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	TRIZ - Methodology TRIZ Experience in Industry TRIZ in TriS-IDEAS Software Please contact us for detailed information		Our TRIZ Experience in Industry Between 1998 and 2007 TriS Europe performed its investigation into more than 600 industrial companies in Germany, Switzerland, Austria and other European countries which can be summarized as follows. About 60 to 70 percent of all initiatives pursued by the European companies to integrate TRIZ into their innovation process were initially "frozen" or abandoned. Of those initiatives that did succeed, most ended up creating products that delivered sustainable or incremental improvements while less than 10% resulted in breakthrough solutions. As a consequence the innovation potential of TRIZ still remained undervalued within companies. Our experience confirms that TRIZ delivers more breakthroughs for less cost - if the right tools are applied at the right time and place. To analyze the situation more deeply we used our software for innovation management that enables companies to automatically document the origin of each idea at every stage of the product development process. Using TriS software we were able to evaluate exactly which TRIZ tools were more or less effective and which innovation methods more frequently helped to achieve breakthrough solutions. After analysing numerous industrial projects, TriS has discovered the factors that lead to low process yields when applying TRIZ and developed recommendations for optimising of best practice innovation tools.   TRIZ Best Practices To identify the best practices in problem solving with TRIZ, TriS used a method of idea or patent portfolio that easily helped to define the market potential of ideas and their risk or cost. With this approach it was shown, which TRIZ tools were less effective and what methods help to achieve "strong" ideas. The winner of this statistical analysis was predictably the ARIZ based TriS method for step-by-step problem solving and surprisingly the method of the anticipatory failure identification (also know as a "subversive" analysis). An extremely high composite score of solutions was also achieved in application of both the innovation and separation principles for resolving technical and physical contradictions respectively in the same problem.   Innovation Principles as the Most Popular TRIZ Tool Although formulated about 30 years ago, the 40 Altshuller's Innovation Principles have remained until now the most popular TRIZ tool. The reason for this fact is clear: principles are simple to use or modify and can be easily integrated into brainstorming or daily engineering work. In general the 40 principles are good to enhance technical creativity but often only scratch the surface of the problem in complex situations. No less effective are the 12 double general principles for solving both technical and non-technical tasks. Application experience of the Contradiction Matrix over the years demonstrates however no considerable advantages in quality of solutions in comparison with the direct use of the 40 principles. As it's not the Matrix but the principles that remain crucial for problem solving, the best and most complete matrix does not guarantee the solution of difficult problems.   Illustrations, Solution Examples and Psychological Inertia In order to complete a short overview of the 40 Principles one should also mention graphical illustrations and technical examples of the principles. The illustrations of the 40 principles, as they are known from some TRIZ software products or books, often have a too abstract or specifically technical character. In many cases the illustrations create additional psychological inertia by fixing the attention of inventors on one or another graphical image. It would be easy to believe that a quantity of good illustrated principles, practical examples or effects is a great support to overcome the lack of creativity. Engineers hope that they can quickly compare examples to their specific situation and solve a problem. Our experience does not support this theory. On the contrary, such an approach often motivates users to the trial-and-error approach that is in fact opposite to the basic idea of TRIZ. We could often see how people spent a lot of time in vain trying to find an exact solution for their specific problem in the "endless" libraries of examples or pictures.   Modelling TRIZ with "Moving Little People" The creativity method of modelling systems with the aid of the "little people" helps to overcome psychological inertia and thus the typical drawbacks of illustrations or specific examples. In the TriS-IDEAS software we illustrated the TRIZ innovation principles with animated "little people" models that give people of different educational and professional backgrounds additional creativity impulses and a new motivating "fun-element" to work with TRIZ.
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