The expression TRIZ comes from the Russian word "ТРИЗ", which is an acronym for " Theory of Solving Inventive Problems ".
TRIZ is a systematic method to increase creativity, based on the study of patent evolution models and the application of standard solutions of the method to various problems, be they technical, social, administrative, etc.
Scientific creativity is the set of reasoning procedures that aim to solve problems with innovative solutions efficiently.
The scientific name refers to creativity to differentiate it from artistic creativity, although it can handle criteria of ergonomics, aesthetics and is applied to education, the environment, etc.
This methodology began in the area of Engineering, product and process design, and service improvement, to spread to other Fields of Knowledge.
A problem is understood as a circumstance in which the current situation does not coincide with certain expectations. This broad definition indicates that technical creativity can be used for almost anything, although the main applications are in companies and in research, where it is used for solving problems of strategy, management or technology.
This theory seeks to obtain low-probability, novel and innovative ideas that would not be accessible otherwise.
Most of the existing creative techniques use an alteration of the usual reasoning by a procedure typical of each technique. This large group of techniques, based on Intuition, psychology and imagination, voluntarily dispenses with previous patent knowledge of the element under study and search for alternative solutions at random and by trial and error, which is inefficient.
On the other hand, TRIZ is based on the Knowledge of patents of similar elements and on the Management thereof even though they come from a field of Knowledge totally different from ours.
TRIZ surprises with the speed and quality of the results obtained and thanks to them important advances have been made and problems of extreme difficulty have been solved in the Basic Sciences and Industries. No other creative method has the extensive number of applications in TRIZ's Processes, Products and Services, check it out by researching the Triz journal files at www.triz-journal.com
This problem solving technique is different and unique in its conception since it arises from a different approach, which consists in using the maximum amount of knowledge available on a specific problem and reaching its solution by adapting patents with solutions previously applied to other problems.
TRIZ is the first technique that has been defined as “knowledge-based” and forms part of Knowledge Management, which is, together with Quality and continuous improvement, the basis of the Research, Development and Invention (R&D) departments. + I) of companies.
Altshuller realized that although the inventions he analyzed solved different problems in very different fields as well, the solutions applied could be obtained from a relatively small set of principles of invention, no more than 40 principles.
The method began by being applied in solving technological and scientific problems, but after the immense number of these problems solved effectively, today it is the inventive and innovative technique most used by companies, research institutes and universities.
TRIZ is based on eliminating contradictions and it is precisely contradictions that in all walks of life reduce efficiency.
Because ultimately a contradiction, be it administrative, technical or physical, is a problem that affects the business, and therefore the company itself, since another company can occupy part of the market if it finds, eliminates and works without contradictions.
The elimination of contradictions without accepting compromises or intermediate solutions is one of the basic tools of TRIZ.
Three types of contradictions are defined:
Administrative: they are problems or situations that require a solution in time and form, not accepting disadvantageous alternatives.
-You can increase the productivity of the company with better training (positive) but employees will not work while they are training (negative).
-You can have a flexible schedule in the company (positive) but you will have to coordinate meetings where all the members always attend
Techniques: they are the restrictions of engineering or design problems where the final ideal result is to prevent with the found solution of having other drawbacks of the system. In general, you have:
-A container can withstand high pressures (positive) but at the cost of greater weight (negative)
-A computer may have a screen with more brightness (positive) but will consume more electricity (negative)
-A plane or a car can take more speed (positive) but will produce more noise (negative)
Physical or inherent: they are problems or situations where the system has opposite requirements for the same parameter or design attribute, for example:
-A pot should keep food warm (positive) but its exterior should be cold to prevent burning your hands
-a bicycle must be large for comfort (positive) but not so much that it bothers when stored (negative)
-the plastic will be resistant (positive) and economical (positive) but also biodegradable (higher negative cost)
-The street lights will be powerful (positive) but will not cause light pollution (negative)
In this way, eliminating all contradictions, the final ideal result can be reached. In the case of the container, the compromise of resistance to higher pressure can be respected and not carry much weight if we change the material of the container to aluminum or reinforced plastic. And in the case of the bicycle it will be large but it can be disassembled and reduced to smaller dimensions for storage.
But let's see how contradictions are posed with a real example.
There is a serious problem with the plastic bags used to dispose of the waste, and which often go to the city's ditches and to the collecting channels of the city of Mendoza, in Argentina, covering the storm drains.
The contradictions that can arise are:
-How to clean the garbage without cost (RFI Ideal final result)
-How to make the bags do not block drains and ditches
-How to make the bags disappear after garbage collection
We chose the first contradiction as the main one and this leads us to the fact that the bags scattered everywhere, must be collected by the people and disappear, with minimal changes to the people-bags-drains system.
With which we can deduce that the bags must go from having nothing of value to being valuable.
This means that they do not cost anything when they are used for waste but that they acquire much value later.
The key to TRIZ is that it leads one to think of a large amount of garbage that turns into money, applying the ideal Final Result.
By what method can people get large sums of money from something as worthless as a disposable plastic bag?
Suppose we put in the bags a lottery agency advertisement with a draw number, and people after using the bags, take them home and wait for the draw, using only a minimum for trash.
We have improved the situation with zero cost and this was applied by a municipality a few years ago.
But in addition, we know that there are algae that eat household waste and plastic, consuming carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen, what can we do with this?
So in the propaganda of the bags it is indicated that they are suitable to fill with algae, since these vegetable algae return clean oxygen to the city.
This is also being done in the municipalities, where free algae are provided to citizens.
Plastic bags are also recycled at zero cost, at the Experimental Production Center of the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Buenos Aires de Núñez, where the collectors themselves transform the waste from disposable bags into roof sheets, for affordable housing by means of a thermo-compression process.
But it is unusual that TRIZ was also used to plan or discover the most famous robberies and murders.
There were two famous robberies, one with La Gioconda in Paris in 1911 and the other with moonstones in 2002 at NASA.
The theft of La Gioconda
In 1911, a perfectly orchestrated plan allowed the theft and sale of La Gioconda.
It was the only robbery in all of history after the death of its creator, Leonardo Da Vinci.
And the author, an Argentine Eduardo de Valfierno.
One day in 1910, Paris received the arrival of one of the greatest scammers in history, to become the most coveted piece of all time: La Gioconda.
The mastermind of the robbery was Valfierno, born in the province of Buenos Aires, the son of a wealthy landowner who, in the death of his father, squandered in a few months the large fortune he had inherited.
In order to maintain the comfortable lifestyle to which he was accustomed, he dedicated himself to the sale of art objects, jewelry and antiques that were once owned by the family, which allowed him to know a lot about this world.
With this, plus his education that allowed him to express himself with the finest manners in several languages, he came up with a perfect plan to carry out the theft of the Mona Lisa.
The plan consisted of falsifying and disposing of several works by La Gioconda, in a second stage stealing the painting from the Louvre and in the third stage selling those six copies of the work of art at exorbitant prices.
Arrived in Paris, Valfierno met his partner: Yves Chaudrón, a virtuous counterfeiter of works of art, whom he had known in his days as an antique dealer in Buenos Aires.
He commissioned six copies of the painting with the intention of selling them to six magnates who had already been contacted and said yes. Five of American origin and one Brazilian.
Chaudrón was not an improvised man because to carry out his forgery, he got six stale poplar boards like the original by Leonardo Da Vinci.
The Monna Lisa was not painted on canvas, but also made the counterfeit with colors and pigments faithful to the Renaissance, and with original aging techniques.
But the second part of this plan was missing. Eduardo de Valfierno did not delay in connecting with an employee of the Louvre Museum, where this famous work is on display. He could only sell the counterfeit works if the Gioconda was stolen.
But how to steal the Gioconda and not be the thief? The contradiction is resolved with TRIZ because someone must steal and keep the work to give us time to sell the fakes. Also those who buy the Gioconda will not be able to report us because they know that it was a stolen work. Thus the intellectual author was difficult to blame.
Vincenzo Peruggia was the Italian immigrant, lonely and dimly lit, who for some time had as a task in the museum carpentry work, such as framing and glazing the works. Convinced under the romantic argument that the Gioconda would be returned to Italy where she originally belonged and a few coins, Peruggia accepted, and on Sunday August 20, 1911 at six in the afternoon, taking advantage of the museum's changing of the guard, he escaped with the work of the great Leonardo under the blue overall, which he used for his usual tasks.
No one saw him leave, much less suspected him.
After the theft was carried out, the sale of the counterfeits to the millionaires was completed the following week, and since then, none of the three were seen again.
The lack of the Louvre's most precious jewel went unnoticed because the museum was closed on Mondays, and at that time it was common that on Tuesdays the most famous works were taken to the photography workshop for a few days and then returned to their place exhibition. When the newspapers of August 25, 1911 announced the robbery, Parisians were walking through the corridors of the museum as if it were a funeral procession.
And where it was? A few blocks from the place, in a miserable room where the Italian carpenter, author of the robbery, lived. Two years passed and no one knew what had happened although all the police investigated the various leads to the robbery.
Vicenios Peruggua continued with his dark life, he had obtained a little money for the robbery but he had not met Valfierno again to deliver the work to Italy, and he had kept the original of the Mona Lisa. What could I do?
In the fall of 1913 Peruggua read a notice in the Parisian newspaper that shook him. A Florentine antiquarian, Alfredo Geri was willing to buy "art objects of any kind" at a good price.
A few days later Geri received a letter from a certain Leonardo, telling him that he had the Gioconda in his possession and that he wanted to see her again in his homeland, Italy.
The interview was held in Florence, Italy, when Vincenzo Peruggia asked for a hundred thousand dollars as a reward, and the promise that the work would never be exhibited at the Louvre again. The next day, Alfredo Geri, accompanied by an arts specialist, could not hide his surprise when he saw that the bottom of a trunk gave accommodation to such a work. But it was too late, the Florentine police had surrounded the Tripoli hotel where the Italian was staying.
In June 1913 the trial of Vincenzo began in Italy, the only one arrested for the theft of the work of such incalculable value, who declared himself the author.
But it happened that he was a national hero for the Italians since they were happy, because he was the man who had carried the romantic epic of returning the Monna Lisa to his country of origin.
He argued before the magistrate who had worked alone, and because he was considered intellectually insane, he was only sentenced to one year and days in prison, leaving at 7 months when the 1914 war, made headlines in the newspapers, and public opinion soon forgot about him.
Meanwhile, the Marquis Eduardo de Valfierno, carried out the third part of the plan and collected more than 40 million dollars for the six false Gioconda.
The millionaires who bought the fakes were unable to report him to justice when they learned of the scam. Valfierno lived until his death with a large fortune, all the result of the scam.
Although he could not bear the idea of dying in anonymity, and ended up telling all the details of such an elaborate plan, to an American journalist on condition that he publish it once he died. Eduardo de Valfierno died in the United States in 1931.
The recovered Gioconda posed again before the public at the Louvre in Paris.
Our second story takes us to NASA with TRIZ
There, in 2002, the scientific robbery of the NASA Johnson Space Center occurred and is still an example of the TRIZ workshops.
NASA has a vacuum sealed chamber and most of the moon rocks collected by astronauts from the various Apollo missions.
In July 2002, a young NASA student and his girlfriend managed to penetrate the interior of the chamber, get hold of a box with samples of lunar material, and escape without warning.
A few hours later, they were making love in a motel bed surrounded by moon dust. Thad Roberts and his girlfriend Tiffany, 25 and 22, acted with the help of another accomplice who also worked as an intern at NASA facilities.
One warm July night in 2002. Thad, his girlfriend, and another student, Shae, enter the space center compound aboard a Jeep Cherokee without raising any suspicion. After a few minutes, Thad and Tiffany go into a bathroom, put on wetsuits and oxygen masks and enter the chamber's main entrance.
These guys worked for NASA and are trained to solve problems using TRIZ, so the safety barriers and contradictions to overcome were just a challenge for them.
Wetsuits will serve to circumvent the heat detectors inside the chamber.
The breathing equipment will provide them with a time of fifteen minutes to enter and exit the cabin, lacking oxygen to preserve the rocks intact.
To find out what the access codes of the lunar chamber are, Thad uses a mixture of chemical components that he applies to the keyboards and, by means of a black light, they allow him to know which numbers are the most dialed and in which order.
The method worked and in a few seconds they are inside the camera.
The curious thing is that through TRIZ they were able to establish a plan for the robbery and resolve the various contradictions and find solutions.
The robbery had been planned and executed at the most guarded investigative center in the United States.
They turned off the TV cameras and even the sensitive detectors on the floor to avoid alarms to the control center using home electronic equipment.
The lunar chamber looked like a large laboratory filled with lunar rocks ordered by date and mission number. But the rocks are in glass boxes and they only have three minutes to open them with another security code.
They try to open one of the most precious boxes for its content in precious minerals. Since they can't do it in time, they decide to hand-load a box and rush out of the receptacle as wetsuits only outwit thermal sensors for a few minutes.
Somehow, they leave without attracting attention because the stolen box is hidden in the jeep that security agents do not detect.
In the stolen box are kilos of rocks and other lunar samples from the Apollo missions along with meteorites and lunar sand.
NASA did not learn of the theft until two days after a guard verified the materials in each camera and could not believe what their eyes were seeing. A complete box with 30 kg of rock was missing, what would have happened?
The end of the story begins with a message on the Internet, a week later. "Regards. My name is Robinson from Tampa, Florida. I'm in possession of some large moon rocks and I'm trying to find a buyer. ”
A mineral collector named Emmermann contacts them and they meet to meet in Florida in July 2002 offering to pay more than $ 900,000.
Emmermann is an undercover FBI agent, and in a few moments more than 30 agents and a helicopter surround them. The adventure is over and the trial takes place in July 2003.The two have served their eight-year sentence and the five-year-old accomplice.
The thieves have formed a systematic innovation training group at the government's request and have yet to comply with community actions.
There were also two famous robberies and murders.
The oldest known robbery and protection from inventively resolved murder is said to be the papyrus story of Emperor Tsin ShiGuandi, who lived 22 centuries ago in China.
Upon learning that some of his ancestors had been killed with daggers and stolen his precious sword, he ordered to install in all the gates of access to the palace and in the guards' mittens, pieces and blankets of pure magnetite.
Thus, any metallic object was detected by the guards and assistants as something metallic and suspicious, and they were confiscated.
The murder of Idar Oberstein
The German police finally solved one of the cases that has brought them headaches since 1993 to date.
In that year, an older woman appeared strangled in the city of Idar-Oberstein, with the killer leaving no more clues than a small trace of DNA.
During the following years, and in different parts of Europe, the same DNA fingerprint, belonging to the murderous woman, appeared in up to a dozen unsolved murders, without the police and Interpol being able to find a pattern of behavior.
Who was that mysterious murderer wanted since 1993 to date by Interpol and other forces?
A scientific police team using TRIZ solved the mystery.
The police found that the answer lay in the swabs used by the officers to take samples at scenes of various crimes in different cities.
All of the swabs came from the same factory in Germany and were used to investigate the various murders.
The swabs were contaminated with hair and DNA from the same woman. The genetic sample of the mysterious woman belonged to the same worker who negligently did not use a hair protector and always contaminated the swabs with her own DNA during packaging. All the consignment used by the European scientific police came from the same batch of swabs and corresponded to the woman in charge of the factory packer.
Finally, a robbery similar to that of the Mona Lisa was that of The Just Judges of the Cathedral of Saint Bavo in Belgium.
On the night of April 10, 1934, a thief stole a 1.3 × 0.5 meter panel from the altarpiece in the Cathedral of Saint Bavo, in Ghent, present-day Belgium.
The panel, which showed the so-called righteous Judges, with the back occupied by Saint John the Baptist, was in the lower left part of the painting, and they had divided it in two, vertically, to be able to simultaneously display the two faces, anterior and later, in an exhibition held in the Berlin Museum after the First World War.
The thieves who stole it from the cathedral took both halves. The event was discovered on the morning of April 11, when the sacristan made his round. They had been hidden in the cathedral the night before. They had broken the padlock on the door of the chapel in which the altarpiece was located and had torn the panel from its frame. The frame had been chipped, but the others had not been harmed. Instead of the panel, they had left a note that read: "Taken from Germany by the Treaty of Versailles."
At first it was thought to be an act of nationalist retaliation by someone pro-German.
The Germans had stolen the altarpiece during World War I, and the city of Ghent recovered it as part of the war reparations. However, three weeks after the robbery, the Bishop of Ghent received a ransom note offering to return the stolen painting in exchange for one million Belgian francs.
To demonstrate that the author of the note was in possession of the panel, and to the bishop's desolation, it included a receipt for the luggage storage at a station in Brussels. There they found half of the panel, that is, the back, in which Saint John the Baptist appeared.
There was an exchange of letters in which the police pretended to go along with the thief. Through a priest who acted as mediator, the police offered 25,000 francs, and promised 225,000 more when the painting was in their possession. Suddenly, the thief changed his demands and asked for 500,000 francs immediately and 400,000 when returning the painting. Police suspected the thief of being a hobbyist in financial difficulties, and negotiations were interrupted.
After six months and more letters, the last note threatened never to reveal where the panel was if the ransom was not paid: The masterpiece and immortal will disappear forever? No one will be able to see it, not even us? She will remain where she is now, without anyone being able to lay a hand on her. ”
Here again appears the ingenuity of a swindler who grossly falsified the stolen panel and tried to sell it to several French collectors.
He was able to sell three copies and when he wanted to sell the fourth copy, he was arrested by the Belgian police in a raid where the scammer and his entourage of three accomplices were found.
But the story took another turn because towards the end of 1934, a baker from a nearby town named Arsene Goerdetier, who was on his deathbed after suffering a heart attack, said in whispers that he knew where the stolen panel was hidden..
District police arrived at the scene but nevertheless, in a melodramatic moment, died before being able to reveal it. His attorney found papers at his home indicating he was the thief because they found carbon copies of his ransom notes.
He also discovered a last letter, without sending, in which the thief gave a promising clue about the situation of the stolen panel: "The just judges are in a place from which neither I nor anyone else can remove them without attracting people's attention."
In other words, it was hidden somewhere prominent, perhaps even in plain sight. Authorities believe the panel never left Ghent and that it remains hidden in a public place.
Thorough searches of Goerdetier's house and the homes of his family and friends were made, but nothing was found.
To replace the missing half of the Just Judges panel, a copy that is on display today along with the rest of the originals was painted. The stolen panel has not appeared to date, but the famous robberies are but a few in the long and busy history of art crime.
Only the most famous robberies are documented and available to historians. Every year more than 15,000 works of art are stolen worldwide, although only 30% of them have been documented and cataloged.
This type of crime produces criminal revenues to 2011 of 6,000 million euros per year, which makes it the third most lucrative type of crime, behind only drugs and arms trafficking.
