Sustainable Design by Systematic Innovation Tools (TRIZ, CAI, SI, and Biomimetics)

Abstract

As sustainable design is rather a new discipline, the necessity of creativity implementation was conceived from the beginning. But few attempts to foster creativity in design practice were successful, and it was in the realm of random process, namely, serendipity. One of big steps toward systematic innovation was possible by introduction of Russia-born TRIZ (Theory of Inventive Problem Solving). The efforts toward somewhat paradoxical systematic innovation are now blossoming as CAI (Computer-Aided Innovation) including TRIZ. Those developments also influenced greatly many of the modern technologies that enable the increasing number of the patents with significant improvement in their quality. Intimate relations of the innovations by these tools with sustainable design are also observed. In this chapter, the attempt has been made to summarize and analyze the accomplishments of applying CAI on sustainable design. At first, the history and current state of TRIZ, CAI, SI (Systematic Innovation), and biomimetics are described. Secondly, literature review on the cross area of sustainable design and CAI is presented. Earlier practice of combining CAI and conventional design practices, such as Design for X and present theoretical concepts as well as methodology, have been discussed to understand the knowledge enhancement in this regard. In addition to finding wisdom from man-made world, the bio-inspired design approach (encompassing biomimetics) is another direction to find good ideas from the nature. The systematic approach of TRIZ has proven useful to develop innovative ideas that have been inspired from the nature. Finally, two successful examples are presented to illustrate how it can be applied to produce sustainable engineering outputs from daily life to energy-intensive industry. It is hoped that this chapter can shed light on how to make the world more productive in innovation toward sustainable design.