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Li Huang Ye. History of TRIZ in China
Abstract. As the economy develops, Chinese companies have made rapid progress in research and development, and many technologies have caught up with global leaders. Chinese companies competing with global leaders deeply appreciate the support with innovative techniques for innovation deployment. Training and innovative techniques will help businesses improve the competitiveness of their products. TRIZ is a recognised, efficient and innovative method which offers several advantages in terms of problem solving and finding innovative solutions that other methods do not have. Once TRIZ was introduced in China, it was promoted rapidly by government agencies, universities, and businesses as a teaching and research tool. This study covers the development history, current status and future trends of TRIZ in China.
Keywords: TRIZ, history of TRIZ development, TRIZ in China.
1. TRIZ DEVELOPMENT IN CHINA
In 1987, the Chinese edition of Altshuller's CREATIVITY AS AN EXACT SCIENCE was published. This is the first publication about TRIZ in China. It was the time of economic reforms in China, so the people focused on Western products and technologies. The book didn't get much attention.
More than a decade passed. In 2000, Hebei University of Technology introduced a TRIZ Research Centre. The founder of this centre was Professor Tan. He is one of the key TRIZ advocates in China.
In 2002, IWINT company was established as the first TRIZ consulting agency in China. At that time, almost all of China's TRIZ expected to work there. IWINT also invited many TRIZ experts to work in China for training and consulting. Although the company no longer exists, initially IWINT accelerated the TRIZ adoption in the country.
The Chinese government also promotes TRIZ. In June 2007, three prominent scientists (Academy members) appealed to the Prime Minister and asked to speed up the introduction of innovative methods. Later, the Prime Minister gave a directive "To make independent innovations, we need to promote the methods of creativity".
This was a crucial moment in the development of TRIZ in China. In April next year, the four Chinese ministries published a joint paper with clear requirements for the implementation of innovative methods. From that moment on, the national TRIZ promotion programme was officially launched.
Many communities also supported this. Since 2005, Professor Tan has been supervising the annual academic forum. Its purpose is to discuss TRIZ as an innovative methodology and tool, training, TRIZ implementation and application across the country. In 2007, a research branch of the China Association of Inventions was established. The Association is the organiser of an annual forum on invention methodology. In 2009, the Society for Innovative Methods was established. 4 years later, the Society published the innovation method certification and evaluation system. It is the only national certification system for innovative practices. Nowadays, hundreds of engineers are trained and certified in this programme every year.
International TRIZ organisations have also set up their offices in China. In 2014, the MATRIZ China office was founded. The MATRIZ Official office was opened in 2022. In 2017, the National Technological Innovation Method and Tool Engineering Research Centre was established. The head of this centre was Professor Tan. Also, this year, the Chinese office of the Altshuller Institute was opened.
Innovation is the key driver of development. It was said by President Xi Jinping. In 2016, the National Strategy for Innovative Development was published. The goal of the strategy for China is
to become an innovative country, a research and technology powerhouse. To achieve this goal, the strategy is divided into three steps extending to 2050. According to the plan, the first step until 2020 is extensive basic research and expanding international cooperation for innovations. The second step until 2030 is the utilization of the extensive innovation potential and gradual improvement of the innovation system. The third step is to become an innovative country, a research and technology powerhouse by 2050.
As directed by this strategy, the local administrations are very supportive of TRIZ. They do the following: 1. Appoint a lead local government department to implement TRIZ. 2. The department establishes research and advocacy institutions and selects pilot companies. 3. After that, training begins. 4. To show the results, various are usually organised. As a result, many engineers, students, and even school children were introduced to TRIZ, trained, and gained experience with real projects.
The biggest and most famous student competition in China is the China TRIZ Cup College Student Innovation Competition. Last year's competition attracted 2,145 entries from about 300 universities. 500 contesters made it to the finals. The competition is a very strong driver for TRIZ dissemination in universities. Today, about 100 colleges in China offer TRIZ courses. The author and his colleague Jason Wang opened 4 such courses at Tsinghua University. Each course has a specific purpose and covers specific TRIZ aspects. Training in high and vocational schools is sadly scarce.
2. RESULTS OF TRIZ DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION IN CHINA
Books are crucial for the dissemination of knowledge, and it is also true for TRIZ. In 20 years of the 21st century, more than 100 books on TRIZ have been published in China. Some of them are translated monographs. The authors of translated books include Altshuller, Salamantov, Shpakovsky, Litvin, Yakovenko and other experts. These books are very different. They cover the techniques, standards, algorithms, prediction tools, engineering evolution trees, etc. Most Chinese readers learn TRIZ independently from these books. Chinese scholars have also published many monographs. While most translated books are about the theory and tools, the local monographs tell about how to apply TRIZ in specific industries. We should mention 3 books that have made a breakthrough in theory.
The first book is DAOV. DAOV It is a set of innovation methodologies, It is applied to improve corporate technologies and innovations. DAOV stands for the four stages of innovation: definition, analysis, optimisation, and validation. Unlike traditional product development methods, DAOV does not consider quality as a basis for product improvement but fundamentally enhances the inherent value of the product in an attempt to reach the ideal. DAOV combines more than 30 TRIZ and quality
management tools [1].
The second book is about the Unified TRIZ (U-TRIZ). This theory offers SAFC, a new analytical model, and a SAPV problem definition model. The SAFC analytical model is shown in Figure 1.
In contrast to the su-field model, a third substance S3 has been added to the model, i.e. the result of the tool action on the product. Because of this, this model is not only used as a su-field, but can be used for causal, functional, and attribute analysis. The model combines all 4 approaches, hence its name SAFC (su-field, attribute, functional, casual) [2].
The problem definition model is called SAPV. It is shown in Figure 2. In this model, the authors have combined four factors: substance, attribute, parameter, and value. Substance, as a component of
(a)
(6)
Figure 1. Su-field model (a) and SAFC model (b)
a system, has many attributes. Each property has at least one parameter, and a parameter has a value. For example, a car is a system. The substance of the wheel is a component of the system. The surface of the wheel has the flatness attributes. The flatness has a friction parameter with its specific value.
Figure 2. The Substance-Attribute-Parameter-Value model (SAPV)
The model is built like this: the interaction between two substances is a function. Two attributes generate an effect. A technical contradiction occurs between two attributes, and a physical contradiction occurs between the values of the attributes. Using this model, we analyse a system; we can reach up to the physical contradiction. Then we proceed to TRIZ to resolve the contradiction found. It can be seen that the SAFC and SAPV models for problem analysis and definition are universal, so this theory is called U-TRIZ.
The third book is about C-TRIZ. C-TRIZ is an engineering-oriented TRIZ, developed by Prof Tan who called this theory China TRIZ. The diagram below (Figure 3) shows the relationship between C-TRIZ and TRIZ [3].
Figure 3. Relationship between S-TRIZ and TRIZ
The founder of C-TRIZ believes that the essence of TRIZ is the identification and solution of inventive problems. The essence of C-TRIZ is the generation and validation of the invention process. TRIZ is a part of C-TRIZ, i.e., the inventive process involves the identification and solution of at least one inventive problem. C-TRIZ is also used to generate roadmaps for solving certain problems in many industries.
There are many research papers on TRIZ as well. Over 10 engineering disciplines and 14 industries in China are adopting TRIZ. Figure 4 shows the number of papers published from 2000 to 2020[4].
Year
Figure 4. Number of papers published in 2000-2020
If we look at the content of these papers in detail, we can conclude that they mostly focus on TRIZ, concept solutions, and product design. and TRIZ in combination with other techniques such as QFD (Quality Function Deployment), 6 Sigma, TOC (Theory of Constraints) and others. Until 2010, TRIZ was mostly studied as a tool for innovative industrial product development. After 2010, they started to develop TRIZ applications in non-engineering areas such as customer service, quality and knowledge, and collaborative innovations.
Table 1 shows the overall implementation rates and ratios of the TRIZ tools [5]. The table clearly shows that the most popular TRIZ tool is Technical Contradiction, while such tools for the development of creative thinking as Imagination and Ideal Final Result (IFR) are relatively rarely used.
Table 1. Overall implementation rates and proportions for different TRIZ tools
Tool Number of cases Rate Rel. ratio (%)
Tech. contradiction 673 4.55 26.31
Trimming 303 2.05 11.85
Laws of technical systems evolution 294 1.97 11.49
Su-field model 289 1.95 11.30
Phys. contradiction 281 1.90 10.98
Cognition database 227 1.53 8.87
Resource analysis 185 1.25 7.23
Imagination 113 0.76 4.42
Multi-screen 80 0.54 3.13
IFR 73 0.49 2.85
Causal analysis 35 0.24 1.37
Other 5 0.03 0.20
The following table shows the purposes of the TRIZ application. The two top reasons are increasing labour productivity and product quality.
Table 2. Purposes of TRIZ applications
Purpose Rate Factor Ratio
Increase in labour productivity 46 31.08
Quality improvement 32 21.62
Stability and optimisation 30 20.27
Service life extension 11 7.43
Safety 10 6.76
Cost reduction 10 6.76
Reduction of environmental pollution 9 6.08
3. GENERAL CONCLUSIONS
China's approach to TRIZ development has some advantages and disadvantages. The two main advantages are as follows. 1. Government departments at all levels, from the central government to local authorities, strongly support the introduction and application of TRIZ. 2. The Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China, the China Association for Science and Technology, the National Natural Science Foundation of China and other departments also provide political and financial support.
But the disadvantages are also clear. 1. There was a lot of research support, but very little support for the manufacturers. 2. Most researchers are academics and few practitioners can apply and promote the solutions. As a result, the research boom in the academic community is gone, but the innovation system for businesses has not yet been established. 3. Innovative education for the young is seriously lacking; there are only a few professionals in this field in the country. 4. Innovative TRIZ software is rarely used in the creative process, and even fewer such products are developed. The author believes that the most important drawback is the substandard training system.
Finally, the following conclusions can be proposed. To improve the implementation of TRIZ in China, we need: 1. Further expand the TRIZ applications, especially in non-engineering fields. 2. Integrate TRIZ with such disciplines as electronics, software, and biology, which are rapidly evolving. 3. Integrate with research. The use of TRIZ for research deserves close consideration. 4. Integrate with basic education. TRIZ should be incorporated into various courses in primary and secondary schools to develop a creative person from an early age. 5. To improve R&В efficiency TRIZ should evolve towards a software-based, digital and intelligent system.
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4. Research hotspots and trends in the development of Russian TRIZ theory and methods[J]. Journal of Guangdong University of Technology, March 2021, Vol. 38 No. 2
5. Is TRIZ an innovative "golden technique»? [J]. Science & Technology Progress and Policy, Feb.2022, Vol.39No.04
