable active disassembly at
the end-of-life product stage.
Interestingly, rather than the whole TRIZ theory, Altshuller’s
approach, i.e. analysing large amount of patents and clustering
them to individuate common principles, served as model in [54].
The paper highlights the different design approaches of Design for
Robustness (DFR), TRIZ, AD and other methodologies. Similarly to
DFMA, DFR focuses on specific properties of existing designs, such
as the sensitivity of their performance with respect to certain
fluctuations (in internal or external conditions). The objective of
the study is extracting (among over 200 inventions classified as
“robust”) a set of design strategies for developing robust systems.
3.5.4. Cognitive and analogy-based ideation approaches
Howard et al. [48] focus on the creative idea generation process
in an industrial environment and disclose a guided approach to
provoking creative stimuli. TRIZ (contradiction matrix and IPs)
turns out to be a valuable integrative tool for enhancing creative
performance. The results of improved brainstorming sessions are
documented and discussed. In Lin and Luh [72], a roadmap of
product design is suggested, where TRIZ is followed by morpho-
logical design and “image scaling”. The latter helps visualize the
generated concepts, evaluate them from a perception perspective,
make them more human-centred. The case study of the develop-
ment of an inventive therapy bike for cerebral palsy children is
illustrated. Finally, Tan [110] exploits TRIZ to support analogy-
based reasoning and presents the results of his work through a case
study concerning a paper machine.
3.6. Cluster 7: quality, customer satisfaction and business innovation
3.6.1. Quality Function Deployment and other techniques for
customer-to-engineering mapping
TRIZ, as other engineering methods, was conceived and
developed as an analysis/solving methodology, for which the
technical problem is assigned. In other words, it is taken for
granted that solving the given problem improves the quality or the
value of the product or the system under investigation. Thus, other
methods or criteria should individuate which engineering prob-
lems are worth solving with TRIZ in order to stay competitive.
Several systematic approaches exist that bridge customer’s
expectations with product engineering parameters. QFD seems
to be the most popular instrument. As a result, not surprisingly,
ideas to merge QFD and TRIZ appeared as soon as TRIZ has been
divulgated in the Western world.
Two papers from the late 1990s, i.e. [55,41], are among the first
indexed papers that mention TRIZ within the field of management.
The former highlights the potential of TRIZ in the context of quality
improvement methods, such as QFD and Taguchi. In the latter,
which provides a general discussion about the issue of durability,
TRIZ is suggested among other creativity-enforcing tools for
innovation management.
A systematic integration between QFD and TRIZ firstly appears
in [123]. First, QFD turns customer requirements into quality
engineering parameters. Second, QFD reveals negative correlations
in couples of quality parameters, which can be seen as TRIZ
contradictions. Third, it is suggested to use TRIZ to resolve these
contradictions. A more recent paper [114] extends this approach by
adding the idea of clustering company’s technical information by
industry-specific contradictions and provides an example of
packaging design. Frizziero and Curbastro [40] present an
analogous approach too. They exploit QFD for clarifying the design
task and TRIZ for finding appropriate solutions within the
development of a new valve.
Not dissimilarly, Wang et al. [120] use the House of Quality
model of QFD to point out contradicting issues, which should be
then resolved by means of TRIZ. The algorithm underpinning the
proposed procedure is implemented in a software prototype. Sakao
[94] proposes a methodology in which TRIZ-based design is deeply
integrated into QFD. Moreover, it is suggested to use these tools
together with Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to harmonize the Voice
of the Customer, environmental and product-related issues. The
method helps to reveal contradictions between quality character-
istics and environmental considerations and applies TRIZ to
resolve them. The generated concepts are evaluated through
QFD once again. QFD supports the identification of contradictions
also in [62], where LCA-based eco-design is considered as well.
The whole design cycle from product conception to
manufacturing is considered in [127]. It is suggested to combine
the duo “QFD-TRIZ” at all design stages, including the enhance-
ment of the manufacturing process. Environmental issues are also
taken into account by the approach. A thorough case study (PC
notebook) is described.
Fuzzy QFD is also reported to have been matched with TRIZ
[107]. Fuzzification does not provide any new methodological
insight but helps experts to undertake design decisions in a less
subjective way. It is worth noting that the approach is used for a
non-technical area, such as service design.
An alternative to QFD in the analysis of customer’s quality
preferences is the theory of attractive quality (Kano’s model). Chen
et al. [28] suggest using Kano’s model to formulate contradictions,
which are then faced through Altshuller’s matrix.
Eventually, Lin et al. [73] present a roadmap combining QFD,
Kano’s model and TRIZ. As in most of the cases, QFD is used to
define contradictions and TRIZ is used to resolve them and to
generate new concepts. These concepts are then evaluated through
the lenses of Kano’s criteria. The method is illustrated with a design
example concerning RFID technology.
3.6.2. Value Engineering
Value Engineering (VE) is a management tool to improve the
function/cost ratio of a product. It urges to evaluate product
functions rather than product elements. Zhang et al. [132] focus on
the design of a knowledge management system to support VE
analysis process by systematic knowledge acquisition, representa-
tion and retrieval. Having been integrated there, TRIZ plays an
important role in this system: first, it is used as an idea generation
agent and, second, it provides the structure for knowledge
extraction and storing. Another study of the same authors [79],
presents a method to introduce TRIZ into workshop sessions
swivelled on the employment of VE.
3.6.3. Theory of Constrains
The Theory of Constraints (TOC) is a manufacturing manage-
ment method that aims at improving and optimizing production
processes by avoiding bottlenecks. Stratton and Mann [104]
indicate opportunities and obstacles in combining TOC and TRIZ,
based on similarities and incongruences. A practical combined
application is described in [105], where a managerial problem
regarding a supply chain is studied. It is revealed that TRIZ and TOC
are highly complementary in resolving contradictions in agile/lean
supply chains. In the proposal, TOC helps define and selects
relevant contradictions, which are subsequently solved with
separation principles. A business case study is given. This work
is further developed in [106], where the approach is generalized
and more case studies are presented.
3.6.4. Six Sigma
The application of TRIZ in conjunction with Six Sigma to
improve systems quality is the topic of two papers of the examined
sample, i.e. [119,101]. Whereas the former focuses on banking
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services, the latter faces problems concerning Indian Small and
Medium Enterprises.
3.6.5. Other employments of TRIZ in business and innovation
management
For what concerns business, it is important to identify the right
(sometimes unexpected) positioning of a technology solution.
Bianchi et al. [11] present a TRIZ-supported approach that
reconstructs an abstract TRIZ model of the problem and finds
possible industries where the same problem arises (through patent
processing, for example).
In conclusion, given the multiple opportunities provided by
TRIZ in innovation management context, Sheu and Lee's [97]
contribution can be seen as a sort of compendium. Indeed, the
publication provides an overview of typical problems and tools for
innovation management and possible places for TRIZ among them.
The study suggests an original innovation management roadmap,
where TRIZ is recommended at many stages. Although the
theoretical foundations of the roadmap and its benefits seem
based on speculations only, there are many other innovation/
creativity support tools compared and discussed. This makes the
paper a good informative source in this context.
3.7. Cluster 8: sustainability, safety and ergonomics
The description of the analysed contributions in the preceding
part of the article has highlighted a good diffusion of applications
of TRIZ for environmental friendliness or in conjunction with,
among the others, sustainability-oriented techniques. For instance,
the paragraph about the juxtaposition of TRIZ and CBR presents a
rich discussion about environmental issues. Some of already cited
publications will be recalled in the present paragraph, by
highlighting their contribution to eco-design, in case their
explanation in these terms has not been considered sufficient by
the authors.
The contributions by Low et al. [77] range among the first
studies on the application of IPs for more sustainable product and
service design. The concept of TRIZ contradiction is attributed of a
big potential in the field, but, still according to the scholars, it has to
be adapted and interpreted to the needs of service design and
sustainability issues. This idea is developed with greater practical
orientation in [24], where the integration of eco-efficiency
concerns into contradictions is performed on both conceptual
and software levels. In a similar manner, Kobayashi [62] integrates
TRIZ (through the adaptation of the contradiction matrix) into the
process of eco-innovative inventive product design based on the
LCA process. A case study regarding the design of a refrigerator
illustrates the methodology. Sheng and Kok-Soo [96] remark the
potential of the IPs for eco-efficient product design, as sustain-
ability issues require design decisions in early stages of product
development cycles. The union of known eco-efficiency principles
and IPs results in a new design methodology, namely TRIZEE.
Other TRIZ instruments are considered relevant in sustainable
design, as Fresner et al. [39] highlight the benefits of a wider
spectrum of TRIZ tools in their application to cleaner production.
First, TESEs are shown in the light of cleaner production strategies.
Then, the study reveals the power of function analysis with
subsequent trimming and ideality evaluation at the production
stage where most of waste and emissions are generated. The paper
includes an example in which a galvanization plant is redesigned in
an eco-centred key. TESEs are supposed to drive product eco-
design also according to Russo et al. [93]. The design of a greener
vacuum cleaner shows how TESEs and ideality can provide
guidelines for product innovation.
Another methodology is also presented in [94], where the so-
called Voice of Environment forms a list of 11 requirements and
127
new product design is quantitatively assessed from this perspec-
tive. Thus, a comprehensive list of quality requirements includes
market as well as environmental demands. Then, TRIZ addresses
conflicting requirements and generates ideas for better design. A
case study of a hair drier design is provided. All the above-
mentioned ideas are further developed in [114], which suggests the
combination of QFD and TRIZ for an improved product life cycle
management that supports knowledge codification and reuse.
Cases are clustered on the basis of contradictions’ similarity (the
idea is more intensively used for patent clustering, as better
explained in the subsection concerning information processing).
An exhaustive case study of sustainable packaging design is
included in the contribution.
Safety (against environment polluting accidents, for example)
can also be considered in the framework of sustainable design.
Srinivasan and Kraslawski [103] present an approach to systematic
creative design in chemical processing. As already mentioned, the
paper adapts the original contradiction matrix to chemical
engineering. There are several examples given from chemical
processing field, addressing the usefulness of TRIZ to enhance
safety. An akin objective is achieved by Kim et al. [59], whose
organization of IPs into 6 chemistry-related groups has been
already mentioned too. Akay et al. [1] address problems related to
human-related factors within manufacturing. More specifically,
criteria concerning ergonomics or other human issues are used for
the evaluation of TRIZ-generated solutions, which seems to be
more productive than considering these parameters from the very
beginning when analysing problems and formulating contra-
dictions. In this sense, the design process mirrors those above
contributions that consider environmental and ecological factors a
posteriori. In a different way, Houssin and Coulibaly [47] illustrate
the power of TRIZ in solving different kinds of contradictions that
can arise when safety issues are taken into account at diverse
stages of the product development process.
3.8. Cluster 9: decision making and integration with Analytic
Hierarchy Process
TRIZ provides tools to generate a potentially large number of
solution concepts. For example, the problem modelling through
technical contradictions, i.e. the individuation of two conflicting
parameters, addresses the use of 2–4 IPs in Altshuller’s matrix.
Generally speaking, this means that at least 2–4 ideas for situation
improvement exist, but, sometimes, a single principle can give rise
to more concepts. The list of real alternatives is somehow reduced
to those ideas whose embodiment is judged feasible. Hence, these
alternatives, not well-defined solutions yet, are commonly
examined through multiple criteria, e.g. cost, manufacturability,
environmental impact. Thus, in these circumstances, the design
process is plainly supported by decision-making means, which
individuate the best choice over the given set of alternatives. This
represents a logic TRIZ integration pattern in the management
workflow, although TRIZ body of knowledge already includes some
measures to rank conceptual solutions, e.g. the evaluation of the
ideality of the system or the level of the progress of new designs
according the TESEs [78]. However, TRIZ design evaluation is
mostly based on the “Voice of Technology” and there are no tools in
classical TRIZ to take into account customer response and/or
market potential.
Goel and Singh [41] mention that Analytic Hierarchy Process
(AHP) can represent a valuable selection procedure after the
development of a set of concepts through TRIZ (or other
techniques). An interesting example of integration of AHP into
design workflow prior to TRIZ use is given in [24]. It is suggested to
prioritize eco-efficiency concerns and convert them into general
engineering parameters of Alshuller’s matrix afterwards. In Li [68],
128 L. Chechurin, Y. Borgianni / Computers in Industry 82 (2016) 119–134
AHP is trivially used to rank solutions, while Li and Huang [69]
present a more articulated procedure, where fuzzy sets allow
experts to widen the spectrum of evaluation, making the task more
adequate.
3.9. Cluster 10: information processing
With a not surprising focus on patents, the use of TRIZ in
advanced automated document analysis can be considered as a
peculiar employment of the theory’s body of knowledge.
Mann [78] clarifies how TRIZ concepts can be used in the
estimation/prediction of technology evolution. A step forward is
made in [18], which introduces the radar plots of technology
“ideality” and the Evolution potential. The radar plot representa-
tions (of the projection of the system on TESEs’ lines) became
popular frameworks for some further developments. In this sense,
the contribution made by the cited works can be considered an
antecedent to the employment of TRIZ for information processing
and intellectual property, whose main scopes are:
 Estimating the value and the goodness of a technical solution
 Identifying the capability of technical solutions to evolve and
attempting to anticipate future versions
 Automating data gathering about the employment and the
frequency of TRIZ tools and constructs, so as to contribute for
further developments or alternatives to classical TRIZ;
 Clustering technical documentation based on concepts from
TRIZ body of knowledge;
 Supporting the search for existing solutions, according to the
problem-solving requirements, as formalized by means of TRIZ.
3.9.1. Knowledge management of technical documents through TRIZ
concepts
A large number of the surveyed contributions use TRIZ
constructs to define similarity criteria and training sets to be
exploited within computational linguistics, which allows to
introduce meaningful measures of “closeness” or similarity of a
textual document to another. Given a certain model or “basis”
document, the similarity expresses the extent to which analysed
documents are similar to the reference model. For instance, if a
reference set of documents comprises prime examples of the 40
inventive principles (IPs), an algorithm can check the “semantic
projection” of a patent on those 40 basis elements and determine
the semantic closeness. As clarified in the followings, the
mentioned TRIZ constructs include TESEs, conflicting engineering
parameters, contradictions, IPs and the level of invention.
One of the first examples to classify knowledge through TRIZ
terms regards the construction field, where Mohamed and
AbouRizk [83] exploit the notion of contradiction. More sophisti-
cated and automated models will emerge in the years that follow.
An approach to automate patent classification according to the
TESEs can be found in [113]. It suggests the correspondence of
certain words to specific TESEs, thus facilitating patents’ text
processing. The idea is to track the changes in the object’s
properties, by pinpointing occurred transformations according to
the TESEs, e.g. solid hollow porous etc. Cascini et al. [16]
present a practical approach for TESEs’ analysis for a real
engineering device, which is supposed to carry out many functions.
Each single function, instead of the system as a whole, is
considered in light of the TESEs. Thus, a method named “Network
of Evolutionary Trends” systematically supports decomposing,
information gathering, modelling and analysing each function. At
the present stage, the procedure relies on data retrieved from
experts, but data mining algorithms represent a promising and
viable future evolution of the proposed tool. The semantic analysis
of patents’ text is performed in [128] in order to extract two types
of binary relations, i.e. adjective + noun and verb + noun, which
correspond to properties and functions, respectively. Then, trend-
specific binary relations are defined by means of special rules,
which can be formalized by experts, through TESEs or as the result
of training a patent set. It is then possible to define the semantic
distance between a patent and considered trends. The idea is
developed in a subsequent paper [129], where the algorithm
evolves into a software. Finally, a third paper of the research group
[89] carries out the semantic analysis by means of Subject-Action-
Object (SAO) triads in order to identify promising patents. In other
words, the study provides an algorithm that evaluates how far the
systems described in the patents move along TESEs, and assumes
that the bigger the leap, the higher the patent’s potential. Wang
et al. [121] present an approach to process patent texts on a certain
subject by means of Key-Graph. The illustrated strategy locates
high-frequency terms in a document and individuates strong
associations between couples of terms. The idea is to identify
clusters of words that are either frequent or important. A case
study of patent analysis for a Magnetic Random Access Memory is
given. In this study, the pool of patents was selected and the
KeyGraph was used to find the set of words that feature this pool.
The key terms were subsequently used by experts who associated
them to certain TESEs. A backdrop straightforwardly consists in the
subjectivity bias introduced in the last step.
This work is echoed by OuYang and Weng [88], which presents
another semi-automated procedure to retrieve the pool of relevant
patents and to distil the key documents. Having obtained the list of
key patents, experts are requested to define patents’ technology
performance through the lenses of TRIZ and are encouraged to use
the 39 engineering parameters to accomplish the task. In this
sense, subjectivity issues are not fully resolved. Moreover,
“manual” clustering of patents according to contradicting param-
eters appears as a step back, as Cascini and Russo [17] already
suggested an algorithm for their automated extraction. Indeed,
their contribution is devoted to overcome problems of automati-
cally extracting the contradictions that are resolved in a patent. The
system retrieves the improving feature in the claims, while the
worsening feature is found in the background description of the
patent. Also Cavallucci et al. [21] discuss the advantage of
exploiting TRIZ contradictions for the scopes of patent classifica-
tion. The benefits of contradiction-based patent clustering are
presented, but no algorithm to support the task is proposed. The
idea of using contradictions for clustering technical information is
echoed in [114], which, however, uses company data instead of
patent documentation. Liang et al. [71] introduce groups
comprising contradictions and IPs as the baseline for patent
classification. The proposal illustrates a different approach to
consider SAO triads with respect to [17].
Another use of TRIZ for patent classification is illustrated in
[70], where the level of invention concept is employed to estimate
patent potential. The higher the level, the more disruptive the
invention and, therefore, the bigger the value of the patent from a
functional, innovational and business viewpoint. This type of
ranking is useful for recent patents, whose value cannot be
estimated through the most acknowledged criterion, i.e. citation
counting. The paper suggests rules to mark patents of a certain
level of inventiveness and introduces an index to assess the current
distance of a patent from a given level. Eventually, the study
provides examples and validation experiments that show the
potential of the approach.
Loh et al. [75] propose a procedure for automating the
classification of patents for TRIZ users. Although the algorithm
is not available, the paper contains the idea of clustering patents on
used IPs. Six IPs were selected for the pilot experiment. The work
seems to have been developed in [29], where an algorithm to
 L. Chechurin, Y. Borgianni / Computers in Industry 82 (2016) 119–134
cluster patents according to IPs is introduced. Typical words for
certain IP are collected, e.g. “pre-‘ and “prior’ feature the
‘Preliminary action’ IP. Then, other IPs are taken into account
similarly. Further on, He and Loh [44] extend the approach to
twenty IPs, showing that the chosen association-based rules
outperform previous attempts.
Eventually, [54] is an attempt of “reproducing” Altshuller’s
work. Thousands of patents were filtered in order to extract
“strategies” that are viable of improving the robustness of design.
The study resulted in a set of strategies (similar to shape-related
IPs).
3.9.2. TRIZ at the baseline for information gathering in engineering
design
Cascini and Rissone [15] presented the integration of many
tools in a specific mechanical design (a wheel in which aluminium
is replaced by plastic), where conceptual design is supported by
semantic search. The SAO triad is the core of the semantic search to
provide the designer with relevant technical information from the
web. Soo et al. [100] introduce a comprehensive multi-agent
platform for designers, where the relationships with patent
databases are strongly supported by TRIZ. At first, it is suggested
to use TRIZ for building the ontology (SAO-type). Then, a
hierarchical thesaurus is developed with the help of experts.
Subsequently, an ontology-based agent forms relations between
entities, e.g. wafer and tool have the relation polish. Zhang et al.
[132] provide another example of the same attempt, although at a
less specific level. The study discloses a knowledge management
system for value engineering-based design/analysis, where TRIZ
plays the role of inventing agent, as well as supporting knowledge
structuring.
A different approach should be mentioned in this context,
although it mainly focuses on innovation management. Instead of
looking for documents that might contain a solution to the
assigned problem, Bianchi et al. [11] present an inversed approach,
i.e. how to find an alternative application for a given solution
(technology). The procedure requires the definition of representa-
tive words featuring TESEs’ evolution lines.
4. Discussion
This section introduces a critical discussion of the contents that
have been retrieved and examined and dedicates a specific
subsection to the significance of TRIZ in design.
4.1. Findings and authors’ understanding of the literature about TRIZ
The authors have categorized the surveyed publications into 10
clusters, as presented in Section 2. Some of these groups are clearly
more populated than others, but we cannot derive any implications
from this fact, also because of the subjectivity of the classification.
However, the readers can notice a limited number of manu-
scripts that directly deal with the development of TRIZ and its
toolkit (a subset of cluster 1). This matches the above claims of a
theoretical and methodological development that does not mirror
the common mechanisms of science. Progresses or new findings
about TRIZ are seldom assessed and few studies build upon
previous results, apart from what has already emerged within
circumscribed research groups.
Conversely, many research directions continuously emerge in
the form of different fields of application or exploited functions of
TRIZ, ranging from a tool for eco-design to a support in the business
sector with multiple tasks to be potentially accomplished.
According to the articulation of primary functions that TRIZ is
supposed to perform and that Petrov [90] has proposed to
formalize, the expected tasks are limited to inventive problem
129
solving with any degree of difficulty, forecasting new technical
systems and developing creative thinking skills. The first basic
function is still the best known and most exploited, although
concerns are raised about TRIZ effectiveness when dealing with
complex problems, as reported in the Introduction. As already
highlighted, the problem solving capabilities have diffusedly
crossed the borders of mechanical engineering and other technical
fields, whose inventive patterns represent the basis for the birth of
TRIZ. With reference to TRIZ forecasting capabilities, such a
function is not the most debated, although many contributions that
deal with the use of TESEs, especially within information
processing, pursue the objective of anticipating the design of
future systems. The preponderance of problem solving orientation
can be inferred by the popularity of contradictions, Altshuller’s
matrix and IPs in the sample of examined articles, which confirms
the results presented by Ilevbare et al. [51]. It is worth noticing that
these tools are not generally considered as the most outstanding
instruments belonging to the TRIZ domain; particular effectiveness
concerns regard the contradiction matrix. As such tools are
introduced already in TRIZ basic training, we can suppose that a
large amount of scientific literature makes no exception in the
oversimplification of TRIZ knowledge, already outlined in the
Introduction. Still with reference to primary functions, the link
between TRIZ and creativity is largely acknowledged in the set of
analysed contributions, but the dissemination of TRIZ way of
thinking to improve human intellectual skills is seldom the focus of
the publications. The most rigorous indications in this perspective
arise in the cluster of articles discussing educational programs that
include TRIZ. Other functions, such as decision-making in design or
structuring technical information, were not focal in the eyes of
TRIZ pioneers, if not completely unforeseen.
We can state that the abundance of achieved objectives
complicates the matters in the attempt of providing the big
picture of TRIZ-related research, which appears particularly
chaotic. From a different perspective, the countless approaches
that exploit TRIZ prove the high versatility of its body of
knowledge. The numerous adaptions of original TRIZ tools, which
have been undertaken especially in the fields of biology and
chemistry, witness the depth and the generalizability of Altshul-
ler’s intuitions.
4.2. TRIZ and engineering design
The readers of the review Section 3 can notice that the scopes of
using TRIZ in the design process are inhomogeneous. Different
viewpoints emerge with respect to the tasks that TRIZ supports in
the product development cycle adequately, as introduced in the
previous subsection. Given that the analysed publications agree on
TRIZ suitability for the inventive phase of conceptual design, very
different approaches regard the use of TRIZ to carry out other
activities, e.g. identification of opportunities, problem analysis,
selection of solutions, consideration of environmental, safety and
cost issues. In this sense, manifold design frameworks integrate
various product development techniques with different basic
functions. However, also in the cases TRIZ is combined with other
methods, the range of performed tasks varies (see the cases of QFD
and AD in particular).
In other words, the argued set of activities for which TRIZ is
called into question does not help to identify a standardized locus
of the design process for TRIZ. If we compare two relatively recent
reviews that attempt to categorize the plethora of design
methodologies, i.e. [46,111], they stress different salient aspects
of TRIZ, which is, besides, attributed of little emphasis overall. The
former highlights TRIZ contribution to innovation by providing a
scientific basis for rationalizing product development. The latter
includes TRIZ in concrete design methods that are viable to work
130 L. Chechurin, Y. Borgianni / Computers in Industry 82 (2016) 119–134
for multiple products due to the general validity of its principles. In
a certain sense, priority is given to TRIZ ontology in the former and
to its domain of application in the latter.
In turn, theoretical and practical misalignments can have
repercussions on the limited employment of TRIZ in the design
practice, as introduced at the beginning of the paper.
5. Conclusions
The paper is motivated by concerns about the usability and the
effectiveness of the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving,
commonly known as TRIZ and introduced by Genrich Altshuller
in the second half of the 20th century. The TRIZ community, and
Altshuller’s direct followers from the former USSR in particular,
claim tremendous capabilities of the TRIZ toolkit and way of
thinking, well beyond the support in solving real technical
problems. However, these claims are not definitively well
presented and articulated in scientific peer-reviewed literature.
On the one hand, the stance of outstanding TRIZ developers,
scientists and consultants can be understood through books,
articles and other materials on several websites, despite the fact
that English-written material is not always available. Several
schools of thought have originated from classical TRIZ and
Altshuller’s teachings, showing conflicting views in certain
circumstances. On the other hand, a clear grasp is still lacking of
the discussion about TRIZ in scholarly literature. In order to
overcome this limitation, the authors have selected and analysed
the most influential 102 publications about TRIZ, by using the
criteria described in the second section. The authors’ overall
understanding of this body of literature is provided in the previous
section.
5.1. Limitations of the research approach
The authors have clarified that a complete review of TRIZ-
related literature was not feasible. Rather than selecting significant
material based on their individual evaluation, they employed an
objective criterion, such as the number of obtained references.
However, this modus operandi is not bias-free and we cannot state
with certainty that the analysed corpus corresponds to the most
significant scientific advancements within TRIZ. It is worth noting
that references are counted in the same way regardless they are
Table 2
List of scientific journals including at least 2 publications belonging to the analysed sample of TRIZ-related contributions.
Scientific journal
Expert Systems with Applications
Computers in Industry
International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology
International Journal of Production Research
Journal of Engineering Design
CAD Computer Aided Design
International Journal of Product Development
Journal of Cleaner Production
Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
R and D Management
Total Quality Management and Business Excellence
Advanced Engineering Informatics
Chemical Engineering and Processing: Process Intensification
CIRP Annals Manufacturing Technology
CIRP Journal of Manufacturing Science and Technology
Computers and Industrial Engineering
International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology
International Journal of Engineering Education
International Journal of Production Economics
Technological Forecasting and Social Change
Technovation
mentioned incidentally in the citing text or the citing article builds
upon previous knowledge of the referenced manuscript consis-
tently. Hence, on the one hand, the authors can claim that the
analysed material is somehow influential in the TRIZ community.
On the other hand, the selection criteria could have excluded
meaningful research results with repercussions in terms of
completeness of contributions to be considered in order to provide
a significant and overarching overview of the use of TRIZ in science.
The choice of taking into account citations has clearly penalized
recent articles — the latest papers of the examined set have been
published in 2014. Additional research could be conducted in order
to identify manuscripts with a high citation frequency in relation to
their age. In this sense, this research activity can be considered as
an ongoing process that requires periodic update.
Moreover, as it has been already observed, the set presents a
huge variety of research fields, as it can be extrapolated from
Table 2, which lists the scientific journals that present at least two
papers from the considered sample (additional 29 sources include
just an article of the same set). This fragmentation allows to infer
that TRIZ has really not found its preferred collocation for scientific
divulgation. Besides, quite surprisingly, the number of papers from
journals in the computer science field significantly outperforms
the quantity of contributions from the engineering design domain.
The authors opted to include conference papers, although it is
clearly expected that their rigour could result lower than that of
journal articles. However, given the low number of examined
conference contributions (see the references in italics in
Appendix A), this choice has poorly altered the set of analysed
publications.
5.2. Final remarks
The paper has been introduced by concerns about the poor
diffusion of TRIZ in the practice, which takes place despite the
highlighted effort of fostering TRIZ diffusion, e.g. through
computer-based frameworks, which represent a not negligible
cluster within surveyed publications. The causes of limited
industrial adoption have been roughly identified in complexity,
extensive required training, limited guidance to individuate the
most proper tools according to the given problem. As different
interpretations about the way of using TRIZ instruments have
arisen from the presented study, these motivations are confirmed
# of contributions
9
8
4
4
4
3
3
3
3
3
3
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
 L. Chechurin, Y. Borgianni / Computers in Industry 82 (2016) 119–134 131

to a good extent. According to authors’ view, the TRIZ community (Continued)

should commit to investigating the relationship between the way Reference Cluster
TRIZ is taught and employed and its success. In addition, measures
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
should be undertaken to limit misuses and oversimplifications of
the toolkit, as mentioned in the Introduction, which can Vincent [115] X
Vincent [116] X
increasingly blur the boundaries of correct and effective TRIZ Mann [78] X X
employment. The authors stress the fact that few of the analysed Stratton and Mann [104] X
contributions make use of advanced TRIZ tools, whereas the Stratton and Warburton [105] X
exploitation of basic techniques is frequent. Stratton and Warburton [106] X
On the other hand, thanks to its ontological richness, TRIZ has Mao et al. [79] X
apparently become an established reference for supporting design Mohamed and AbouRizk [83] X
Mohamed and AbouRizk [84] X
research and understanding, well beyond the borders of mechani-
Zhang et al. [132] X X
cal engineering. Chang and Chen [24] X X
The authors are available to share details about the biblio- Chang and Chen [27] X
graphic work and the results obtained by grouping scholars’ Yang and Chen [124] X
mutual contributions. Any interested reader should ask informa- Yang and Chen [125] X

tion by contacting the corresponding author. The data will be Park et al. [89] X
further exploited in the future also by the authors themselves, who Yoon and Kim [128] X
Yoon and Kim [129] X
intend to study insightfully the different citation patterns and
frequencies of publications from various research teams, sources Cortes Robles et al. [30] X
Negny et al. [85] X X
and clusters, as well as to compare the impact of TRIZ-related
contributions on science with that concerning alternative or He and Loh [44] X
Loh et al. [75] X
complementary design techniques.
Jugulum and Frey [54] X X
Jugulum and Sefik [55] X X
Appendix A.
Low et al. [76] X X
Low et al. [77] X X

Summary of the analysed contributions and reference to their contents Li and Huang [69] X
Li [68] X
according to the defined clusters
Ogot and Okudan [87] X X
Ogot [86] X
The table below illustrates the list of examined contributions Shirwaiker and Okudan [98] X
and their affinity with the 10 clusters defined in the bulleted list of
Liang et al. [71] X
Section 2.2. Conference papers appear in italics. The contributions Tan [110] X
are ordered according to authors’ groups showing cooperation in
Akay et al. [1] X
one or more publications. The groups (marked by the presence of Bariani et al. [5] X
borders in the table) are arranged according to the number of Bianchi et al. [11] X X
publications in charge of the most prolific scholar. The papers Chai et al. [23] X
whose authors have no cooperation in other studies of the Cong and Tong [29] X
Craig et al. [31] X
examined sample populate the bottom of the table.
Evans [37] X
Reference Cluster Fey et al. [38] X
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Fresner et al. [39] X
Frizziero and Curbastro [40] X
Cavallucci and Eltzer [19] X Goel and Singh [41] X X X
Cavallucci and Khomenko [20] X Goepp et al. [42] X
Cavallucci et al. [21] X Houssin and Coulibaly [47] X
Cavallucci [18] X Howard et al. [48] X
Khomenko et al. [57] X X Ilevbare et al. [51] X
Sokol et al. [99] X X Jou et al. [53] X
Zanni-Merk et al. [130] X Killander [58] X
Zanni-Merk et al. [131] X Kim and Cochran [60] X
Chen et al. [28] X Kim et al. [59] X X
Lin and Su [74] X Kobayashi [62] X X
Lin et al. [73] X X Kremer et al. [63] X
Su and Lin [107] X Lee and Shin [64] X
Su et al. [108] X Li et al. [70] X
Lin and Luh [72] X X
Becattini et al. [7] X X Moehrle [82] X
Cascini and Rissone [15] X X OuYang and Weng [88] X
Cascini and Russo [17] X Sakao [94] X X
Cascini et al. [16] X X Sheng and Kok-Soo [96] X
Cugini et al. [32] X Sheu and Lee [97] X
Russo et al. [93] X Soo et al. [100] X
Albers et al. [2] X Soti et al. [101] X
Duran-Novoa et al. [36] X Srinivasan and Kraslawski X X
Leon [65] X Sushkov et al. [109] X X
León-Rovira et al. [66] X Van Duivenboden and Thaens [112] X
León-Rovira et al. [67] X Verhaegen et al. [113] X
Vezzetti et al. [114] X X X
Bonser and Vincent [12] X
Wang and Chen [119] X
Vincent and Mann [118] X
Wang et al. [120] X
Vincent et al. [117] X X
Wang et al. [121] X
132 L. Chechurin, Y. Borgianni / Computers in Industry 82 (2016) 119–134
(Continued)
Reference Cluster
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Webb [122] X [30] G. Cortes Robles, S. Negny, J.M. Le Lann, Case-based reasoning and TRIZ: a
Yamashina et al. [123] X coupling for innovative conception in Chemical Engineering, Chem. Eng.
Yang and Hsiao [126] X Process. Process Intensif. 48 (1) (2009) 239–249.
Yeh et al. [127] X [31] S. Craig, D. Harrison, A. Cripps, D. Knott, BioTRIZ suggests radiative cooling of
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Leonid Chechurin is Professor of Operation management
and System engineering competence area head at
Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT). He received
his Doctor of Science Degree in 2010 with the dissertation
on Mathematical Modeling and Analysis of Dynamic
Systems. His work has been published in journals and
conferences in the fields of control and system theory and
automation, mathematical modelling, creativity and
innovation. He has more than 40 publications to his
name in these fields. He was employed by leading
innovating technology companies like Samsung SDI and
LG Electronics as a consultant for engineering design
group (3 years in total). He has been consulting or
teaching at General Electric Global Research Center (USA, Germany, India and
Shanghai), Wrigley (USA), British American Tobacco (UK-USA), FMC (USA) and
others (in total more than 50 seminars and consulting sessions and several research
projects on inventive engineering design). He is member of Russian and
international academic communities. He has been responsible for scientific
organization of a number of local and international conferences. He currently
teaches Systematic Creativity, TRIZ Basics, Inventive Product Design and Advanced
TRIZ.
Yuri Borgianni has obtained the Master Degree in
Mechanical Engineering at the University of Florence,
Italy (2005) and the Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering at the
same Institution (2014). He is currently a Contract
Researcher at the Free University of Bozen|Bolzano, Italy,
where he teaches “Drawings and Methods for the
Industrial Engineering”. His research interests include
value innovation, ideation within engineering design,
creative development of new products, re-engineering of
industrial processes, non-standard employment of prob-
lem-solving techniques, Computer-Aided Innovation,
intellectual property. He is author of more than 40
publications in scientific journals and international
conferences, as well as of the book “Re-engineering of Products and Processes -
How to achieve global success in the changing marketplace”, published by Springer
in 2012. He belongs to several scientific committees of international journals and
conferences. He has participated to research projects having national and
international interest. More at http://tinyurl.com/nr8ndox.