I would like to discuss new thoughts about function analysis with you in short blog posts. Here comes the first post:
In TRIZ, we always strive to abstract problematic situations. However, we rarely apply this approach to our own methods. When we do, we see a two-part approach to functional analysis for products and processes according to TRIZ:
In the first part (model building), we try to cast reality into a model using the steps of function analysis: component analysis, (interaction analysis – product only) and function modeling. This sometimes works better and sometimes worse, usually depending on the system being modeled.
In a second part (analysis of the model), we then place an analysis view over our model in order to derive innovative questions to be solved, which we can then import into our solution tools. This second part is often done together with the last step in function modeling, so that the separation is not clearly recognizable.
The best-known aspects of analysis are the incremental improvement of a function model, in which we look at the functions and assess them according to usefulness and harmfulness, or the value analysis, in which we look at the components and assign them a value (usually functions / costs).
However, it would also be conceivable to superimpose sustainability, resilience, design or marketing analyses over a functional model and derive questions from this.
Do you have any other ideas about which analyses would be useful and what such analyses could look like?