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Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ) 333

Growth (rapid development). This stage begins when society realizes
the value of the new system. By this time, many problems have been
overcome; efficiency and performance have improved in the system;
and people and organizations invest money in development of the new
product or process. This accelerates the system’s development, improv-
ing the results and in turn attracting greater investment. Thus, a pos-
itive “feedback” loop is established, which serves to further accelerate
the system’s evolution.
In growth stage, the improvement of performance level is fast
(Fig. 9.5a), because of the rapid increase in the investment and the
removal of many technical bottlenecks. The level of inventions is get-
ting lower, because most inventions in this stage deal with incremen-
tal improvements. They are mostly level 1 or level 2 (Fig. 9.5b). But the
number of inventions is usually high (Fig. 9.5c). The profit is usually
growing fast (Fig. 9.5d).

Maturity. In this stage, the system development slows as the initial
concept upon which the system was based nears exhaustion of its
potentials. Large amounts of money and labor may have been
expended; however, the results are usually very marginal. At this
stage, standards are established. Improvements occur through system
optimization and trade-off. The performance of the system still grows
but at a slower pace (Fig. 9.5a). The level of invention is usually low
(Fig. 9.5b), but the number of inventions in the forms of industrial
standards is quite high (Fig. 9.5c). The profitability is usually drop-
ping because of the saturation of the market and increased competi-
tion(Fig. 9.5d).
Decline. At this stage, the limits of technology have been reached and
no fundamental improvement is available. The system may no longer
be needed, because the function provided maybe no longer needed.
It is really important to start the next generation of technical sys-
tem long before the decline stage, to avoid the failure of the company.
Figure 9.6 illustrates the S-curves of the succession of two generations
of a technical system.

9.9 Evolution of Technological Systems

Having researched hundreds of thousands of patents, Altshuller and his
colleagues developed TRIZ, which concluded that evolution of techno-
logical systems is highly predictable and governed by several patterns:
■ Increasing ideality
■ Increasing complexity followed by simplification