EMS Models: Adaptation Of Engineering Design Black-Box Models For Use In TRIZ

The Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ) has been widely recognized as a powerful systematic innovation technique that can be applied to a wide arrange of disciplines. This paper focuses on engineering design and illustrates how modeling methods already familiar to engineering designers can be adapted for use in TRIZ. Specifically, the 'black-box' modeling technique, common in problem formulation and clarification in engineering design, is modified for use in TRIZ. The new technique, referred to as Energy, Material, System modeling, can not only serve as a substitute for substance-field modeling, but as it builds on existing knowledge in the engineering design community, removes one of the barriers to wider TRIZ adoption by not requiring designers to learn new and radically different modeling techniques. The efficacy of the technique is illustrated via several examples.