TRIZ in Retrospect and Prospect

Abstract

In last 70 years TRIZ(Theory of Inventive Problem Solving) has been developed prosperously,  including the establishment of associations, training centers, consulting companies, and software suppliers; research projects as well as related outcomes from various domains did enrich the accumulation of the literature. Actually, a plethora of studies could be discovered from different databases extensively tackling related issues of TRIZ from theoretical perspectives, methodological concerns and the combination of TRIZ and other tools. Practically speaking, manufacturing as well as service industries were the major playground for utilizing TRIZ to improve operational performance for achieving excellence. It is, therefore, about the right time to understand the progress of applying TRIZ methodology from various fields in the world and to set a research agenda for future research and application. The authors conducted a systematic review of previous studies selected from several databases. Based on statistical analysis and the results of text/data mining, the current study concluded that the most adopted tools in TRIZ are contradiction and patent analysis; furthermore, quality function deployment (QFD) and green design are the most popular methods used in combination with TRIZ.