Eliminating Guesswork from Problem-Solving

Competitive demands will always need rapid, effective and innovative problem-solving. The present trend is to move towards sustainability. Sustainability is made up of three fundamental components, which are the following: 

1. Cost -- in manufacturing industries there is a tremendous pressure to continually reduce cost -- both operating costs and maintenance costs

2. Unhelpful outcomes -- there is also pressure to eliminate unhelpful outcomes from processes that manufacturing industries employ to create value. For example, the outcome of a contract with a supplier may produce unhelpful outcomes that destroy productivity and capital. 

3. Failure rate and its consequences -- increased failure rate of equipment and processes along with its consequences can spell disaster for a company. "Failure-rate" is virtually the single most important parameter that determines whether a company with stay float or would sink. 

Engineers are generally involved in the above themes, which need the application of intensive problem-solving skills to create on-going value for an organization. However, such problems generally need creative "out-of-the-box" thinking. For this, we usually depend on 'talented engineers' who could think 'out of the box'. But finding such talent is a matter of luck. It also depends on individual talent, which is limited by personal knowledge, expertise and copious amounts of inspiration. Therefore, it is a random process. Random in the sense that the creative process can't be systematically applicable and can't be done by most engineers. Hence the question is -- can most engineers engage in the creative problem-solving process?

It is a matter of common knowledge that engineers spend many years learning the facts and technical details of their discipline yet there is no specific training provided for creative thinking skills. It is something like this -- we spend our lives talking and listening but there is no specific training on talking and listening. Without any shade of doubt, creative thinking skill is a critical skill to improve and sustain the economy of a country. Yet problem-solving is left to trial and error method, which is nothing but mere guesswork. In guesswork, an engineer on seeing a problem forms an idea about the solution to the problem and checks whether that solution is going to work or not. This process may bring up viable solutions but is chronically limited by one's personal knowledge. Hence finding the right solution through guesswork might take a lot of time - sometimes years to come up with a creative solution. 

So there is a crying need for education in creative problem-solving. To overcome this crisis, TRIZ (Inventive Problem-Solving Technique) comes to the rescue. TRIZ is a set of tools for systematic creative thinking. It is designed to help solve problems and create new, innovative ideas. It works by freeing our thinking and by applying the knowledge that has been previously used to find breakthrough solutions to nagging and tricky problems in hand. Such solutions came from the patient study of thousands of patents by a Russian engineer named Altshuller. 

However, TRIZ tools are not normally organized into a step by step process or presented as a consistent and standardized framework to work on a problem. Instead, TRIZ tools are a set of tools that are selected by a problem solver depending on the problem and the context. This problem is generally addressed by clearly understanding the nature of the problem and then selecting the right tool to come up with creative solutions that squarely address the issue. 

TRIZ process is organized into six stages, which are as follows: 

1. Identify the problem 

2. Select the type of problem to be solved

3. Apply the analytical tools of TRIZ -- select the right tool from a well-developed toolbox

4. Define the problem -- generally in terms of opposing characteristics or parameters that need to be balanced

5. Apply the solution tools from the well-documented library of solutions. This is a big advantage. 

6. Compile ideas, refine solutions and implement solutions. 

We would use this method specifically for Maintenance Engineering and its problems. It does not mean that it can't be applied to other issues faced in operation, quality, logistics, marketing, stores, strategies. In fact, TRIZ can be applied to a very wide range of problems -- even for personal problems.