ME59700 INNOVATION AND PROBLEM-SOLVING WITH AN EMPHASIS ON TRIZ TOOLS School of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University Target Audience You have hard problems that have eluded solution for months or even years. You want to be a problem solver but haven’t found a framework that takes you beyond mere concepts without quantification (many popular design theories or idea generation methods). You want to perform work that cannot be commoditized or automated or replaced by Artificial Intelligence. Your problem may be any of product/service/organization/policy design or analysis. Course Material Understanding the objective function, developing problem representation and system modeling based on…

A problem solver often embodies the hope and potential for overcoming challenges. However, paradoxically, the problem solver can also become the primary obstacle in effective problem-solving. This unexpected barrier emerges primarily due to psychological inertia, a cognitive bias that limits creative thinking by binding individuals to past experiences and established solutions. Let’s analyze the problem-solving process. From our perspective, Functional Modelling (one of the well-known TRIZ tools) is the best way to analyze a system. An additional article describing Functional Modeling (FM) in greater detail will be prepared and published later on. For the purpose of this discussion, we are…