TRIZ Books: "Matrix 2003" (Mann, Dewulf, Zlotin, & Zusman) Japanese Edition (translated by T. Nakagawa)

When Mr. Genrich Altshuller developed TRIZ (i.e., Theory of Inventive Problem Solving) in the former USSR, he first built "40 Inventive Principles" by extracting the essence of inventive ideas from a large number of patents. Then, facing with the students' question "Which Inventive Principles should we use in which situations?", he developed the "Contradiction Matrix". He represented various problems in the formulation that "we wish to improve our system in certain aspect (i.e. parameter), but we are facing with a problem because such an improvement may worsen the system in another aspect". Then he developed a large table (i.e. Matrix) so as to recommend a few relevant Inventive Principles in each of the situations of the improving and worsening parameter pairs. For such a development, a huge number of patents had to be analyzed in their contents. Engineers who became acquainted with this table, in the former days as well as in our current days, have been much impressed with the greatness in the research plan and have thought the table as a crystal embodying the core knowledge of TRIZ.

However, because of needing such a huge labor to updating the Contradiction Matrix, the Matrix has not been made up-to-date for about 30 years since early 1970s. During these 30 years, TRIZ has been developed and extended much in its philosophy, in its ways of thinking, as knowledge bases and software tools, and in its fields of application. For understanding TRIZ in the current form and for applying it to your problems, you are recommended to refer to the first volume of this series "Hands-On Systematic Innovation" written by Darrell Mann (Japanese Edition, 2004).

In year 2000, CREAX, directed by Darrell Mann, initiated a large-scale research plan and have analyzed since then all the US patents from 1985 to the present by using the Altshuller's method in a modernized way (see Sections 1 and 2 of the text). The output of the research has been reflected in the newly published textbook of "Hands-On Systematic Innovation" and also resulted in the new edition of the "Contradiction Matrix", fully up-to-date as you see here.

The updated Contradiction Matrix has been tried to use by various users in Japan and over the world, and is evaluated to be much smoother and more effective in use than the original version. Effectiveness of the two versions has been examined most thoroughly by the Author, Darrell Mann, himself. For the examination, he has selected 100 US patents with the criteria that they were granted after the publication of this book and that he found 'wonderful' ideas in the solutions. Then he analyzed the patents to reveal the problems in the framework of the Matrix and the successful ideas in terms of the Inventive Principles. Thus Mann has found that for the 206 cases of inventors' successful application of the Inventive Principles, the classical Contradiction Matrix has suggested Principles with 27 % of matching while the new Matrix with 96% [see Mann's paper posted in the TRIZ Journal in English and in the TRIZ Home Page in Japan in Japanese]. This significant difference is interpreted as the reflection of rapid development in science and technology for these 30 years, especially in the fields of electronics, software, bio-technology, etc. and as the shifts in the usage of Inventive Principles (from the 'machanics-oriented' days).

After publishing the present book, CREAX has further gone ahead in the following ways (see Section 8 of this book):

The translation for this Japanese Edition was carried out by Toru Nakagawa, while the preparation of figures, the appendix sheet, and book design were done by Kazuo Gotoh (Ricoh Co. Ltd.). Because of much demands from users, the translation work was done in a short time but with much care to improve the usefulness as a data book for readers/users. We also wish to make a Japanese Edition of the software tool in collaboration with CREAX. We wish you, the readers/users, to actively use the present book and TRIZ for solving your own problems and for developing technology further.

                                                                               by Toru Nakagawa
                                                                               September 19, 2004
                                                           at Kashiwa, Chiba, Japan

Table of Contents of the Japanese Edition

in English Click here

[PDF 8 KB, 1 page]
in Japanese

Hierarchically numbered.
Section/subsection headers are complemented wherever found necessary/appropriate.

Q&A Document (Part 1)

Questions and Comments (T. Nakagawa, Dec. 29, 2004)

in English Click here

[PDF 22 KB, 5 pages]

Describes all the trials to make the Japanese Edition more useful for readers/users. (Written in English.)

Q&A Document (Part 2)

Responses (D. Mann, Jan. 5, 2005 )

in English Click here

[PDF 12 KB, 2 pages]

Q&A Document (Part 3)

List of Errata in the Matrix Data

The Followings show the errata in the Matrix 2003 data, as compiled by Mann and Nakagawa (Jul. 2004 through Jan. 2005)

Page	Improving parameter	Worsening parameter	As is	Should be	Date
16	2	14	3 35 17 3 36 2	3 35 17 30 36 2	Sept.12, 2004
18	3	6	17 3 7 15 3 1 4 29	17 3 7 15 1 4 29	Sept.12, 2004
27	7	19	35 9 3 40 1 3 10 36 37	35 9 3 40 1 10 36 37	Sept.12, 2004
35	11	25	2 13 7 28 13 17	2 3 7 28 13 17	Sept.12, 2004
42	15	4	35 28 17 9 17 40 10 37	35 28 17 9 40 10 37	Sept.12, 2004
46	17	7	2 35 13 19 13 18 28 4	2 35 13 19 13 18 28 4	Not clear yet
63	25	32	2 15 28 27 12 15 3	2 15 28 27 12 3	Jul. 14, 2004
75	31	21	40 4 35 14 24 3 39 14	40 4 35 14 24 3 39	Sept.12, 2004

Q&A Document (Part 4)

Our Contributions to "Matrix 2003"
                   B. Zlotin and A. Zusman (Ideation International Inc.),
                                           Jan. 12, 2005

                                                           [in PDF

]
[Japanese translation

]

As you probably know the main limitations of the original Contradiction Matrix (CM) and 40 principles are:

Problems have to be pre-formulated in terms of technical contradictions involving parameters from the list limited to 39 parameters.

Most of recommendations are quite general and require substantial creative work to implement.
Empty boxes; limited number of problems that can be handled (in our estimate, no more than 20-25% of all problem situations without using additional tools).
Outdated and limited amount of examples.
With few exceptions, principles in the boxes did not offer the resolution of the given contradiction but rather suggested ways that could avoid them, for example offering a different way to improve a parameter that would not impact the other parameter participating in the initial technical contradiction .
In many situations users do not have contradictions, but rather are seeking the best ways to improve a certain parameter or to get rid of an undesired feature.

Because of the limitations mentioned above and the necessity to deal with too many tools, by the end of 1980s we started developing a universal system of Operators that would integrate all knowledge base tools (40 Principles, Separation Principles, 76 Standard Solutions, selected patterns/Lines of Evolution, etc.) in one. By the early 1990s the System of Operators was ready and capable to replace all other knowledge base tools. For that reason, when we started introducing TRIZ to the American audience we wanted to move the CM and Principles back to the position Altshuller himself put it in the mid 1970s – historical context.

However, rather unexpected, CM became very popular in the U.S. and Europe because of its simplicity and because of in many situations it was introduced as a status of the art tool (sometimes because of pure lack of knowledge, sometimes intentionally). The positive result of this popularity was conditioning the market. Unfortunately, in many situations, it caused damage. The damage was associated with the situation when after a very successful seminar (it is not that difficult to prepare a set of special educational case studies for the particular training that are the most suitable for CM utilization) the encouraged students would return to their working place just to realize that they were not able even to enter the CM with their problems. Many of those unhappy users have decided that TRIZ did not have any practical value similar to many other techniques introduced during the last decades.

At first we were trying to handle the situation explaining the weaknesses of CM and the whole classical TRIZ and offering much more effective tools. Then we decided to stop fighting and capitalize on this demand, developing the new CM (we called it Super-table) that will be (at least partially) free from the drawbacks of the original one and have additional benefits, such as:

Increased coverage (more typical problems to address, including various harmful effects).
Possibility to apply without formulating contradictions.

These benefits have been achieved because of the following new useful features:

11 More parameters (see the list)
50 more principles (see the list)
Additional recommendations
Allows resolve physical contradictions as well

To simplify the situation, we have built the new table (50x50) around the old one without actually touching it, just adding new parameters and principles to the existing ones (see the model below).

Note. The column 0 is for the situations, when the user is just looking for some ways to improve a parameter and thus is not aware of other parameters that might degrade as a result.

Another important finding was identifying and separating Universal Principles. From the very beginning, our research have shown that inventive principles have different nature and could be divided in groups in several ways, one of which is by its applicability. For example there are principles that are practically universal – could be applied to any type of problem including non-technical (like Inversion, Segmentation, etc.) while others (like thermal expansion) have rather limited applicability being more specialized. Identifying universal principles allowed us to make sure we always try them.

Our research also have identified Principles that are working with specific single parameters rather than a pair of parameters and found out that in the majority of cases Principles work with single parameters. This finding resulted in creation of lists of Principles suggested for improvement of specific parameters.

Eventually, our work was combined with a very important work made by Dr. Darrell Mann’s team.

In the nutshell, our contribution could be mentioned as increased applicability and problem coverage via:

Extending the number of parameters and the number of Principles to handle them
Identifying universal Principles that could be applied to any situation (beyond the extended number of parameters)
Possibility to address a problem without technical contradiction articulated (a list of relevant Principles for each parameter have been identified).

Paper:

"Comparing the Classical and New Contradiction Matrix:
    Part 2. Zooing In"
                     by Darrell Mann, TRIZ Journal, Jul. 2004
                         http://www.triz-journal.com/archives/2004/07/05.pdf

;

Japanese translation by T. Nakagawa

[PDF KB]

Nakagawa's note on this paper (Mar. 30, 2005):

This paper has examined the effectiveness of the the two versions of TRIZ Contradiction Matrix carefully in a verifiable way, and has obtained the following results:

As the basis for the examination, 100 US patents which were granted (and hence published) after the publication of "Matrix 2003" have been selected by the author with the criteria of having some 'wonderful' solutions and of covering the wide range of patents.
Each patent has been analyzed in its pricipal problem, in terms of improving parameter vs worsening parameter in the two versions of Matrix, and in the inventor's solution in terms of the Inventive Principles.
It is found that total of 206 Principles were used by the inventors, thus about 2 Principle per problem.
Principles recommended by the Classical Matirx have matched 55 Principles which the inventors used. Thus 27 %.
Principles recommended by the New Matrix have matched 198 Principles; giving 96 % of fit.
The reason of rather poor result of the Classical Matrix may be interpretable as the rapid extension/broadening of technologies for these 30 years since the days of the Classical Matrix.

This paper clearly shows that the original intenton of Altshuller in building the Contradiction Matrix has been achieved in a much better form by the authors of the New Matrix. We users will be able to obtain much more benefits from the New Contradiction Matrix.

TRIZ Books (Announcement of Publication):
"Matrix 2003" by Darrell Mann, Simon Dewulf, Boris Zlotin, and Alla Zusman -- Pulbication Announcement of the Japanese Edition and Q&A Documents for the English Edition
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin University) Apr. 4, 2005
[Posted here on Apr. 5, 2005] Feb. 16, 2014

Top of this page	Preface (Mann et al)	Nakagawa's Preface	Table of Contents	Q&A (Part 1) Comment (Nakagawa)	Q&A (Part 2) Response (Mann)
Q&A (Part 3) Errata in the Data	Q&A (Part 4) Contributions by Zlotina and Zusman	Paper by Mann Comparison of Old and New Matrix	Hands-On Systematic Innovation	"TRIZ Practices and Benefits" SKI Book Series	Japanese page

General index	New Information	Introduction to TRIZ	TRIZ References	TRIZ Links	TRIZ News & Activities	TRIZ Software Tools	TRIZ Papers and Tech Reports	TRIZ Forum	General index
Home Page	New Information	Introduction to TRIZ	TRIZ References	TRIZ Links	TRIZ News & Activities	TRIZ Software Tools	TRIZ Papers and Tech Reports	TRIZ Forum	Home Page