Title: A model for problem representation at various generic levels to assist inventive design

Authors: Sebastien Dubois, Philippe Lutz, Francois Rousselot, Gerard Vieux

Addresses: Laboratoire de Genie de la Conception, INSA de Strasbourg, 24 bld de la Victoire, 67000 Strasbourg, France. ' Laboratoire d'Automatique de Besancon, UMR CNRS 6596, ENSMM, UFC, 24 rue Alain Savary, 25000 Besancon, France. ' Laboratoire de Genie de la Conception, INSA de Strasbourg, 24 bld de la Victoire, 67000 Strasbourg, France. ' TRIXELL, Z.I. Centr'Alp, 38430 Moirans, France

Abstract: Inventive design requires specific competences. Designing involves creating new concepts out of acquired knowledge and requires cognitive competences. TRIZ, a theory for inventive problem-solving, is based on the abstraction of knowledge to be able to make analogies with any technical domain. This principle of abstraction is of great interest, but it also requires the ability to shift from a high level of abstraction to a more specific level. The links between abstract models of problems and more specific ones are missing in TRIZ. This paper proposes a UML model to make this link to enable the construction of abstract formulation of problems from a functional description of the systems. A case study illustrates the different descriptions of the problems and the link between them.

Keywords: inventive design; TRIZ; UML modelling; theory of inventive problem solving; innovation; problem representation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCAT.2007.015701

International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology, 2007 Vol.30 No.1/2, pp.105 - 112

Published online: 09 Nov 2007 *

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