A model for problems' representation at various generic levels to assist inventive design

Sébastien Dubois (1) , Philippe Lutz (2) , François Rousselot (1) , Gérard Vieux (3)

1 LGeco - Laboratoire de Génie de la Conception
2 FEMTO-ST - Franche-Comté Électronique Mécanique, Thermique et Optique - Sciences et Technologies (UMR 6174)
3 TRIXELL [Moirans]

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.

Mots clés: inventive design; TRIZ; UML modelling; theory of inventive problem solving; innovation; problem representation

Domaines: Génie mécanique [physics.class-ph]; Génie mécanique [physics.class-ph]

Sébastien Dubois, Philippe Lutz, François Rousselot, Gérard Vieux. A model for problems' representation at various generic levels to assist inventive design. International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology, 2007, 30 (1/2), pp.105-112. ⟨10.1504/IJCAT.2007.015701⟩. ⟨hal-00794335⟩