Innovations take time to appear and when they reach maturity in some products and equipment, a very long period of time has passed (sometimes thousands of years, from bread and meat to sandwich) until only in the 20th century this The process sped up and that period dropped to a few years (X-rays).
New products based on improving something previously existing have had a considerable time gap, for example: ice creams were invented in 2000 BC, however, it was only in 1900 that the edible ice cream cone was created and consumption expanded. by the entrance of the refrigerators.
Humans have been known to eat meat since ancient times and bread has been around 2,500 years ago, but the sandwich was only created in the 1840s during a game of cards.
Lenses and mirrors have been known since the 16th century, but it was only in the 19th century that telescopes were developed, and they were extremely necessary to explore the universe.
But since the middle of the 20th century there has been an acceleration of all innovations, for example the laser was conceptualized in 1952, three years after it was manufactured and since 1956 it has been applied industrially.
Other examples are:
- Radio took 50 years to reach 50 million listeners. Television took 17 years to reach 50 million viewers. Internet took only 3 years to reach 50 million surfers.
This time gap responds to the fact that only after the need made pressure for something, someone related two elements and created a new product with greater added value in its functions, which the market demands.
That is, when the technology was developed, a new product was created to satisfy a market requirement.
This is so because inventions in general, whether technological or non-technical, are based on only three guiding criteria:
- Function: Any man-made system is developed to meet certain objectives and therefore has some main function, for example to fulfill the objective of medical research, a system is needed that provides the function of “seeing the human body ”. Principles: This is a scientific effect, a principle or phenomenon that allows the function to develop, following our example the emission of X-rays creates the function of“ seeing through the human body ”. Market: Any system man-made fulfills its function within a certain context, which satisfies a market need. Just as an X-ray emission device was widely used in medicine since 1910, it also served the market for security and telemetry systems.
It is interesting to note that science fiction foresaw several innovative developments, for example Jules Verne in his novel "2000 leagues under the sea" develops the idea of ships with double hulls for better safety and the French engineer Leboeux thirty years later, he patented the same idea without giving more details than those of the novelist.
Jonathan Swift describes in his novel "Gulliver's Travels" how the protagonist meets extra-terrestrial beings that come down from a floating island, what we know as a UFO, and in that conversation he tells him that the planet Mars has two moons.
Only 150 years later with the development of telescopes this was known for sure and to the astonishment of the scientific community of the time.
Now innovations happen exponentially
Science suggests that humanity has been on Earth for about 50,000 years, which represents about 800 generations to an average 60 years.
However, during the first 650 generations they did not leave the caves and only in the last two generations do we know the electric motor.
The amount of Changes that a person in the 19th century could experience in their entire life must now be experienced by a person in less than four years.
From the moment photography began, 140 years passed until it reached the mass market, it took 40 years for radio, 12 years for television, two years for transistor and one for Internet.
This simply means that the exchange rate is accelerating and has been accelerating exponentially since the year 2000.
How can I adapt to the Change and turn it into an opportunity?
Let's think of change as if it were a knife, one can hold it by the blade or by the handle, and that is to take it as a danger or an opportunity.
The tools of systematic inventive thinking
The five tools used by Systematic Inventive Thinking to create innovative products are:
- Unification consists of assigning a new function to an existing component Multiplication consists of introducing a copy or a slightly modified copy of an existing object to the system Division consists of dividing an object and reconfiguring its parts Object Removal consists of removing an object from the system or objects of the vicinity Breaking the Symmetry consists of changing the symmetric relationship to an asymmetric one between the components of the system or other objects in the vicinity.
Note that symmetry is not the same as geometry, since the proposed change is to modify a dimension, for example: length, height, time, temperature, volume, weight, etc. In particular when pursuing a new product try to pay attention to changes in time and space.
The Principles of Inventive Thinking
Two central Principles apply in it. Simultaneous Systematic Inventive Thinking.
The Closed World Principle, which says that creative solutions exist mainly in the world of components of the problem / product or in its immediate environment.
For this method, a solution that incorporates new elements is not creative. The further we move away from the product and its environment, the less creative the solution is given, this is the heart of the closed world principle. This goes against the prejudice of trying to solve a problem by incorporating new objects into existing ones. Cognitive psychologists have amply demonstrated this.
Make an experience. You tried to create something by giving yourself 5 minutes. You are paralyzed.
Now take an object from your desktop and apply the Division tool. You get several alternatives. Why?
Because you are more generative when you have a reference framework and apply well-known tools.
It is interesting to note in creative workshops that the more restrictions are given to a given problem, the more creative the solutions turn out to be, which goes against what many people commonly think.
The second called Principle of Qualitative Change says that there must be a change in the relationship between the components or objects in the vicinity that contribute to intensify or eliminate the undesired effect on the problem / product.
This coincides with the fact that Innovate is to eliminate a contradiction within our problem.
One must strive to find unusual relationships in the object to improve. For example, in eyeglasses from the 1970s, there was not yet a change ratio between external light and the color of the lenses.
Now you create a photochromic lens and can have glasses for different lighting conditions.
Or for example, currently the builders of large forged dies have related the dimension of the piece with the surface roughness, giving different roughness as appropriate.
This type of additional relationships to existing products makes one see such changes as inevitable.
For decades shaving machines were the same for men and women, which today changes mainly in their packaging and presentation, in the same way with other cosmetic products.
Only by applying both principles at the same time do we obtain the necessary and sufficient condition to find creative solutions
The Division tool
This tool is very useful because in workshops we see how people quickly find new uses for the product or service, eliminating fixation on certain uses for each product.
For this, I recently asked a participant in a creative workshop to choose a product that he believed could no longer be improved. He selected the refrigerator, a concept that has been with us since 1000 years before Christ.
We begin by listing the components of the product or service.
Then we divide one or more of the components into these three characteristics:
- Functional (division into functional roles) Physical (divide the component into any physical aspect) Preservation (that any part preserves the attributes of the whole)
Knowing that Function must follow Form we then investigate potential benefits of the new product and other ways to adapt Form to be more useful.
Let's look at a typical refrigerator:
Components
- door ventilatorreezercompressortemperature controlmain section (with lighting) shelveswater chuteIce makerdrainscooling coil
These are just some of the ideas during the creative workshop session and we indicate in parentheses the type of Characteristic of the Division.
1. Lighting (Preservation)
Divide the only lighting into several lamps for each compartment in order to inspect the state of the food and depending on the compartment, for example ultraviolet light can be used, which reduces the growth of bacteria.
2. Temperature Control (Functional)
Divide the temperature control and unify it to the general thermostat of the house, so that the temperature inside the refrigerator can even be improved with the temperature and humidity of the environment.
3. Door (Physical)
Divide the door into different sectors in order to access different parts of the refrigerator.
This exists with the freezer but the idea is to extend it to other sectors in order to have better temperature control and avoid cold losses.
It is interesting to note from photos and diagrams that some 1920's refrigerators already took this into account. This is already being implemented in kitchens as shown in the photo.
4. Compressor (Functional)
Divide the compressor outside the refrigerator and place it outside in order to have more space in the kitchen, less heat generated and better service from it.
It may even be that the same compressor distributes air conditioning to the house.
5. Main section (Physics)
Divide the refrigerator into several pieces of equipment and distribute them in different parts of the kitchen to have better functional access, for example equipment for drinks, for vegetables, for food with cold chain, pantry, etc.
There is not a single refrigerator but depending on the user, the refrigerators are adapted.
This is a disruptive idea that redefines the refrigerator as we know it.
Bibliography
Electronic edition of the book Generation and Development of Creative Ideas at:
www.ideas-marketing.com.ar/
Applications of Systematic Inventive Thinking at:
www.monografias.com/trabajos32/pensamiento-inventivo-sistematico /pensamiento-inventivo-sistematico.shtml
Electronic edition of the basic TRIZ course at:
www.innovacion-sistematica.net.
