Page 268 - Design for Six Sigma for Service (Six SIGMA Operational Methods)

Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ) 237

5. Information and knowledge resources
a. Knowledge of all available substances (material properties, trans-
formations, etc.)
b. Knowledge of all available fields (field properties, utilizations, etc.)
c. Past knowledge
d. Other people’s knowledge
e. Knowledge of operation
6. Functional resources
a. Unutilized or underutilized existing system main functions
b. Unutilized or underutilized existing system secondary functions
c. Unutilized or underutilized existing system harmful functions
In TRIZ, it is more important to look into cheap, ready-to-use, abundant
resources than expensive, hard-to-use, and scarce resources. Here is an example.

Example 9.2: Cultivating Fish in Farmland
The southeastern part of China is densely populated, so land is a scarce
resource. Many pieces of land are used to plant rice. Agricultural experts
suggest that farmland can be used to cultivate fish while it is used to grow rice,
because in rice paddies, water is a free and ready resource, and the waste from
fish can be used as a fertilizer for the rice.

9.2.3 Ideality
Ideality is a measure of excellence. In TRIZ, ideality is defined by the
following ratio:
∑ benefits
Ideality = (9.1)
∑ costs + ∑ harm

where ∑ benefits = sum of values of system’s useful functions (Here the
supporting functions are not considered as useful functions, because they
will not bring benefits to customers directly; we consider supporting
functions to be part of the costs to make the system work.)
∑ costs sum of expenses for systems performance
=
∑ harm = sum of all harm created by harmful functions

In Eq. (9.1), a higher ratio indicates a higher ideality. When a new system is
able to achieve a higher ratio than that of the old system, we consider it a
real improvement.

In TRIZ, there is a law of increasing ideality, which states that the
evolution of all technical systems proceeds in the direction of increasing