TRIZ Paper:


A Method of Resolving Differences Based on the Concepts of Functions and Process Objects: Part 2
Toshio Takahara
Presented at The Third Japan TRIZ Symposium, Held at TOSHIBA Kenshu Center, Yokohama, on Aug. 30 - Sept. 1, 2007
[Posted on Dec. 9, 2007]  Under the permission by the Author.   

For going back to Japanese pages, press buttons..

Editor's Note (Toru Nakagawa, Dec. 7, 2007)

The paper posted here was originally presented last August at The Third TRIZ Symposium in Japan held at TOSHIBA Kenshu Center, Yokohama.  I have reviewed this presentation in my 'Personal Report of The Third TRIZ Symosium in Japan, 2007'  

This page contains the followings:

(1)  Nakagawa's introduction: Excerpt of my 'Personal Report of Japan TRIZ Symosium 2007'  

(2) Extended Abstract in HTML (and in PDF (70 KB) )

(3) Full Paper   (in PDF (270 KB) )   

(4) Some additional notes by Nakagawa

Since the paper is highly theoretical, it is rather (or quite) difficult to understand at first.  Frankly speaking, I could not understand well the Author's previous papers published in TRIZ Journal and our Japan TRIZ Symposia.  But I now understand the significance of some part of the present paper, as I wrote in my Introduction (1).  I now feel that some day in near future the Author's writing will become clearer for us and will reveal much novel concepts. 

 

Top of this page Nakagawa's introduction Extended Abstract Full paper in PDF (270 KB)   Japan TRIZ Symposium 2007 (Nakagawa Personal Rept.) Japanese paper PDF Japanese page

 


Introduction & Review of the Presentation (Toru Nakagawa (OGU), Nov. 14, 2007)

Excerpt from Nakagawa's 'Personal Report of Japan TRIZ Symposium 2007' (posted on Nov. 18, 2007)

Toshio Takahara [18] gave a poster presentation on "A Method of Resolving Differences Based on the Concepts of Functions and Process Objects: Part 2".  The Author served, with me, for translating the Larry Ball's Course Material "Hierarchical TRIZ Algorithms" .   The present paper is highly theoretical, but fortunately the Authors' intention and logic can be read in English in his full paper published in the Proceedings.  As shown in the title, this paper is an extension of his paper presented last year in the Second TRIZ Symposium.  His way of representing cause-effect diagrams have become clearer and are now understandable for me.

The basic unit of Cause-Effect Diagram (i.e. a representation of Objects-Attributes-Functions relationship in an ordinary sense) is shown in the following figure.  This figure expresses that Object 1 acts on Object 2 and hence the Attributes or states of Object 2 before the action changes into those after the action. 

The Author tries to express all these relationships as general and uniform as possible, so as to include, for example, concept of time change, space change, etc.   Thus he classifies the properties of an Object into Attributes, whose values are not apt to change, and States, whose values are apt to change.  The Author also includes Actions and Movements together in his concept of 'Process'.  With these introduction you may probably understand the following three examples of Cause-Effect Diagram smoothly without much explanation.

An example of Cause-Effect Diagram for the action of a man hanging a picture frame on the nail with a string:

Another example of Cause-Effect Diagram for Shoes Dryer.  The hot and dry air generated in the Dryer heats the shoes, and the hot shoes heat the water moisture of the shoes, vaporize it, and move it far from the shoes.  As shown with the broken circles, the Author recognizes the higher level (or larger granularity) of processes; namely process of air, process of shoes, and process of water.

Here is another example of Cause-Effect Diagram for the case of corrosion of cubes with acid in a vessel, and the vessel is also corroded with the acid and need to be replaced from time to time.  You may notice here that 'Human' is also included in this diagram for his actions to bring cubes into the acid, to pour the acid into the vessel, and to replace the vessel.  Anyway by watching this diagram closely you may understand various relationships of the Objects, their properties, and processes.

The description here shows just the beginning of the Author's paper.  He goes on and on introducing various concepts, such as 4 types of operating Object by person, 3 principles of Object transformation, etc.  Then he wants to discuss general structures of 'Resolving Differences'.  I will skip all these theories here, because I cannot follow his logic well yet partly because no concrete examples are shown in the paper.

*** Reading the Author's papers in our Symposia 2005, 2006, and 2007, I now understand his intention partly as shown here.  With the examples shown above, the Author uses the term of 'Process Object' instead of 'Process'; I still don't see the necessity of this terminology, because the Author always represent Objects (or 'System Object' in the Author's terminology) with rectangles and Processes (or 'Process Object') with ovals.  Calling just Objects and Processes may be easier to understand.  Anyway, I am happy to invite this paper to publish in "TRIZ Home Page in Japan".  [(Nov. 14, 2007) The full paper will be posted in English and in Japanese.]


Extended Abstract of the Original Paper

A Method of Resolving Differences Based on the Concepts
of Functions and Process Objects Part 2

Takahara Toshio ( )

Abstract

This article improves the framework of the method of “resolving differences” which consists of problem solving, making new function and idealization based on the concepts of “function” and “process object”.
These three types of “resolving differences” have a unified input-output relation. We set the purpose in terms of Object. Then we find out input of object to get this purpose of object for every kind of logical types of changing Object.

Extended Abstract

Practically one of the reasons Process Object has not been treated explicitly so far is that we don’t grasp the way how to deal with it. In some cases Object 1 and Object 2 change Process Object. This is shown in next Figure.

We have three logical types of changing Objects contributing to function which are generating Process Object, deleting Process Object or changing attributes of Object.

Three types of purposes in Resolving Differences are making new function, problem solving and idealizing.

We resolve differences in three steps. In the first step of deciding the purpose we decide the target in terms of Object to set this as an output of Figure 9 or Table 3 of “Operation and transformation of Object” to be obtained. We recognize the differences depending on the situation to have one of three logical types of changing Objects consisting of generating Process Object, deleting Process Object or changing attributes of Object. For example to solve a problem we aim to delete the Process Object or change attributes of Object.

Second step of designing is to obtaining knowledge about pre-action if necessary and how to operate Object depending on the situation.

Third step of designing is operating of Object to make an input to get the purpose. We can find an Object and operate the Object and transform Object using the domain knowledge about situation.

As in the step of deciding purpose and operation of Object we use formal and logical types of changing Objects, we can obtain the unified way to various kinds of resolving differences.

This is shown in next figures.

Presenter's Profile: TAKAHARA Toshio

He joined FUJITSU Limited where he had mainly been engaged in river management and quality management. Now he is retired.
His e-mail address: takahara-t@m.ieice.org

Extended Abstract in PDF (70 KB)


Original Paper in PDF

Original Paper (in English)   (PDF, 270 KB, 16 pages)  Click Here. 

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. Object

2.1 Object
2.2 Granularity, Attributes and Structure of Object
2.3 Differences and Function
2.4 How to Express Cause- Effect Diagram

3. Changing Objects

4. Resolving Differences

4.1 Three Logical Types of Changing Objects and Three Types of Purposes
4.2 Structure of Resolving Differences
4.3 Three Types of Resolving Differences

5. On classical TRIZ and “Hierarchical TRIZ Algorithms”

6. Conclusion

7. Acknowledgments

References

 


Some Additional Note (Toru Nakagawa, Nov. 7, 2007)

I have found that the part I described in my 'Personal Report' (1) was written by the Author only in his English paper.  He does not describe the part in his Japanese paper probably because of the lack of space and because he presented that part separately in another conference a year ago.  Maybe I should invite his preceeding papers in this Web site to trace his thinking.  The second figure shown in the Extended Abstract seems to convey a lot of new message to us, once we really understand the Author's theoretical thinking.

 

Top of this page Nakagawa's introduction Extended Abstract Full paper in PDF (270 KB)   Japan TRIZ Symposium 2007 (Nakagawa Personal Rept.) Japanese paper PDF 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

Last updated on Dec. 7,  2007.     Access point:  Editor: nakagawa@utc.osaka-gu.ac.jp