After era of productivity and quality, creativity is considered as an important issue to become winner and build paradigm in the global market. In the past, brainstorming based on inspiration and experience was the most popular method for accelerating creativity in R&D process. But if there is more efficient and powerful method similar to mathematical formula instead of trial & error, the productivity of creation could be increased dramatically.
TRIZ (Theory of Inventive Problem Solving) can be a powerful method of innovation. It is developed by Russian scientist, Genrich Altshuller since from 1950s. He found pattern and laws for problem solving and technical evolution through investigation of millions of patent and innovation cases. Like mathematics, every technical problem can be changed to simplified model and every model has its own model of solution. Because TRIZ is inductive theory, the solution model has its own real practices. TRIZ can be sometimes used combined with Axiomatic Design, Value Engineering and Six Sigma for implantation in organization.
Before using TRIZ, problem formulation stage is needed for identifying key problem to be solved. If there is no analytical process, people can make mistakes to concentrate on solving wrong problem. Usually function analysis(FA) or cause effect chain analysis(CECA) are popular for modeling existing system, but it is difficult to describe non existing system. Usually technical forecasting problem has that kind of engineering problem.
In this paper, the problem modeling methods will be reviewed and new modeling method based on functions will be explained together with practical case studies.