When a collision with an obstacle, human nature pushes us to avoid or eliminate what is on our way. But an alternative approach to design does not give any other, at least at the initial stage.
We are talking about TRIZ, which creates a challenge, contradiction so that we can look more carefully and on the other hand to look at the problem.
For example, facing the disappearance of GPS on the plane, TRIZ practices are not trying to immediately eliminate the problem. The first step is to reproduce it. That is, suppose that the desired result from GPS is the disappearance under certain conditions. To find these conditions, determine the field requirements (a method for performing an action), which in this case will interfere with the GPS reception. Surprisingly, this change point of view can open a completely different way to think team, and using TRI methods the team will be able to determine how the resources that exist in the system create the desired complication.
Russian abbreviation, which translates as "the theory of inventive tasks" (TRIZ) allows you to overcome the congenital mental inertia, which forces us to maintain a certain existing set of assumptions and thinking models.
Our brain prefers rapid and automatic slow and requiring effort. TRIZ calls us to collapse from these foaming tracks.
The main premise is that someone somewhere has already decided our problem or very similar to it. This method splits the problem, summarizes it and finds appropriate solutions based on the principles open in the world in the world to solve problems - inventors.
Over the past two decades, Boeing has used TRIZ for:
- Improvements design, for example, to find sufficient power to meet the requirements for the fuel unloading speed for the KC-767 tank.
- Development of inventions, including clamping mechanisms for aircraft salons.
- Creating technology forecasting strategy.
- Elimination of contradictions leading to compromise solutions.
In the example of the GPS, our team has identified key features of the system failure and organized them in the form of "fish bones" (Ishikava diagram - translator note). However, after almost a year, the analysis of root causes and laboratory tests, the reason for the periodic failure remained unclear.
We decided to spend a two-hour seminar on TRIZ. The roles at the seminar included the TRIZ facilitator, a TRIZ specialist, an expert on TRIZ and a seminar participants who have technical knowledge in the problem area. During the seminar, TRIZ-analysis tool called "Tool-Product Tool" was worked out. This analysis creates a situation model when the tool affects the object through the field. The product is the result of the impact of the tool on the object.
The task of this seminar was to identify the cause.
The seminar participants completed some preliminary wording of the problem, and then followed the step-by-step process to create what we tried to ultimately avoid how if it was the "desired" product. The desired product in this study was a shutdown GPS.
The key task was to determine the requirements that the fields must match the previously unwanted product. In the process of the seminar, it became clear that there is a signal-to-noise ratio requirement so that the noise could cause the GPS disconnection. Although retrospectively, it seems obvious, the combination of a weak GPS signal with a noise signal as the reason for the GPS failure was not considered to the TRIZ seminar. Weakness of combinatorial causality is a known lack of fish bone charts.
The group then developed and coordinated a laboratory test for testing the hypothesis. The approach was to place the GPS antenna in a room protected from electromagnetic radiation. The signal was introduced using a GPS simulator so that its intensity can be changed. At various levels of the intensity of the GPS signal, interference was introduced to determine the excuse of GPS antenna to interference. Interference was detected due to the loss of GPS signal on a multi-mode receiver located outside the shield.
The results of laboratory tests have shown that a sufficient power interference signal in combination with a weak GPS signal really causes a GPS disconnection. The team used this information to make recommendations on how to use new designs to solve the problem of gps.
We did not immediately start finding the solution.
TRIZ pushed us to look at the problem at a different angle. And the solution was found by creating a model model.
The Boeing Technical Journal is a peer-resistant periodic publication intended for profile Boeing experts, which allows you to collect and share knowledge. A summary of Scott Batton, Al Nguyen, Robert Khainlanine and F. Teda Kalkins "Analysis of root causes using TRIZ", articles originally published on April 9, 2020.