A 3-Element Structure Mapping for Enhanced TRIZ Problem-Solving Based on Substance-Field Analysis

The traditional 76 standard solutions have several deficiencies making it difficult to use: 1) The 76 standards and the classification is not well organized for ease of usage; 2) The existing problem-solving processes are not well organized and does not cover all standards; (3) The 76 standard solutions only have textual descriptions without graphical structures making them difficult to organize. The research developed a novel operation-operand:location, 3-element mapping approach, to map from problem su-field model to solution model for problem-solving. By using the 3-element mapping from the problem su-field structure, more than twice the solution structures can be obtained than those obtained from Altshuller’s standards. With the addition of solution characteristic attributes, characteristics of Altshuller’s standards can be easily used to stimulate ideas for specific solutions for a given problem. A problem identification process to identify the su-field model of the core problem before applying the 3-element mapping approach is also proposed to complete a problem-solving process.Contributions of this research include: 1) Establishing su-field analysis and problem-solving approach using the novel 3-element mapping approach enabling comprehensive identification of all possible su-field structures with additional 46 new su-field structures over conventional approaches allowing generation of many more solution ideas. 2) The 3-element structure mapping along with solution characteristic attributes greatly simplified the understanding and usage of solution standards while covering various solution ideas of the 76 standards and beyond to aid idea triggering for solution development. 3) The 3-element structure mapping of the problem array to solution array allows for future conversion of TRIZ logical reasoning of problem-solving to mathematically computable approach for solution identifications.