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Addressing Secondary Problems – the Last Obstacle on the Way of Successful Problem Solving with TRIZ

Boris Zlotin and Alla Zusman

Ideation International

azusman12@ideationtriz.com

Abstract

In Classical TRIZ, limited consideration was given to secondary issues arising in the process of

problem solving (step 7.4 in ARIZ-85C recommending thinking about sub-problems that could

appear during further development and implementation of the obtained solutions).

Unfortunately, even comprehensive TRIZ courses were not long enough to pay proper attention

to the last parts of ARIZ. Besides, typical training case studies lacked detail about the real

system (situation) while students in most cases had to work with problems out of their

professional areas making revealing secondary problems (possible side effects and other

drawbacks associated with the obtained solution) on their own very difficult. Moreover, the most

typical short TRIZ courses at best included one of the abridged versions of ARIZ from which

these parts were typically dropped.

At the same time, the importance of addressing secondary (consequent) problems has been

increasing with widening practical (professional) application of TRIZ. In fact, the higher is the

level of the obtained solution, the wider is the range of subsequent problems (in numbers and

complexity) that must be resolved to ensure successful implementation.

The proposed paper will address the most typical situations and types of secondary problems and

practical recommendations on how to approach them. The paper also will include a number of

practical cases illustrating the importance of formulating and prompt resolution of secondary

problems.

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Introduction

Mice were celebrating: their genius scientist has finally

suggested a solution to the greatest danger – place a bell on

the cat’s neck.

“But how to do this?” – one little mouse dared to ask.

“Well, this is a secondary issue” – said the genius – “give it to

engineers, they will figure out something.

It is not a secret that a pathway from a concept to a real working system could be rather thorny,

especially if new problems appear quite unexpectedly and sometimes long after solutions had

been accepted and sent for implementation. Certain attempts to address secondary issues were

made in Classical TRIZ, for example step 7.4 in ARIZ-85C1 that recommended thinking about

sub-problems that could appear during further development, and 76 Standard Solutions, Class 5.

How to apply standard solutions2. Unfortunately, these recommendations were of a limited help

for the following reasons (not in any particular order):

Absence of specific instructions/ tools how to unveil and handle secondary problems

Even comprehensive TRIZ courses were not long enough to pay proper attention to the

last parts of ARIZ.

Typical training case studies lacked detail about the real system (situation) prohibiting

formulation of secondary problems.

For the majority of students, training case studies were out of their professional expertise

making revealing secondary problems on their own very difficult.

Today’s most typical short TRIZ courses at best include one of the abridged versions of

ARIZ from which these parts are typically omitted.

Given the above, the first TRIZ practitioners had to handle secondary issues to the best of their

abilities.

1 Altshuller, Genrich. ARIZ-85C. Tools of Classical TRIZ. Ideation International Inc., 1998.

2 Altshuller, Genrich. 76 Standard Solutions. Tools of Classical TRIZ. Ideation International Inc., 1998

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An old case study

In 1977, one of the authors faced a problem with low quality and high cost of production of

certain electric contacts (see the picture bellow).

The contact design is as follows. Two copper plates

holding silver contacts are fixed on a plastic pad. For

better suppression of electric arc appearing during circuit

breaking, copper plates are also provided with magnets

creating magnetic field helping breaking the arc.

Unfortunately, these magnets represented a source of numerous undesired effects (UE) as

follows:

Magnets are manufactured via casting from an expensive hard (and very brittle) magnetic

alloy making its mechanical treatment quite difficult. To attach a magnet to the plate, a

hole with 0.5 mm diameter for a rivet was created in the process of casting, making the

casting process costly (UE1), complicated and prone to production defects, reject about

5-10% (UE2).

After casting, a hole in a future magnet is plugged with the casting material baked into a

hard ceramic-like mass that has to be removed (UE3). To do it, several ways have been

tried, including drilling (didn’t work because of high hardness of the mass), chemical

etching (too long); finally they chose hollowing the mass out in spite of requiring

additional labor (UE4) and the fact that up to 10 % of future magnets were getting cracks

(UE5) or even becoming broken (UE6).

Next, the parts are magnetized; however, magnetic fields of magnets with cracks were

not consistent (UE7). To fix it, magnets have to be screened costing additional labor

(UE8). The reject on this operation – about 15%.

Other undesired effects included:

Ready magnets are fixed to the plates using a rivet gun. From time to time brittle

magnets would break (UE10) during riveting, additional reject 10-20% (UE11).

Attempts to control the force of the rivet gun allowed for weak rivets (UE12) that would

fall out (UE13) and get into the device creating mechanical (UE14) and/or electric

(UE15) hazard.

Fig.1.

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Half of the magnets have to be positioned on the plate with north pole up and the other

half – the opposite. To ensure the right position, the first half of the magnets is marked

with a red spot on their upper part. Both magnetizing and marking operations are tedious

and laborious because of the small size of magnets (UE16 and UE17).

During TRIZ analysis, a suggestion was made that riveting can cause uncontrollable de-

magnetizing (UE18) impact. Special checkup of assembled magnets confirmed that none

of them had the required magnet field.

On the picture below, one can see the cause-effect diagram3 reflecting the above.

Secondary issues and problems

Any change in the system is always accompanied by the occurrence of “secondary issues.” This

name does not reflect their importance (or lack of it), but is used only to represent their

occurrence as the result or consequence of resolving the “primary” (i.e., initial) problem. In

many cases, secondary issues represent conventional engineering tasks and are addressed

3 For better understanding, all diagrams have been built recently with the utilization of the Problem Formulator®

module from the Innovation WorkBench® software that wasn’t available at the time of the original problem

solving.

Fig.2. Cause-effect diagram

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accordingly. In other cases, the “issues” become problems because there is no conventional way

to handle them and novel (creative) approaches are required. In general, secondary problems

reflect the fact that any improvement in one system characteristic usually produces side effects

seen in other characteristics; these side effects might be undesired or harmful, and they are either

apparent or non-obvious (hidden).

Analysis of the diagram above has shown that there were two types of secondary issues in this

case:

Undesired effects

Means to provide the required result

In both cases, secondary issues practically always create chains. The chains associated with

undesired effects are quite annoying – while fixing the harm associated with one operation or a

drawback, another one is created as result and this situation can repeat itself more than once (see

the picture below).

For example, in the case above, we can see that:

The need to have a hole in the magnet causes the hole filled up with the casting mass

(UE3) and because of that correcting operation is required – cleaning the casting mass

from the hole

Cleaning the casting mass from the hole causing cracks in magnets (UE5)

Cracks in magnets (UE5) cause inconsistent magnet field (UE7)

To prevent defective magnets, a new correcting operation is introduced – sorting magnets

that in turn causes extra costs (UE8)

Chains of positive functions or factors (Fig.4) are not harmless either because when treated in

conventional way they make the systems more complex and increase the number of undesired

effects (as it was mentioned above, any change can be a source of a new side effect).

Fig. 3. Chain of undesired effects

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From our practical experience, the following secondary issues/problems are typical:

Problems arising in the process of realization of high level inventions. As a rule, their

implementation takes a long time because of unresolved secondary issues4.

Issues arising from adapting known engineering solutions to the specifics of the current

situation – coordinating with other systems elements, new environment, requirements,

etc.

Unintended consequences – issues associated with the fact that in the majority of cases,

short and long term results of changes are rather opposite; changes that bring positive

results at first produce unexpected problems later.

Various issues arising as a result of changes dictated by the system environment and its

evolution (improvements, optimization, etc.)

There are two typical conventional approaches to the situations described above. One of them is

falling in the “trap” of addressing numerous secondary issues one after another resulting in

systems that are overdesigned and prone to numerous (often unexpected) new problems.

4Zlotin, Boris and Alla Zusman. Levels of Invention. Presented at TRIZCON 2004.

Fig.4. Typical chain of positive factors

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The other case is when the occurrence of secondary problems becomes a reason to reject a

“primary” solution and abandon not only its implementation but also any related testing, etc.,

despite its apparent advantages. At the same time, solvability of secondary problems is a crucial

factor in estimation of implementation time. In certain cases, secondary problems may be more

difficult than the original one; if a secondary problem cannot be solved given the current

technological means, one cannot count on successful implementation of the original invention

any time soon. Interestingly, Professor Devendra Sahal5 considered technological evolution

mainly as a process of sequentially addressing multiple secondary problems (without calling

them secondary).

Solving numerous problems that are multiplying with each new solution could be a serious

challenge. No wonder that in the absence of effective methods for inventive problem solving

Genichi Taguchi, one of the originators of the quality management in mid-1940s, insisted on

optimization rather than problem solving6. Optimization is based on statistics and representing a

central part of Six Sigma techniques that became quite popular in the 1990s and 2000s;

providing increasing quality and cost reduction. However, at some point further system

improvement required inventive approach demonstrating limitations of statistical methods.

Back to the old case study

Analysis of the situation with the case described above has shown that the majority of undesired

effects were associated with one poorly solved problem A: fixing magnets on the plates using

rivets (UE1, UE2, UE3, UE4, UE5, UE6, UE7, UE8, UE9, UE10, UE11, UE12, UE13, UE14,

UE15, UE18)

The remaining undesired effects were associated with the problem B: magnetization of magnets

paying attention to their polarity (UE16 and UE17).

Given the above, it took just a common sense to realize

that one should look for better solutions of these two

problems targeting elimination of the undesired effects.

Solution to Problem A.

The problem A was solved using existing resource –

plastic pad (see the picture on the left).

In the plastic pad with slightly increased height, a special

“nest” was formed allowing placing the magnet and

supporting it with the copper plate from the other side.

This new way didn’t require a rivet, eliminating all

undesired effects associated with riveting. Additional

benefit resulted from this solution: the contact design became more rigid which increased the

reliability and longevity of the device.

5 Sahal, Devendra. Patterns of Technological Evolution, 1981.

6 Taguchi, Genichi, creator of Taguchi Methods and quality engineering.

Fig. 5.

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Solution to Problem B. Conduct magnetization after the

future magnet is in its place (see the picture on the left).

After magnet is positioned on the plate, one should place

the plate into the magnetizing coil like a plug into a

socket. After checking the magnet field, the part is pushed

out by a spring onto the conveyer belt.

The most important benefits from the solutions described above included:

Substantial reduction of consumption of silver, copper and magnet alloy materials (with

the slight increase of inexpensive plastic material) due to elimination of waste associated

with rejects.

Significant reduction of labor

Possibility to automate the device assembly

Higher quality of magnets improved the device performance (electric arc suppression)

Overall: cost reduction by half, elimination of production defects, increasing reliability and

longevity of contacts.

TRIZ and secondary problems

As it was mentioned earlier, Classical TRIZ didn’t provide effective tools for addressing

secondary problems; it was assumed that because a secondary problem is also a problem,

standard TRIZ approach and instruments should apply.

The first specialized instrument to address the situations like described above was trimming

technique suggested by Vladimir Gerasimov and Simon Litvin in the mid 1980s7. This technique

recommended a number of sequential steps based on functional analysis and functions’ ranking

(primary, auxiliary, secondary, harmful, etc.).

Practical TRIZ experience has shown that although in certain cases solving selected secondary

problems could be beneficial, from the Ideality point of view, one shouldn’t allow the occurrence

of long chains and “overdesign”. In situations when these chains already exist (like the case

described above) there is no sense to address each undesired effect separately; it is much better to

7 Gerasimov, Vladimir and Simon Litvin. Utilization of patterns of technological evolution in conducting Value

Engineering analysis of manufacturing processes. Collection of articles Practical cases of VEA in electro-technical

cal industry. 1986. (In Russian) http://www.trizminsk.org/e/216001.htm

Fig. 6.

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follow the problem to its roots “reconstructing” the initial situation revealing previously poorly

solved initial or “key” problem(s) in the beginning of the chain and find a better solution for it.

Since the mid 1990s, the authors and their Ideation colleagues has developed a number of

instruments (mainly software supported) to address secondary issues, including:

The Innovation Situation Questionnaire® (ISQ) allowing to relatively quickly yet

thorough document the problem situation (see an abbreviated version in the Appendix

1).

Problem Formulator® allowing to graphically depict the situation in cause-effect

relationships (making key problems easy to recognize) and automatically generate a

practically exhaustive set of possible problem statements to address8.

“Idealization” process, including a set of “Operators” and illustrations for increasing

systems’ Ideality(see Appendix 2)

Value-Quality Engineering9 approach targeting simultaneous cost reduction and

quality improvement).

Anticipatory Failure Determination (Failure Prediction) techniques to timely foresee

and resolve potential secondary problems (unintended consequences)10

.

Secondary issues in product development

The current level of technology has led to a situation when a new product development is rarely

done from scratch or controlled by one company. More often than not, the product development

includes the following two main steps:

Search for existing modules that could provide required functions/features

Revealing and solving various problems to make sure they can work together, adapting

and if necessary improving them.

In this situation, work with secondary problems includes:

Achieving coordination between modules’ parameters, including structure, materials,

reliability, and other parameters

Utilizing Failure Prediction to reveal potential problems associated with modules’

integration

8 Rules and recommendations on how to build diagrams one can see in the book Directed Evolution by Zlotin, Boris

and Alla Zusman, 2001 9 Zlotin Boris and Alla Zusman. Value Quality Engineering. TRIZ in Progress. Transactions of the Ideation research

Group. Ideation International Inc., 1999 10

Visnepolschi, Svetlana. How to Deal with Failures (The Smart Way). Ideation International Inc. 2008

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Another case study

In another situation, it was necessary to improve the process of centrifugal separation of flakes of

solid material (a product of a chemical reaction) from extremely chemically active mother-iquor.

The problems that have to be addressed were as follows:

Higher energy consumption

Separated flakes had different sizes reducing quality of the product

High level of noise

Strong vibration that required facilities with strong and expensive foundations

Frequent breakages causing halting production for repairs

These problems were not new for the industry; in fact, they existed from the very beginning;

however, in spite of the above, centrifuges have been working for many decades until the late

1990s when the issues mentioned above started becoming more and more severe because of the

following new factors:

Dramatic increase of energy cost

Higher attention to human health hazards

High labor consumption of repairs, etc.

Given the fact that centrifugal technology has reached its maturity quite a while ago leaving

scarce resources for improvement, resolving these secondary issues represented a serious

challenge.

Studies of the history of the problem (a mandatory step in completing the Innovation Situation

Questionnaire, see Appendix 1) have revealed that in early 1950s when the separation

technology was in development, two “favorite” options were in consideration: separation on

centrifuges and on meshes. The latter method was much simpler; however, only meshes from

platinum were strong enough to survive in the aggressive chemical environment – good enough

for lab experiments but unacceptable for mass production as that would require tons of platinum,

leaving no choice but select centrifuges.

At the same time, continuation of historical studies has produced another result: in 1965 a new

material has been invented – a polyamide plastic named Kevlar that had all necessary qualities

(mechanical and chemical strength) to become ideal for separation meshes. In fact, in early

1970s these meshes proved to be extremely effective in orange juice production (used for

separating juice from the pulp). Unfortunately, these facts went unnoticed by the separation

industry that continued struggling with centrifuges for another 25 years.

The suggestion to utilize Kevlar meshes instead of centrifuges allowed to eliminate all secondary

problems listed above. It has also resulted in substantial simplification and cost reduction of the

separation process.

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Conclusions 1. Any more or less serious invention cannot be implemented without solving a number of

secondary problems which grows dramatically with the level of invention.

2. At the same time, conventional ways to address a problem produce solutions that create

new problems and so on. As a result, in many situations technologies and/or products

become a entangled mess of correcting operations/elements.

3. Regretfully, Classical TRIZ suggested a limited specific help in handling secondary

problems.

4. Today, practical experience of TRIZ Masters and practitioners allowed to develop

processes and instruments to make the process of addressing secondary issues/problems

as a natural part of the TRIZ based problem solving process.

References 1. Altshuller, Genrich. ARIZ-85C. Tools of Classical TRIZ. Ideation International Inc.,

1998.

2. Altshuller, Genrich. 76 Standard Solutions. Tools of Classical TRIZ. Ideation

International Inc., 1998.

3. Gerasimov, Vladimir and Simon Litvin. Utilization of patterns of technological evolution

in conducting Value Engineering Analysis of manufacturing processes. Collection of

articles Practical cases of VEA in electro-technical cal industry. 1986. (In Russian)

http://www.trizminsk.org/e/216001.htm

4. Sahal, Devendra. Patterns of Technological Evolution, 1981

5. TRIZ in Progress. Transactions of the Ideation research Group. Ideation International

Inc., 1999

6. Zlotin, Boris and Alla Zusman. Directed Evolution: Philosophy, Theory and Practice.

Ideation International Inc., 2001

7. Zlotin, Boris and Alla Zusman. Levels of Invention. Presented at TRIZCON 2004.

8. Visnepolschi, Svetlana. How to Deal with Failures (The Smart Way). Ideation

International Inc. 2008.

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5. Appendix 1 Ideation Innovation Situation Questionnaire® (abbreviated version)

1. Brief description of the problem

Describe your problem in a single, simple phrase. Avoid using professional terminology – instead,

use “everyday” language such as that you would use to speak to a high-school science student.

2. Information about the system

2.1 System name

Name the system. (This determines the systemic level from which the problem will be considered).

2.2 System structure

Describe the system's structure by developing a description and associated drawing of the system.

The structure should be described in its static state (i.e., the condition when the system is not

operating). Be sure to indicate all subsystems and important elements.

2.3 Functioning of the system

Describe what the system was designed for – its Primary Useful Function – and the purpose of

performing the Primary Useful Function (i.e., the Primary Useful Function of the super-system).

Describe the functioning of the system, i.e., the system in its “dynamic” state.

2.4 System environment

Describe other systems that are near the system (or which might be near it often).

Describe other systems that interact with the system, especially sources of energy, substances, etc.

3. Information about the problem situation

3.1 Problem that should be resolved

Describe the problem you are faced with.

3.2 Mechanism causing the problem

Describe all known hypotheses (mechanisms) regarding the cause of this problem using “cause-and-

effect” chains.

3.3 Undesired consequences of unresolved problem

Describe the undesired consequences of the problem if it continues to go unresolved.

3.4 History of the problem

Describe the evolution of your system, starting from the moment when the problem first occurred.

Describe the decisions that changed the system from one without this problem to one with this

problem.

Describe all known attempts to eliminate, reduce or prevent the problem – especially the unsuccessful

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ones. State the reasons why these directions were unsuccessful.

3.5 Other systems in which a similar problem exists

Name systems in which similar problem exists, and answer the following questions: Has this problem

been solved? If yes, how was it solved? Why can’t such a solution to the problem you are facing?

3.6 Other problems to be solved

Imagine that the problem you are trying to address is unsolvable. Try to formulate other problems

which, if solved, would eliminate the need to solve the original problem.

4. Ideal vision of solution

Describe the ideal solution using the following template: Everything in the system remains unchanged

or becomes less complicated, while <describe a required function> appears, or <describe a harmful

function> disappears.

5. Available resources

Describe the resources of the system and its surroundings. (Resources are substances, energy,

functional characteristics, and other attributes of a system or its surroundings.)

6. Allowable changes to the system

Describe the allowable changes to the system.

Describe any limitations for changing the system.

7. Criteria for selecting solution concepts

Any process must have a measure for success. Some criteria are so obvious that they are not even

mentioned until they are violated by a developed solution concept. To avoid wasting time and effort

developing useless solution concepts, document the “success criteria” here.

8. Company business environment

Describe the company's products, markets, competition, clients, suppliers, facilities, process systems,

etc. related to the problem.

9. Project data

Project timeline: (MM/DD/YY to MM/DD/YY)

Project team contact information (name, e-mail, phone, etc.)

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Appendix 2 Idealization (extraction from the Innovation WorkBench® software)

Idealization is a process that targets the ideal system, that is, a system that performs a required function without actually existing. Idealization allows you to approach the ideal situation as closely as possible given the available resources and imposed limitations.

To make your system more ideal, consider the following recommendations (Operators):

Exclude duplicate elements

Use more highly integrated subsystems

Exclude auxiliary functions:

Exclude correcting functions

Exclude preliminary functions

Exclude protective functions

Exclude housing functions

Exclude other auxiliary functions

Self-service

Self-interaction

Exclude elements

Use foam or empty space

Restoration

Consolidation of discrete subsystems

Simplify through total replacement (changing the principle of operation)

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About the Authors:

Mr. Zlotin received his MS in electrical engineering from St. Petersburg

Polytechnic University, Russia. He has over 30 years of experience in TRIZ

and is widely recognized in the TRIZ community and considered one of the

foremost theorists and TRIZ scientists in the world today. He is responsible

for the majority of the advances made to the methodology to date. He

facilitated solving of thousands of various problems, is the author or co-

author of 15 books on TRIZ and several patents and has conducted

numerous seminars, workshops, and lectures. He is the Chief scientist and

VP at Ideation International Inc.

Ms. Zusman received her MS in radio physics from St. Petersburg Polytechnic

University, Russia. She has over 14 years of experience in corporate R&D and

over 25 years of experience as a TRIZ expert with patent education. She is

one of the main contributors to the development of TRIZ applications--

specifically to ARIZ, the patterns of systems evolution, AFD and DE

methodology, and the TRIZSoft® family of software. She is the author or co-

author of 14 books on TRIZ and several patents and has conducted numerous

seminars, workshops, and lectures. She is the Director of TRIZ products

development at Ideation International Inc.