Page 321 - Design for Six Sigma a Roadmap for Product Development

Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ) 291

9.2.2 Resources
Maximum effective use of resources is very important in TRIZ. Also in
TRIZ, we need to think of resources and make use of resources in cre-
ative ways.
For any product or process, its primary mission is to deliver func-
tions. Because substances and fields are the basic building blocks of
functions, they are important resources from TRIZ point of view.
However, substances and fields alone are not sufficient to build and
deliver functions, the important resources, space and time, are also
needed. In the TRIZ point of view, information and knowledge base are
also important resources.
We can segment resources into the following categories
1. Substance resources:
■ Raw materials and products
■ Waste
■ By-product
■ System elements
■ Substance from surrounding environments
■ Inexpensive substance
■ Harmful substance from the system
■ Altered substance from system

2. Field resources:
■ Energy in the system
■ Energy from the environment
■ Energy/field that can be built upon existing energy platforms
■ Energy/field that can be derived from system waste
3. Space resources:
■ Empty space
■ Space at interfaces of different systems
■ Space created by vertical arrangement
■ Space created by nesting arrangement
■ Space created by rearrangement of existing system elements
4. Time resources:
■ Prework period
■ Time slot created by efficient scheduling
■ Time slot created by parallel operation
■ Postwork period
5. Information/knowledge resources:
■ Knowledge on all available substances (material properties,
transformations, etc.)