Abstract: Eco-design has increasingly become a necessity to safeguard the eco-system. However, eco-assessment methodologies, e.g. the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), fail to rigorously and reliably support the evaluation of future products, as well as emerging technologies, ideas and concepts in eco-design. This study lays some theoretical foundations for the development of a step-divided systematic method to support Prospective LCA based on a structured patent analysis. In order to answer the prescribed requirements, for each of them, some specific strategies of patents analysis have been collected and systematically organized. The aim of the proposed method is to compare technologies with a different level of maturity, contrary to the traditional LCA which overestimates the existing ones only because are more optimized. The proposed method was applied to a real case study about the production of titanium powder to perform the prospective LCA of the patented future developments of the components of this process. The results showed that, patent analysis, systematized through the proposed method, can be used to forecast the environmental impact of a future product. The scale-up of the performances can be esteemed, by ensuring at the same time the comparability and the reliability and the results, as prescribed by reference standards.

Keywords: eco-design | patent analysis | product forecasting | Prospective LCA

Abstract: The prospective life cycle assessment (pLCA) methodology allows to estimate the future environmental impacts of emerging technologies and immature products not yet on the market. To make up for the lack of information on the product, the pLCA makes extensive use of secondary data, taken from various sources including patents which contain prospective information of industrial interest. To date, there have been attempts to show the potential of patent analysis in supporting pLCA, but never extensively and as proposed in this work with a truly systematic approach. In fact, this study aims to demonstrate how an accurate analysis of the information contained within patents can provide solutions to a number of open problems underlying the pLCA. More specifically, it was shown how patents can serve for: the support to experts in technological forecasting, the definition of scenario ranges, the support to the background and foreground systems modelling, the comparison of the future diffusion of a mature and an emerging technology, the support to the projections based on pathways to reach policy reductions to ensure time consistency. For each question, it was explained how to decline the patent analysis, i.e. which parts of the patents to analyse and how.

Keywords: eco-design | emerging technologies | ex-ante LCA | patent analysis | prospective LCA

Abstract: Obtaining a quantification of the environmental impacts of its products is now necessary for a company for several reasons, e.g. planning eco-design interventions, enhancing marketing aspects, obtaining a certification for trade. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is one of the best known and most appreciated methodologies to support this, however its application in the most useful way for the many purposes that may exist at an environmental level struggles to establish itself in companies. To understand how to improve the application of the LCA, this paper systematically analyzes and classifies the many problems identified during research activities on the subject in various companies from 2010 to today by the same authors. Compared to other approaches in the literature, in this case, the database is much larger and heterogeneous and the authors have full knowledge of it, having personally contributed to creating it. The result is a set of problems on the application of LCA, divided into different classes: motivations, inventory, impacts calculation, interpretation of the results. Finally, a set of strategies of intervention were proposed by the same authors to limit these problems.

Keywords: Eco-design | LCA | Life cycle assessment

Abstract: To stop the dispersion of microplastics in the ecosystem, many technologies for collecting them were designed, tested and developed in the last period. However, a complete and exhaustive comparison of these technologies to guide in the choice and/or in the development of the most suitable appropriate one is missing in the literature. This study investigates the presence of some known technological trends, deriving from the TRIZ (Russian acronym for "Theory of Inventive Problem Solving") in the behaviour (i.e. the operating principle) of these technologies. To do this, a systematic methodology was followed, which has a general value and consists in analysing the patents relating to these technologies through various bibliometric indexes (i.e. Innovation index, Emergence Score index, Independent Claims index and Technology Cycle Time index). In general, the obtained results did not reveal a clearly identifiable ranking of the behaviour which was unanimously confirmed by all the considered bibliometric indexes. In addition, the average of the scores of the different indexes associated with the different behaviours equalized their differences. However, these results are mainly due to the markedly different evaluations obtained by the Emergence Score index compared to those of the other indexes. From the comparison of the results with the evolutionary trends, it emerged that the operative zone reduction trend was the most confirmed, while the technical system dematerialization was the least confirmed by the bibliometric analysis of all the indexes. In particular, the ranking of the behaviours provided by the Innovation index best confirmed all the evolutionary trends, while that of the Emergence Score index was the worst. In conclusion, this study confirmed the adherence of the development that technologies for collecting microplastics are following to the evolutionary trends through bibliometric analysis: this sequence places magnetic technologies in first place, followed by chemical, fluid dynamics, dynamic mechanics and static mechanics. The analysis of the performances declared in the patents substantially confirms this result.

Keywords: Bibliometric analysis | Evolutionary trends | Microplastics | Patents | TRIZ

Abstract: To stop the dispersion of microplastics in the ecosystem, many technologies for collecting them were designed, tested and developed in the last period. However, a complete and exhaustive comparison of these technologies to guide in the choice and/or in the development of the most suitable appropriate one is missing in the literature. This study investigates the presence of some known technological trends, deriving from the TRIZ (Russian acronym for "Theory of Inventive Problem Solving") in the behaviour (i.e. the operating principle) of these technologies. To do this, a systematic methodology was followed, which has a general value and consists in analysing the patents relating to these technologies through various bibliometric indexes (i.e. Innovation index, Emergence Score index, Independent Claims index and Technology Cycle Time index). In general, the obtained results did not reveal a clearly identifiable ranking of the behaviour which was unanimously confirmed by all the considered bibliometric indexes. In addition, the average of the scores of the different indexes associated with the different behaviours equalized their differences. However, these results are mainly due to the markedly different evaluations obtained by the Emergence Score index compared to those of the other indexes. From the comparison of the results with the evolutionary trends, it emerged that the operative zone reduction trend was the most confirmed, while the technical system dematerialization was the least confirmed by the bibliometric analysis of all the indexes. In particular, the ranking of the behaviours provided by the Innovation index best confirmed all the evolutionary trends, while that of the Emergence Score index was the worst. In conclusion, this study confirmed the adherence of the development that technologies for collecting microplastics are following to the evolutionary trends through bibliometric analysis: this sequence places magnetic technologies in first place, followed by chemical, fluid dynamics, dynamic mechanics and static mechanics. The analysis of the performances declared in the patents substantially confirms this result.

Keywords: Bibliometric analysis | Evolutionary trends | Microplastics | Patents | TRIZ

Abstract: Product innovation, based on the identification and implementation of new solutions, is essential to keep a company competitive. However, the risk of failure of a new solution must be properly weighted during the decision-making in the design activity. This study proposes a method to evaluate a new design solution through the comparison with an old one to be substituted, and based on their requirements. In order to better evaluate the new solution, new requirements about its specific peculiarities are extracted from patents of similar solutions and considered in the evaluation. Requirements extraction is carried out automatically, through natural language processing, while the evaluation considers technical, marketing, and economic criteria. In particular, financial proceeds and patents investments were considered. The proposed method was applied in a real industrial case study were the substitution of carbon fiber heating mat over the copper heating mat was assessed. This study contributes to support creativity in innovation design by providing unknown requirements on which to work on the new product. In addition, it can stimulate the designer on this aim, by presenting the requirements along with new ideas, already implementing them in other fields/contexts that can act as sources of inspiration or creativity triggers.

Keywords: decision making | market potential | natural language process | patents | Requirements

Abstract: One of the reasons why Function Behaviour Structure (FBS) model did not become a pragmatic tool in industrial practice is its inability to push the designer to develop solutions beyond the dimensional scale where components, materials, and their relationships, of an artifact are defined. This paper introduces the concept of “topology” into the FBS model to support design in a multidimensional way. Though the proposed method, instead of describing a technical system with a unique FBS model, as many models as there are levels of detail in which it can be decomposed, can be exploited. Topology is crucial for linking them together in a hierarchical organization from macro to micro, so as to use the FBS ontology both to interpret and exploit physical phenomena in the design phase. Test results about the application of the proposed FBS multilevel method on a real industrial case study with engineering students showed its ability to modify their design attitude to generate solutions from an early expansion of concepts (breadth-first strategy) to the reformulation and refinement of the same (to depth-first strategy). More in detail, through the method, the students deeper analyse of the system, individuate a greater number of parameters on which to work and provide solutions exploiting the available resources more rationally.

Keywords: FBS | Multilevel design | Topology

Abstract: Prospective life cycle assessment (LCA) was introduced with the goal to evaluate the environmental sustainability of eco-design solutions (i.e., ideas, prototypes, immature products, emerging technologies) prospectively rather than existing products, at the present time, as in traditional LCA. The main difference lies in the inventory, which is foreground and is based solely on the extraction of data from prospective documents, including patents, although this task, is tricky and can make the final result uncertain. This study proposes a systematic method to collect all the flows about a specific function of the product lifecycle from patent literature for building the foreground inventory of prospective LCA, ensuring comparability, data quality and scale-up. This was done by studying the intersections between patent analysis techniques and LCA requirements for reducing the uncertainty, prescribed by ISO 14040, ISO 14044, Pedigree Matrix and Data Quality Indicators for Life Cycle Inventory Data. The application of the proposed method to a case study related to the production of titanium powders using an innovative process revealed its main advantages in collecting patents and extracting data. Patent search recall and precision are increased. Patents are filtered by seeking a trade-off to ensure time consistency and avoid anomalous fluctuations in the data resulting from predatory patenting strategies. Data reliability and significance are controlled. Results can be expressed without levelling them around the average value, but adding time evolution and forecasting considerations. For example, the global warming potential (GWP) of the innovative process is 1.5 % lower than the GWP of the current process, considering the average patent data of the last 10 years. In addition, this value showed a 1 % increase for each year.

Keywords: Eco-design | Patents | Prospective LCA

Abstract: The recent increase of interest in manufacturing techniques using metal powders, including additive manufacturing (AM), metal injection moulding (MIM) and hot isostatic pressing (HIP), has made methods for manufacturing alloyed metal powders especially iron-, nickel and cobalt-based alloys, a topic of much increased importance. The ‘classical' PM sintered parts business did not attract much research interest, but the last twenty years have seen first, the advent of MIM and HIP and, more recently, AM or three-dimensional (3D) printing. These newer branches of PM make quite different demands on the metal powders that they employ. Metal powders can be produced by a range of techniques including solid-state reduction, electrolysis, atomization, chemical processes, and mechanical comminution. Among these methods, atomization and solid-state reduction are the most popular methods. Metal atomization powder production typically includes three steps: melting the raw materials, atomizing the intermediate products, and solidifying the resulting metallic powders. Although additive techniques are generally sustainable, the production of powders must be studied carefully. In this paper, the Life Cycle Assessment methodology has been used to assess the environmental impacts of titanium powder production in terms of both ReCiPe midpoints and endpoints. Then some solutions to minimize the environmental production impacts have been extracted from patents, following a systematic procedure, and have been reported and qualitatively assessed.

Keywords: Life Cycle Assessment | Metal powered | Patent analisys | Prospective LCA

Abstract: The aim of this work is to rediscover one of TRIZ’s best-known tools, the Pointer to geometric phenomena and effects. It is part of a large group of pointers that also includes that to physical effects, to chemical effects and to specific technologies. They were introduced by Altshuller as direct tools for solving a problem. Easy to use but difficult to construct, these tools largely remained on paper, with the exception of the pointer to physical effects, which instead has had numerous software implementations, including recent ones. Studies on the geometric one, on the other hand, are stuck in 1989, in the never-translated book by Vikentiev and Yefremov. The authors’ work started from there, translating it from Russian, recovering what had already been done and developing it at its weakest points. In the absence of a rigorous theoretical basis, they worked on a definition of geometry and the nature of the relationship between the geometry of an element of the system and its functionality. The concept of multilevel shape and topology was introduced, and material was added to the list of pointers. For the construction of the libraries that enable the pointer to function, a systematic working methodology was developed that benefited from the latest text mining technologies, including large language model, named entity recognition, syntactic parsers, and others. These were appropriately combined to recognize design features and geometries from natural language documents taken from patents. In this paper we show both the methodological path to build the library and a demonstration of how to integrate libraries of geometric effects within dynamic pointers to existing physical effects.

Keywords: AI - Artificial Intelligence | CAI - Computer Aided Innovation | Patents | Pointer to Geometric Effects | Pointer to Physical Effects | Problem-solving | TRIZ

Abstract: This paper presents a critical review of laser pyrolysis. Although this technology is almost 60 years old, in literature many researchers, both from academia and industry, are still developing and improving it. On the contrary industrial applications are struggling to take off, if not in very restricted areas, although the technology has undoubted advantages that justify future development. The aim of this work consists in analysing a representative pool of scientific papers (230) and patents (121), from the last 20 years, to have an overview about the evolution of the method and try to understand the efforts spent to improve this technology effectively in academia and in industry. This study is important to provide a complete review about the argument, still missing in the literature. The objective is to provide an overview sufficiently broad and representative in the sources and to capture all the main ways in which laser pyrolysis has been used and with what distribution. The main focuses of the study are the analyses of the functions carried out by laser technologies, the application fields, and the types of used laser (i.e. models, power and fluence). Among the main results, the study showed that the main use of laser pyrolysis is to produce nanoparticles and coatings, the main materials worked by laser pyrolysis are silicon and carbon dioxide and the main searched properties in the products of laser pyrolysis are catalysts activity and electrical conductivity. CO2 lasers are the most used and the have high versatility compared to others. In conclusion, the study showed that laser pyrolysis is a consolidated technology within its main application fields (nanoparticles and coatings) for several years. Within this context, the technology has been developed on very different sizes and processes, obtaining a very wide range of results. Finally, these results may also have stimulated new areas of experimentation that emerged mainly in recent years and which concern biomedical applications, additive manufacturing, and waste disposal. Graphical abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.]

Keywords: Bibliometric analysis | Laser pyrolysis | Patents | Pyrolysis

Abstract: A reflection about the evaluation of the environmental impacts arising from a technical solution obtained by applying some of the most common TRIZ (Russian acronym for Theory of Inventive Problem Solving) strategies is provided in this study. In fact, some of them provide suggestions to minimize the resources and make a device work better without adding additional substances or energy flows. However, the contained shortcomings for improving the environmental sustainability can only be fully understood only when applying a quantitative assessment such as Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). This was done in this study, by considering a selection of TRIZ strategies and collecting their pros and cons about environmental sustainability by applying LCA. To do this, the discussion of each strategy was supported by exemplary case studies about Comparative LCA, collected from the scientific literature. The intent of the authors is not to bring experimental evidence, but to provide a further and preliminary judging method to select the TRIZ strategies. In this way, problem-solvers can also base their choice on environmental sustainability.

Keywords: Eco-design | Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) | TRIZ

Abstract: This paper proposes an idea for developing a computational model of creative processes in design. This model facilitates and accelerates idea generation in the inventive design, increasing the solution space definition by suggesting technical actions and graphical triggers. The problem solver has to state the required design objective using any verbal action, then an automatic system generates an appropriate set of triggering actions indicating different ways of accomplishing that goal. In addition, for each verb is associated a list of evocative images indicating how that action can be implemented in space/time and through specific physical effects. The system is capable of handling the huge number of verbs that the English language offers. To select all functional verbs of the technical lexicon, the patent database has been processed using the most advanced text mining techniques. Among them, a customized version of Word2Vec model has been exploited to learn word/actions associations from a large corpus of patents. The article explains how the libraries have been created, the progress the software prototype and the results of a first validation campaign.

Keywords: AI | CAI - Computer aided inventing | Cosine similarity | Creative trigger | Problem solving | TRIZ

Abstract: This paper analyses over 89,000 documents between scientific journals and international patents in order to identify main technologies for material pyrolysis (i.e. fluidized bed, hot balls, microwave, plasma, and laser), compare them in terms of technical performances and discover future trends. The predictive model for future trends is based on the evolutionary model of the TRIZ theory, with particular attention to the evolutionary law, “from macro to micro”, which explains how technical systems evolve towards increasingly smaller, controlled, and resource-efficient interactions. In our case, we applied the focus to the interface between the heat source and the pyrolyzed raw material. The proposed evolutionary model showed a substantial alignment with chronological trends, and the model was consistent with both patent trends and those of the scientific literature. To make the analysis quantitatively more robust, a comparison of the different technologies has also been introduced in terms of percentage distribution and the number of patents/papers referring to the different classes of heating rates and reaction temperatures and types of flash/fast/intermediate/slow reaction. Finally, a quantitative metric based on the innovation index has been adopted, to take into account the number of citations normalized on the years of publication. The main outputs of this study identified that radiations-based pyrolysis, involving microscopic interaction, seem more interesting in term of technical performances (i.e. heating rate and reaction temperature), although their technological growth has yet to occur, unlike fluidized bed and hot balls, which typically work at a macroscopic level and seem to have already reached maturity. According to a bibliometric index, laser corpus resulted three time more innovative then fluidized bed reactors papers, especially for heating rates and reactions temperature.

Keywords: Bibliometric analysis | Laser pyrolysis | Patents | Pyrolysis | Technological evolution trend | TRIZ

Abstract: The primary task of machine tools is simultaneously positioning and orienting the cutting tool with respect to the work piece. The mechanism must avoid positioning errors, and limit forces and torques required to the motors. A novel approach for combined design and control of manufacturing means is proposed in this work. The focus is on the optimization of the control logic of a redundant 6 axis milling machine, derived from the 5 axis milling machine by adding redundant degree of freedom to the work piece table. The new mechanism is able to fulfill a secondary task due to the introduction of redundancy. The proposed methodology sets as secondary task the minimization of the rotary motors torque, or the minimization of the norm of the positioning error. The control is based on the solution of a constrained optimization problem, where the constraints equations are the kinematic closure equations, and the objective function is the table motor torque or the positioning error of the tool tip. The implementation of this framework in the virtual machine model of the mechanism shows an improvement of the performances: actually, the introduction of a redundant axis allows the minimization of the torques and position errors.

Keywords: Additive manufacturing | Machine tool | Mechanism redundancy | Optimization

Abstract: This paper presents a critical review of a representative pool of 169 scientific papers and 175 patents, from the last twenty years, proposing new eco-assessment software, in order to draw an overview about their main features and functionalities. Each document was analysed in relation to its source (academia or industry), the application field of the assessed product, the type of use, the application phase, the data entry modality, the assessed product life cycle phases and items, the exploited methods and tools for the eco-assessment, the implemented eco-improvement strategies. Then, based on these collected data, all the documents were classified on multiple levels in accordance with the rigorous ontology of the Life Cycle Assessment methodology. While the detailed analysis of the results allowed us to identify their distributions at to date and their time trends. The obtained results highlighted the trend towards the increase in the specificity of the software with respect to the application field, the focus on the quantification of the environmental impacts deriving from the use of the product and the proposed eco-improvement strategies mainly pointing in this direction. The provided outcomes may be used by researchers and professionals for classifying the many available software and identifying the most suitable ones in relation to their specific exigences.

Keywords: Eco-assessment | Eco-assessment software | Eco-design | Patents

Abstract: The aim of this survey is to provide an overview about what efforts have been spent during the years by academia and industry make cheese packaging more sustainable. The analysis followed is based on a structured methodology that has general validity. A large pool of scientific papers (403) and patents (2272) was analysed and classified by identifying the exploited eco-strategies, the materials, the types of protected cheeses and by intersecting them to obtain more detailed classifications. The review is accompanied by graphs and tables to explain trends and to select the most representative papers or patents. Overall, the most followed strategies are improving cheese shelf life with active/vacuum or modified atmosphere packaging and using biodegradable packaging. The preferred materials are bioplastic with vegetal origin, followed by synthetic plastics. A great attention is paid to soft cheese and its requirements, such as the rapid perishability. Some discrepancies were found, mainly between the strategies covered by the papers and the patents and partly on the claimed materials. In particular, over the years, papers have become more interested in increasing cheese shelf life, especially by using active packaging, while patents remain strongly focused on biodegradable packaging. Finally, while not excluding biodegradability, it would seem that the development of cheese packaging could lean more towards active and smart (sensorized) ones in the future, even in industry.

Keywords: Cheese | Food packaging | Survey | Sustainability

Abstract: This paper proposes a semi-automatic methodology to assist the user in creating surveys about FMEA and Risk Analysis, based on a customized use of the tools for semantic analysis and in particular a home-developed syntactic parser called Kompat Cognitive. The core of this work has been the analysis of the specific FMEA-related jargon and its common modalities of description within scientific papers and patents in order to systematize the linguistic analysis of the reference documents within the proposed step-divided procedure. The main goals of the methodology are to assist not skilled in the art users about FMEA during the analysis of generic and specific features, by considering large moles of contributions in restricted amounts of time. The methodology has then been tested on the same pool of 286 documents, divided between 177 and 109 patents, manually analyzed in our previous survey, in order to replicate part of its classifications through the proposed new modality. In this way we evaluated the abilities of the methodology both to automatically suggesting the main features of interest and to classify the documents according to them.

Keywords: FMEA | Parsing | Patents | Risk analysis | Semantic

Abstract: The economic crisis caused by the closure of businesses forced many companies to review their business model and rethink their product catalogue. To achieve this, they need help to identify new forms of transfer of their technologies and knowledge towards new products. In this conference paper, the authors propose a methodology conceived as a tool to support start-ups, long before Covid-19 came along, and which is currently undergoing an important acceleration process to quickly respond to the demand of small and medium-sized companies. The objective of the proposed methodology is to analyze a given technology and to understand possible alternative fields of application to the starting one. For each new potential area there is a complex evaluation that tries to position the product according to technical and economic parameters. At the basis of the methodology there are the most modern tools of Information Retrieval: SAO (Subject Action Object) triads and algorithmic approaches based on patterns recognition. The combination of these two approaches, no antithetical to each other, forms the basis of the methodological proposal of this paper. They are used to automatically analyze large patent pools and extract features of technological nature such as functions, product requirements and fields of application. Once the list of potential fields has been extracted, it is possible to assess the potential impact and investment risk by introducing other key tools developed by the TRIZ community, such as market potential. In order to make the methodological process more fluid, specific indicators have been created, such as the Transfer Potential, which indicates the replacement potential of a new technology compared to an old one. The proposed approach is tested through an explanatory industrial case study.

Keywords: Functional search | Market potential | Natural language process | Patents | Semantic dependency patters | Technology transfer outward | TRIZ

Abstract: This work presents an application of the TRIZ methodology to an industrial project dealing with laser pyrolysis of tires, bitumen, and other wasting materials. Usually in the literature you can find works that describe how to apply TRIZ to single cases of problem solving, to conceive new products or to strategic planning activities. In this paper instead we present a methodological approach that combines the use of different TRIZ tools to support an entire industrial project. Triz tools will be briefly introduced to show how they can be used to decide between different industrial pyrolysis technologies, identifying strengths and weaknesses of existing laser applications, suggesting patents around the existing idea, designing the innovative idea of a laser chamber to test the effectiveness of the process. More in details, the evolution trees and the macro-micro law of technical evolution were revisited and suggested for analyzing and organizing results of a big search about the state of art. Contradictions and Ideal Final Result were used to analyze existent products and design the new ones. TRIZ methodology is also useful for building a storyboard able to convince other stakeholders of the credibility of the results and to create a team of companies and academics willing to invest in such a pioneering idea.

Keywords: Evolutive trees | Laser pyrolysis | TRIZ

Abstract: The literature is full of attempts to integrate eco-improvement and problem solving methods. Practically, no generalist problem solving method is born with a specific green purpose; also, for this reason, every time we apply a method to improve a product, the solution found could not be more sustainable than the previous one. Among the most effective methods for problem solving, there is TRIZ, which, differently from others, has in its fundamentals, several concepts in line with environmental sustainability: It pushes to find solutions that optimize the use of existing resources without adding new ones and suggests to simplify the systems towards their “essential” structure (TRIZnicks would say “ideal”). This article is a further testimony of TRIZ’s potential also in the world of eco-design. It proposes a simplified TRIZ approach, to produce sustainable solutions, based on a few key points of the TRIZ methodology that are easy to implement even for a non-expert in the field. These fundamentals are integrated with a documental research module designed for the transfer of knowledge between different technological areas. The goal of the tech transfer module is to find in the early stages of the problem those who have already solved similar problems in different sectors and from here start building their own solution model. In our case, it has been applied to reduce the energy consumption in the use phase of an industrial dishwashing machine developed by Elframo company. The solution, which is currently under patent pending, has saved more than 90% of the energy.

Keywords: Eco-design | Energy reduction | Technology transfer | TRIZ

Abstract: The domestic consumptions are commonly claimed to be more than 60% of global GHG emissions and between 50 and 80% of total land, material and water use. In the last few years, a lot of methods and tools to estimate those impacts have been proposed in the literature and diffused on public administration portals (e.g. European Commissioner for the Environment) and on private Websites. However, an overall analysis of all the factors that contribute to the consumption of an entire home and the development of a support tool is still lacking. This paper discusses the main parameters to be considered for the analysis and the methods for calculating the environmental impacts, and it proposed a supported tool, in the form of an interactive configurator. It allows the user to enter the main data about her/his own home, the constituting components (e.g. appliances) and her/his habits and behaviours (i.e. ways of use), and then, after the processing, it provides the results, in terms of environmental impacts (kg of equivalent CO2) of the entire home and the constituting components, by also showing possible more sustainable alternatives.

Keywords: Configurator | Domestic impact | Interactive

Abstract: How to discover new business opportunities and how to decide which ones are worth pursuing has become today an increasingly common and crucial question for the survival of many start-ups and companies that now have an established technology in a saturated market. The academic world has long sought ways to support these activities in a systematic way, even though there is no reference methodology yet. In reality, there is even a lack of convergence in how to appeal to this activity, which appears under different names such as outward technology transfer, discovery of white space/technology/business opportunities. The only thing that the vast majority of searches have in common is that they all use patent databases as a source of inspiration to search for new fields of application. In line with it, this paper suggests a novel patent based approach for automatize the extraction of a list of alternative technological opportunities/products. It is based on a function-based approach embedded with syntactic parsers and other natural language processing applications (NLP). They were also used to assess the different opportunities and suggest which have the greatest potential for success in the market. More specifically, specific semantic patterns have been developed to control a dependent semantic parser. Thanks to this tool we can automatically analyses the content of a huge corpus of documents training the system to recognize many technological features. This paper shows mechanisms for extracting all functions provided by a given technology, the list of products that potentially can exploit such technology and a list of requirements with which to compare products that differ in the technology used. As a result, a quantitative transfer potential index for measuring how many possibilities a given technology has of replacing an existing one is presented. Unlike many similar approaches applied to stimuli design, the method arrives at precisely suggesting the final product into which to transfer the technology and not merely suggesting a functionally related area or compatible patent class. In addition, the assessment of the replacement index is not based on distance criteria compared to the focal technology with a general purpose method, but on the contrary the judgement criteria change according to the application context. The automatic search for evaluation criteria from the specific patent content is an integral part of the method and helps to limit subjectivity in evaluations by experts in the field. However, the goodness of the results obtained is proportional to the level of knowledge of the user who interfaces to the system. Moreover, it can be universally applied to any technological context. An investigation of new application fields of heating fabrics made of carbon fiber technology is presented as exemplary case.

Keywords: Functional search | Natural language process | Patents | Technology opportunities discovery | Technology transfer outward

Abstract: This paper provides an overview of the environmental impacts of diofferent types of passenger transportation means (i.e., bicycles, motorcycles, cars, buses, trains, and airplanes). The method has been applied to the European scenario. The study was performed by using life cycle assessment in accordance with international standard ISO 14040/44 for assessing the CO2 eq., SO2, and PM10 of the transportation means by exploiting data (i.e., vehicles features and environmental impacts) from 24 scientific papers from the literature that have been manually analyzed. The functional unit is defined as the impact per 1 passenger over 1 km. The study identified that planes are the most impacting for CO2 eq. with up to 380 g/pkm, while cars are the most impacting for SO2 with up to 1.78 g/pkm and PM10 with 0.98 g/pkm. Electric and hybrid models proved to be significantly better than others, while buses are the most sustainable in general. Referring to the overall European scenario, cars constitute up to 95% of the overall impacts. By comparing some improvements for reducing the impacts, it emerged that the limitation of diesel cars along with the increase of buses and trains are the most eoffective. The provided outcomes may be useful for legislators, manufacturers, and users for favoring the choice of the transportation means in a more environmentally conscious way.

Keywords: Electric transportation | Environmental impact | Life cycle assessment (LCA) | Transportation impact

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to provide an overview about the distribution of the environmental impacts arising from different domestic functions (i.e. storing and preparing food, washing dishes, watching television, reading, personal cleaning, washing, drying and ironing clothes, home cleaning, heating, cooling, lighting and mobility) typically performed within a common family home. The method has general validity but for reasons related to the availability of data in the literature it has been applied by way of example only in three EU countries: Italy, Germany and France. The study was performed by using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) in accordance with international standard ISO 14067 for determining the carbon footprint of different alternative domestic components, mainly appliances, for each function, by exclusively exploiting data from scientific literature. The functional unit is defined comprising all most common referred domestic activities of a family of three members within a house of 100 m2. The study identified an optimal configuration and a worse one of the domestic components in terms of carbon footprint, showing how a wise choice of these can greatly affect the overall impact by reducing it compared to the worst by more than 22% in Italy, 45% in Germany and 56% in France. The average impacts between the optimal and the worst configurations of Germany are higher than Italy (+27%) and France (+44%). Considering the impacts among the domestic functions in the average configuration, mobility was the most impactful in all the three countries (35–48%), followed by heating (17–26%), personal cleaning (10–13%) and washing dishes (8–13%), while cooling is consistent only in Italy (13%), against 5% in Germany and 2% in France. The study also allowed to identify some generic criteria for defining the optimal configuration: the increasing in energy efficiency, the choice of the least impacting energy source depending on the geographical location, ensuring water savings and the early replacement of older domestic components. Finally, by comparing some common measures for improving the domestic sustainability, these criteria proved to be more effective than solar systems and improved electricity mix. The provided outcomes may be used by manufacturers for improving their product in a more sustainable way as well as by legislator and end user, respectively for boosting and choosing the greener domestic components.

Keywords: Appliances carbon footprint | Environmental impact | Household carbon footprint | Life cycle assessment (LCA)

Abstract: This paper proposes a set of Eco-guidelines for supporting designers in developing new greener products and processes. The first requirement that a guideline should have is to be sufficiently general to cover every kind of problem and at the same time sufficiently specific to bring the user closer to the solution without requiring too much personal inspiration. This balance was searched by adopting one of the most known systematic innovation techniques: TRIZ (Russian acronym of Theory of Inventive Problem Solving). In the literature, there are many examples of integrations between Eco-guidelines and problem-solving methods, but the solutions that are suggested, however effective, are not necessarily eco-friendly. To overcome this problem, the authors propose a rigorous ontology indicating how to apply a specific problem-solving strategy onto a specific part of the problem, trying to make the user aware of the environmental consequences of his design changes. The result of this work is a set of 59 guidelines. The article explains the birth of each guideline, the way in which they were adapted with respect to the known technique, and the motivation for which they should generate greener solutions, in light of the results of an experiment involving engineering students in real industrial cases.

Keywords: Eco-guidelines | Ecodesign | Problem-solving | TRIZ

Abstract: This paper proposes a system of knowledge organization based on TRIZ-derived evolutive trends. The organization is operated by adopting the Macro to Micro TRIZ law as a trigger for defining search targets and as a backbone to build the knowledge evolutive tree. This approach was applied to classify thousands of documents from worldwide Patent database and papers from international journals according to a high-level classification. The goal of this work is to helps to find high-level ranking strategies, allowing a hierarchy of information and better organization to build a knowledge base perfectly matching with the terms of research during problem-solving in the most suitable manner in relation with the specific purposes. This method was applied to practical case study dealing with food packaging during an activity that has been carried out in collaboration with the consultancy firm Warrant Innovation Lab, as part of the program that offers small and medium-sized Italian companies on the topic for supporting TRIZ-based innovation activities. The contribution of this work is to provide novel and intuitive approach to SMEs where the organization of knowledge is of immediate reading and execution for experts in the field.

Keywords: Evolutive tree | Food packaging | TRIZ

Abstract: The design of compliant mechanisms is completely different from the design of all other mechanisms. It is assumed that traditional mechanisms are rigid or that they use rigid parts connected by mobile joints. As the name suggests, the compliant mechanisms are not rigid, but flexible; they exploit deformation to their advantage, thus also eliminating problems due to friction and play. An analysis of the state of the art of the scientific literature on compliant mechanisms revealed a chaotic proliferation of typologies, which differ in type, shape, material, size, application, etc. And the lack of a unique and complete classification. This problem has been addressed by proposing a series of classifications, designed according to the different inputs that can be had in the early stages of the design. These include a functional classification based on FBS ontology, used to define the state of the art and identify areas of investigation that are still unexplored. Finally the classification by degrees of freedom, rotations and translations allowed, which led to a system of organization of compliants families in the form of a matrix. The matrix represents a first step towards the future possibility of integrating this creation into a tool for modeling and optimizing the design by compliants. In this article an example of how to organize the emerging Lamina torsion mechanisms (LET) and the rotational joints in the matrix is proposed.

Keywords: Compliant mechanism | FBS | LET | Rotational joint

Abstract: The aim of the present work is disclosing a model suitable to provide a new tool for the synthesis of mechanisms and structures. Firstly, a framework will be introduced for the representation of a particular class of mechanisms: compliant mechanisms. For this purpose, the constitutive elements and the relations between the elements are organized in a taxonomy, similar to the ones used for the definition of ontologies. Ontologies have been taken as inspiration for the construction of the general schema for two main reasons: the first one is the need of consistency in the physical models, in order to obtain reliable results. The second reason is that one of the main features of ontologies is modularity, which means that they may be reused, and implemented for the creation of widest classifications. In the proposed framework, mechanisms result from the combination of the constitutive elements, according to a certain topology. The topologies are generated taking in account the defined feasible relations between elements. Once the mechanisms are defined, their behavior, in terms of mechanical response, is calculated and implemented in the schema as well. Finally, a classification of the evaluated mechanisms is provided, correlating the mechanical behavior of the mechanisms to the topological arrangement of their elements, or, in other words, their geometry. This classification may be synthetized in a table which may be query setting the mechanical response (set of deformation allowed or denied as response of a set of generalized forces). The result of the query is the indication of the topology of the mechanism that fits the mechanical response best. The proposed table is a design tool actually, suggesting the constructive form to the designer starting from a functional requirement. Moreover, considering the table of topologies and the physical model with which it was generated, they constitute a synthesis tool for that class of mechanisms, and, ultimately, a topology, and size optimization tool.

Keywords: Control | Modeling | Modeling and simulation | Optimization | Robotics

Abstract: The methods and technologies of waste disposal are characterized by a slow evolution. A system that can bring great benefits, in economic and environmental terms is pyrolysis. A technology that instead of burning waste, gets products for industrial use. The technology offers many advantages, among which they allow drastically reduce the ashes deriving from the reaction compared to those deriving from normal combustion, it also produces reaction gases and oils that have a high calorific value and are suitable for conversion into other energy such as electricity, district heating or cold, compressed air. In order to make this technology usable today we need an important scale up in response to the many pilot projects around the world. In this article we can show some examples of how an Italian-French industrial group, active in pyrolysis has implemented TRIZ to develop a large-scale technology for urban waste recycling. In particular, the ongoing project in Agadir area in Morocco will be presented. The project will be shown in the article and how the sponsoring company is using TRIZ to develop its technology worldwide.

Keywords: Evolutive tree | Problem solving | Pyrolysis | Triz

Abstract: Within TRIZ literature, only a small part is focused on the management of the requirements. In the majority of cases, they are treated at a mere technological level rather than marketing, by taking into account the requirements that have the greatest market potential. According to the market potential technique, in the early stage phases of design, the product to be innovated is divided into a list of different properties that will be assessed individually in terms of importance and satisfaction. In order to support the evaluation made by product experts (R&D Team and Marketing Team), a search for knowledge must be carried out. This involves, for example, the research in each requirement for information contained in brochures, commercial catalogs, patents literature and scientific articles with the aim of extracting trends, statistics, emerging technologies and unresolved problems. This procedure requires time and a large economic investment, especially if integrated with market research, often costly and time consuming. To overcome these limitations, the novelty proposed in this article consists in a method to automate the estimation of the importance of each requirement, or at least those for which information is available in the various document sources. An exemplary case dealing with an aerogel panel for civil application is proposed, stressing the geographical area in such a way as to define the investment and how it integrates into the potential market.

Keywords: Market potential | Patent | Problem solving | Triz

Abstract: During 2017, University of Bergamo and Warrant Innovation Lab have been starting a partnership to diffuse TRIZ in Italian SMEs. They aim to make SMEs perceive TRIZ as a time-saving methodology, the main needing expressed about innovation. The offering is a one-day problem-solving activity that aims at generating conceptual solutions, potentially patentable. First cases highlighted the reformulation was the trickiest phase: the extraction of the high-level technological alternatives cannot be supported by classical TRIZ tools (object-product transformation, ENV model, IFR, resources, evolutive laws, multiscreen, MTS) for both limited time and lacks in TRIZ skills of the customer. The staff overcomes such a double issue pre-processing the initial problem’s information to extract insights from knowledge DBs. The results will be shown as visual-psychological triggers to stimulate the creativity of non-TRIZ-skilled users. The paper will disclose how visual triggers can work and how a triz expert facilitator can create them.

Keywords: ENV model | Innovation Lab | Serendipity | Visual triggers

Abstract: This paper presents an interactive tool called I-Tree for supporting eco-assessment according to LCA approach. It works with two levels of detail. Through the introduction of a software framework working as a product configurator, LCA data are gathered in an aggregated form. The final impacts are updated in real time during Data Entry and final results about impacts visualized by infographics in order to have the clear picture in the most concise way. Indeed, infographics allow the user to understand where are the main criticalities of the products in terms of environmental impacts, according to the different life cycle phases and then deepen in a second round of information gathering only the components that affect more on the final result. Test on industrial case studies demonstrated important savings in terms of time and resources.

Keywords: Eco-assessment | EPD | Green Passport | Infographics | Product configurator

Abstract: This paper presents a web-based portal for eco-improvement, called I-Tree Guidelines Portal, containing a set of guidelines and an integration with an eco-assessment tool, called I-Tree Configurator, used for assessing the environmental criticalities of a product, to suggest how to improve it and to evaluate the achieved environmental benefits. The I-Tree Configurator automatically processes the manually entered data about the analyzed product and shows the most environmentally impactful entities, i.e., components, transports, consumptions, etc. These are used to automatically filter the guidelines contained within the I-Tree Guidelines Portal in order to propose to the user only the most suitable ones to solve the main problems. The guidelines are structured into different parts, according to well-known conceptual design frameworks, such as Function-Behaviour-Structure (FBS) methods and similar, and they aim to solve problems in inventive ways, by including the principles of TRIZ, widely reviewed and contextualized to environmental problems. The idea generated for each guideline is immediately evaluated by assessing their environmental impact saving on the considered items, through the same I-Tree Configurator, and ranked to provide a base for decision-making.

Keywords: Eco-assessment | Eco-design | Eco-improvement | Problem-solving | TRIZ

Abstract: In this work, a framework for an inedited method for mechanical structures optimization is proposed. It is performed by re-arranging the Topology Optimization mesh obtained by BESO according to mechanical parameters. The principal stresses and the slope of the principal reference system are calculated, mesh elements are rotated, and a process of joining and size-modifying elements is performed. In a further step, a fine gradient based shape optimization may be applied. The main advantage of the method is that the final layout is created by modifying the orientation of the resulting elements, and an enhanced distribution of material is achieved. The goal is to overcome the sensitivity problems of other methodologies, and to reduce undesired checkerboard pattern. Finally, the preliminary results of a first implementation of the methodology are presented.

Keywords: FEM | Stress tensor analysis | Topology optimization

Abstract: The paper proposes an extension of the Function-Behaviour-Structure (FBS) framework to multi-level design representation. The ontology based on function, behaviour and structure has been enriched with a new design entity, the topology, with the aim of connecting more levels of representation. According to this new paradigm, design activity is not focused exclusively on working principle, shape and material at macro level, but goes beyond, to greater levels of detail, designing for example how to dispose material in the inner structure of the product parts at microscopic level. Structural optimizers are excellent tools to design the topology of a structure according to its function and behaviour, but they have been conceived for working only at mono-level. This paper proposes a multi-step optimization process for improving the versatility of structural optimization tools allowing them working also in both macro and microscopic dimensional scales.

Keywords: FBS | multilevel | Structural optimization | topology

Abstract: This paper presents a novel design methodology, which combines topology and shape optimization to define material distribution in the structural design of a truss. Firstly, in order to identify the best layout, the topology optimization process in the design domain is carried out by applying the BESO (Bidirectional Evolutionary Structural Optimization) method. In this approach, the low energy elements are eliminated from an initial mesh, and a new geometry is constructed. This new geometry consists of a set of elements with a higher elastic energy. This results in a new division of material providing different zones, some subjected to higher stress and others containing less elastic energy. Moreover, the elements of the final mesh are re-arranged and modified, considering the distribution of tension. This new arrangement is constructed by aligning and rotating the original mesh elements coherently to the principal directions. In the Shape Optimization stage, the resulting TO (Topology Optimization) geometry is refined. A process of replacing the tabular mesh is performed by rearranging the remaining elements. The vertices of the mesh are set as control polygon vertices and used as reference to define the NURBS (Non-Uniform Rational B-Spline) curves. This provides a parametric representation of the boundaries, outlining the high elastic energy zones. The final stage is the optimization of the continuous and analytically defined NURBS curve outlining the solid material domain. The Shape Optimization is carried out applying a gradient-based optimization method.

Abstract: The increasing availability of data, promised by the 4th industrial revolution wave, is challenging companies and organizations in diverse industry sectors to extract useful and actionable information. To this end, a vast array of data management strategies and new analytical methods is becoming available to the large audience of researchers and practitioners. Although traditional statistical approaches are still applicable for different purposes, artificial intelligence techniques, particularly machine learning algorithms, are increasingly being explored and adopted to approach data analysis. Artificial intelligence becomes a necessary ingredient for technology progress. The machine learning domain, in particular, has been extensively investigated by academics, who mainly focused on algorithms and suitable applications, and it is also permeating business reality at an unprecedented rate. Against this background, instead of eliciting knowledge from academics, the proposed research adopts a patent review and analysis approach, with the specific purpose of understanding the ongoing industrial effort on the subject, and new as well as expected trends on machine learning technologies and applications. The paper analyses technological development in various industries by defining patents trend over the years and investigating the different areas of applications according to the Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC), a patent classification system jointly developed by the European and US patent authorities. Patent applicants are also investigated in order to highlight active and competitive players in the domain, as well as collaboration between different companies. Furthermore, the paper includes a patent citation network analysis, which is useful to show critical technologies developed, and to understand applicants’ behaviours, such as influences or infringement trials. Overall, the paper provides an original and “literature-complementary” outlook on the machine learning landscape, giving an understanding on industrial R&D effort in this context, delineating trends related to technology diffusion and innovation from an industrial perspective.

Keywords: Cooperative patent classification (CPC) | Data analytics | Industry 4.0 | Machine learning | Patents review | Technology landscaping

Abstract: In the context of innovation consulting activity, it may happen working in technical fields characterized by a high competitiveness level. Although TRIZ allows reaching innovative ideas in any kind of industry, it does not suggest any tool in order to evaluate the success rate of the invention in the reference market. During the last years, TRIZ got methodological contributes to sharpen the matching between the inventive idea and the actual needs of the market, for example the market potential tool. In order to support TRIZ experts in selecting the best innovation strategy, this paper introduces a new tool for the TRIZ toolbox that takes into account the competitiveness level of the market. Several economics works disclose the correlation between the patent-citation triadic relationships and the presence of dominant positions of few competitors. A patent analysis, focused on triads in patent citation, can inform the TRIZ expert about potential critical situation able to prevent the success of an inventive solution. It can generate an important indicator that helps him in selecting the most promising innovation strategy. The method could be integrated in a classic TRIZ activity, using commercial patent searching tools. The case study shows how to extract this kind of indicator from patent citation environment in Machine Learning field.

Keywords: Business Intelligence | Market structure | Patent | Patent thicket | TRIZ

Abstract: In the last years the efforts spent for the enhancement of parsing engines led to several software more performant, in terms of both effectiveness in identification of syntax modules and speed of elaboration of the text, than the previous generation ones. Exploiting the benefits coming from such a new generation of software, nowadays the patent search can overcome the limits due to the classic FOS approach and performs it in a quasi-real-time way. This paper focuses on technical-problems identification methods based on syntactic dependency patterns, for ameliorating supervised state of the art and patent intelligence. Through parsing the patent text, very precise lists of technical problems are automatically extracted without the user being an expert in the problems of the sector. An exemplary case dealing with bio-inspired design is proposed, stressing what types of engineering problems are nowadays benefitting the most from the approach.

Keywords: Biomimetics | Biomimicry software | Syntactic parser | Triz

Abstract: This paper presents a method for extracting technical information from a patent pool. It was designed to support the construction of the state of the art of a technology or a product/process by automatically identifying the list of problems that the inventors have faced. The method is based on a strict ontology, which defines what a patent problem is, and a set of IR strategies, which identify all alternative ways adopted in the pool to describe problems. More in detail, the authors propose a set of syntactic dependency patterns, and lemmas in order to extract only the sentences including the information dealing with problems. The output is a coarse list of technical problems, automatically extracted without the user being an expert in the problems of the sector. An exemplary case dealing with injection molding field is proposed.

Keywords: information retrieval | problem identification | state of the art | syntactic dependency pattern

Abstract: This paper presents a critical review of Failure Modes and Effect Analysis (FMEA). Although the method is almost 70 years old, in literature there are still many researchers, both from academy and industry, devoted to improve it and overcoming unsolved and still open problems. The aim of this work consists in analysing a representative pool of scientific papers (220) and patents (109), in order to have an overview of the evolution of the method and try to understand if the efforts spent to improve it effectively answer to the several criticisms found in literature. All documents have been classified according to authors, source, and four technical classes dealing with the applicability of the method, representation of the cause and effect chain, risk analysis and integration with the problem-solving phase. A detailed analysis of the results allowed us to identify the most current problems, the improvement paths, and which other methods and tool are proposed to be integrated with FMEA.

Keywords: FMEA | FMECA | Patents | Risk analysis

Abstract: This paper is addressed towards minimizing the risk inherent in making patent search opinions and to increase reliability especially in clearance product analysis. Indeed, in recent years, it has become more and more complex to provide professional patent analysis due to the growth of the total number of patent documents, of which two/thirds are patent applications. Always more often, the pool of documents resulting from a patent search contains documents that have not ended their procedure, contain amended parts and/or are still waiting for future events that might radically change the fortune of the patent, misleading any earlier opinion about it. Thus, patent specialist cannot simply search for all relevant patents and interpret the first version offered by patent repositories. In order to avoid grossest errors, it is crucial to identify the most representative document from a patent family, gather information from all other patents of the same family, work always on the last updated files, fix the patent in the timeline procedure in order to measure future changes that can still happen. This paper analyses some of most frequent problems and errors faced in patent searches and offers a vade-mecum about most critical aspects to be taken into account, useful links and good practices, resulting from procedural and/or legal reasons.

Keywords: Amendments | Legal status | Patent application | Patent family | Patent search | Risk minimization

Abstract: ITree, a step by step procedure for supporting eco-assessment and eco-design is presented. The assessment phase is carried out combining life cycle assessment, for calculating the environmental impacts, with an innovative technique, called “IFR index”, for selecting the main LCA criticalities. IFR index is inspired by Ideal Final Result tool from TRIZ, the Theory of inventive problem solving. Also part of the design phase is based on the use of TRIZ: a set of Eco-guidelines, have been conceived introducing TRIZ fundamentals onto green design. An industrial case study dealing with the production of a chemical product for the agricultural market illustrates how the method has been applied.

Keywords: Eco-assessment | Eco-design | Eco-improvement | Guidelines | TRIZ

Abstract: Over the last 30 years the number of methods for Eco-design increased dramatically. LCA in Eco-assessment has established itself as a reference methodology and with it some tools that reached an international resonance. On the contrary, in the Eco-improvement world, the growth of methods has not been accompanied by a method or a tool better than other ones. One of the main reasons is the different type of users; there are people skilled in problem solving and those who have no experience. In addition, in order to be universal, the methods based on guidelines often do not go into too much detail, thus limiting their effectiveness. The balance between completeness and simplicity is the key issue around which the authors have attempted in recent years. In such a context, this paper aims at solving this contradiction and proposes an ontological framework to build guidelines for eco-improvements. Their content has been structured into five parts, according to well-known conceptual design frameworks, such as Function-Behaviour-Structure (FBS) methods and similar. The result is a set of over than two hundreds suggestions that can be comfortably used through a web portal following a recommended step-by-step methodological path.

Keywords: Eco-design | FBS | Guidelines | Ontology | Web portal

Abstract: With the growing environmental conscience, the focus of sustainability has shifted from environmental assessment to improvement. An increasing number of improvement tools are being developed, but they all lack integration with the assessment phase, or provide very simplified and unreliable assessment tools. We propose an integrated approach to environmental assessment and improvement, with a focus on green product development and problem solving. The main novelty of this work lies in the adoption of TRIZ (Theory of Inventive Problem Solving) fundamentals, which allow us to transform traditional LCA criticalities, i.e. the most impacting flows of a product, into eco improvement criticalities, i.e. the potential of improvement of each flow. For this, we developed a graphical ontology that guides the designer in mapping the product life cycle, identifying and highlighting criticalities, and tracking the improvement effort. A new approach is proposed, focused toward problem solving rather than environmental certification. Indeed, available systems fail to highlight the contradictions that normally occur during problem solving, in which any improvement is met with a trade-off that is never fully understood until a new assessment is performed. In the proposed methodology, the mapping scheme is designed to help problem solving, by graphically highlighting the critical product components that need to be improved, suggesting customized guidelines that target specific flows and life cycle phases, and foreseeing possible trade-offs that may arise.

Keywords: decision making | eco-improvement | green design | infographics | LCA | TRIZ

Abstract: Manufacturing companies are increasingly becoming aware that the sale of a product does not end when the good is delivered to the customer. On the contrary, the product must be followed by the company throughout its life cycle; from its conception to its disposal. An increasingly common practice is to support the entire chain of sales and after sales, from dealers to end customers, with a range of services that give the product added value. For example in the field of crane manufacturers for trucks, Fassi Gru S.p.a. provides, in addition to its product training for the use and maintenance of cranes, tools for the simulation of the lifting capacity of the crane (Fassi Installation Program), monitoring of usage statistics and the state of wear of the crane (Fassi SmartApp, Internet of CraneTM), control of residual life, and the status and timing of maintenance (Maintenance Assistant). The work presented here is a new after sale service designed to identify quickly and easily the element that caused the failure of the crane through a series of guided questions about the behavior of the crane subject to malfunctions. This tool is called FIT (Fault Investigator Tool) and allows the network service Fassi rapid and accurate diagnosis of the cause of failure in case of malfunctions of the crane; reducing the time to diagnosis and avoiding unnecessary and costly replacement components by trial and error. The novelty of this work lies in the method used to achieve it; FIT was in fact created by the special knowledge gained from R&D engineers of Fassi about new methods of systematic innovation developed by the University of Bergamo. In this article some of these techniques are shown: in particular those dealing with the correct formulation of the problem, the functional analysis and the Anticipatory Failure Determination; a particular instrument that combines FMEA (Failure modes and effects analysis) and TRIZ (Theory of inventive problem solving). The article will also present the needs that led to the development of the tool and show the operation of the instrument through a case study; showing all the advantages provided by its application.

Keywords: AFD | Functional analysis | Maintenance | Service | TRIZ

Abstract: During the years, the Standard Solutions (SS) have been reformulated multiple times, through redefinition, simplification and exemplification. The original 76 Standard Solutions are grouped in classes. The fourth class contains the standards for measuring and seems to be the less investigated. In this paper, the standards related to problems of measure are reformulated and classified into three main groups: (1) direct measuring of the desired parameter, (2) changing the problem in order to not measure it and (3) obtaining an indirect measure of the desired parameters. To be more systematic, a rigorous ontology drives the user to define what has to be measured (field or substance), where (internal or external to the system) and how (exploiting an already existing resource or if a new substance/field has to be introduced or if already present). Authors applied the new approach in several industrial application. A case study, involving a multinational company in the field of high-Tension vacuum circuit breaker, is proposed and discussed to highlight strengths and limitations of this new set of standards vis a vis the classical Standard Solutions. TRIZ experienced PhD students from the University of Bergamo repeated this test so as to have another point of view for this comparison.

Keywords: Information Retrieval | Measure | Standard Solution | Triz

Abstract: TRIZ is one of the most powerful and accepted methods to make systematic innovation. Despite TRIZ official development ended in 1985, researchers have continued its development by proposing new approaches (e.g. OTSM, TRIZ+, SPARK) or by extending existing ones. After all these efforts, the spread of TRIZ has never reached the level of capillarity expected. For this reason, in the last years, TRIZ community has interrogated more than once about the motivations for this slow growth. In order to accelerate the spread of TRIZ, many attempts were made to simplify the method, sometimes by integrating it with other methods (such as FMEA, QFD, Lean) that were already present in production plants and increasing TRIZ notoriety by publishing successful case studies. This work is an updated picture of the current situation of TRIZ case studies publications. More than 200 case studies from TRIZ journal and ETRIA TRIZ Future Conference have been collected, analysed and processed to understand Why companies needs TRIZ, which tools are the most used, how TRIZ has been integrated with other methods, and how industries and academies communicate their success. Differently to other surveys, this study also focuses on the ways in which solutions are presented, so as to identify best practices or new ideas and trends from a communication perspective. This paper contains the results of this analysis and the related comments.

Keywords: Inventive Principles | Standard solutions | Survey | TRIZ

Abstract: In the last years, several methodologies have been developed to organize and rank product requirements in order to plan a reliable innovation strategy. The main difficulties of these methodologies are the transformation of customers' needs in technical requirements, the subjectivity of the evaluation and the strong relation between requirements and the adopted technological solutions. The most structured methodologies use QFD (quality function development); sometimes in combination with other design theories. An easier and faster way is based on the evaluation of each product requirement by importance and satisfaction values. In this article, a methodology called "KOMpetitive Intelligence" is proposed to make the evaluation of importance and satisfaction a more robust and consistent process. First, knowledge of experts is integrated with knowledge extracted from patents, market analysis, scientific literature and commercial literature. Second, the generation of new alternative solutions, coming from problem solving activities, are integrated in the evaluation process. Third, decision making and the definition of an innovation strategy are supported with a concise diagram that summarizes the gathered knowledge and facilitates the assessment of each requirement. After several academic case studies, this methodology has been applied in a big multinational firm for two different products and is now on-going for the development of a third product.

Keywords: decision making | innovation potential | knowledge search | QFD | Requirements

Abstract: Several Ecodesign methods can be found in literature, though none has ever really established itself industrially. On the other hand there is a plethora of methods for problem solving which do not necessarily produce greener solutions. Among these, the most promising is the TRIZ methodology for inventive problem solving. TRIZ is not meant for Ecodesign, but recently more and more eco-applications can be found in the literature. This paper aims at providing a new interpretive key of the TRIZ methodology from an environmental point of view, to distinguish which tools and principles are readily applicable to Ecodesign from those that need to be customized. A detailed analysis of the best-known tools of the methodology applied to Ecodesign is presented, as well as how they have been integrated into a single operational tool called i-Tree.

Keywords: Ecodesign | Environmental assessment | Environmental improvement | LCA | TRIZ

Abstract: ABSTRACT: In recent years, structural optimization has changed the way we think of product development. Optimizers allow to explore every possible product shape with the aim of maximizing performance, minimizing cost and accounting for environmental factors from the early phases of the design process. Material selection plays a big role, as one of the first and most binding choices of the product development. Current material selection schemes are too generic and bound to a less shape-driven design, which doesn't take full advantage of the optimization potential. They were developed for constant or self-similar shape products and allow for a substantial degree of subjectivity, when defining weight values for non-constant shape models. This paper proposes a computer-aided material selection scheme for structurally optimized products. It aims at integrating a multi-criteria decision making approach with the product awareness of a structural optimization, in order to systematically define the ranking weight values. The procedure comprises four main steps: a) initial material screening, to obtain a list of product and process compatible materials, b) statistical analysis of the design space through a factorial DoE (Design of Experiment), to rank the effect of each material property on the environmental impact, c) Multi Criteria Decision Making, to rank materials according to each material property importance, d) structural optimization, to identify the best possible shape for the chosen material. The methodology has been tested on a simple case study concerning the design of an environmentally friendly I-beam. The results confirm the feasibility of the proposed approach in improving material selection when a relevant number of decision criteria is involved.

Keywords: eco-design | material selection | multi criteria decision making | structural optimization

Abstract: The number and breadth of eco-improvement methods has been steadily rising over the past decades to include design for X methods and more problem-solving oriented software, based on the Russian TRIZ methodology, and the integration of CAE software and optimization techniques. With such heterogeneous approaches, there is a need of a quantitative classification scheme to help the designer in choosing the best method for each environmental scenario. In the present paper, we propose a comparison and classification, based on the number of eco-guidelines and their distribution on standard impact categories, of 17 of the most known Eco-improvement methods. Furthermore, we propose an interactive selection software that gives the user the ability to exclude or give priority to some life cycle phases and impact categories; empowering him to select the most fitting eco-improvement method or to create a list of the relevant eco-guidelines across all the analysed methods.

Keywords: Classification | Ecodesign | LCA

Abstract: The number and breadth of eco-improvement methods has been steadily rising over the past decades. However a lot of eco-friendly product are struggling to find their collocation on the market. This deficit is generally due to the high costs of the proposed solutions. TRIZ methodology offers a structured way to simplify a technical system, exploiting all resources within it and overcoming internal contradictions that could prevent his evolution. Unfortunately a complete TRIZ activity could be time-consuming and requires people skilled in the art. In the present paper, we propose a simplified scheme, conceived to facilitate the use of the resources, totally based on TRIZ. Not to substitute, but to get along and systematize eco-design. A case study is proposed to save water from the tap opening until hot water starts to flow, which is usually wasted. Starting from an Italian application (www.bluewatersaving.it) obtained through patent research, the method can make this solution cheaper and more robust. Considering that for a big house (120 m2, 4 people) the water saving is up to 120k litres per year, the benefit consequential to its adoption on the planet would be considerable.

Keywords: Design methods | Ecodesign | Sustainability | TRIZ

Abstract: FBS is one of the most followed and studied design theories, as evidenced by the numerous investigations and rework on the subject. It is often used to provide a better understanding on existing design methods and tools in order to make them more accurate or efficient. Nevertheless the resulting methods are often loose or too heterogeneous to be easily applied; what is lacking is a scheme of collection that supports design process from the beginning to the end, while considering all possible facets. This paper contains an attempt at reconciling many previous works on FBS, through a homogeneous and unique representation: All the elements (function, behaviour, structure, affordances, signals) have been reformulated according to the designer's and user's perspective, in terms of perception and interpretation; in this way they could be bound together in a common ontological reformulation of a more extensive scheme. In this article, we propose a bond between the various elements, using a logical-mathematical form.

Keywords: Conceptual design | Design theory | User needs

Abstract: An Eco-Design methodology based on two abridged Life Cycle Assessment tools (eVerdEE [1] developed by ENEA [2] and the French Standard NF 01-005) plus TRIZ [3] Eco-guidelines is presented. This method is one of the outputs of the European project REMake [4] (started September 2009 ended December 2012), which had the goal of developing and testing new approaches for eco-innovation, recycling and material consumption for manufacturing small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). The number of SMEs involved in the project has been around 250, in six countries. The proposed method consists of a preliminary scanning of a given product or process in order to disclose all the material involved and the energy flows, and to assess their environmental impact by means of a simplified Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach and the related indexes. The "hot spots" of the product or process are then identified by adding a brand new index called "IFR (Ideal Final Result) index", conceived from the TRIZ "Ideal System" concept [5], to classical LCA criteria. Once the hot points are identified, a set of over 300 TRIZ based eco-design guidelines [6, 7] are selectively introduced to develop design variants to the given system with the aim of providing a lower global environmental impact. An indepth explanation about ECO guideline implementation is given, together with a case study concerning a manufacturer of machine tools.

Keywords: Eco-conception | Guidelines | SMEs | TRIZ

Abstract: Eco-improvement tools aim at identifying the most critical areas of a product life cycle, thanks to eco-assessment techniques like LCA. The designer is then encouraged to intervene by modifying the product or the manufacturing process characteristics. However, even a slight change of the product life cycle can seriously affect other parts of the cycle itself. Usually, this influences are hard to predict. Only an expert of LCA could effectively anticipate the major repercussions of a life cycle alteration. However, with the introduction of abridged aLCA, life cycle analysis has become a tool for the common designer, which usually doesn't have the expertise to identify the great number of interdependences involved. In these cases, the designer's efforts in reducing product environmental impacts can be ineffective or even counterproductive. This paper proposes a method and tool, called contradiction prompter, which integrates TRIZ in Life Cycle Assessment. Once environmental criticalities are defined by LCA, a set of guidelines are suggested to intervene on the product. The contradiction prompter collects a set of predefined typical contradictions that can arise when adopting a specific guideline. This can limit the typical trial and error approach and reduce the risk of ineffective redesigns. The framework has been clarified through an exemplary case study, dealing with the redesign of a moped wheel.

Keywords: Contradicitons | Ecodesign | LCA | TRIZ

Abstract: This paper introduces a patent searching framework to assess the state of the art of a product or a technology and to support technology transfer activities. It combines several dimensions (IPC, Object & Behaviour/Function keywords) together with an integrated abstraction methodology based on WordNet/Multi-screen in order to systemize and facilitate FBOS (Function/Behaviour-Oriented Search). The core of the method is the abstraction of behaviour (based on a semantic approach) resulting in keywords at different abstraction levels, and a patent search based on these keywords and on a preassembled classification of Physical Effects. Key patents and space opportunities are mapped in a suitable graph, based on a revision of the classical Gero's FBS theory. An exemplary application in the lens sterilization domain shows the functioning of the patent-pending software.

Keywords: Abstraction | FBS | Patents | State of the art | Technology transfer | TRIZ

Abstract: The article presents how to innovate a product using information extraction from patents literature to identify and overcome TRIZ contradictions. Each initial inventive situation has to be formulated in terms of contradictions in order to use the most effective tool for problem solving provided by the TRIZ theory. The authors propose, (1) an algorithm guiding the user to move from an indefinite problem situation to obtain a clearer problem formulation, following a process inspired to the ARIZ approach for fixing physical contradictions, and (2) some strategies and tools for selecting, acquiring and finally modeling the necessary information to improve the effectiveness in building the contradiction model. All those strategies have been implemented in a knowledge management tool called KOM, working as an automatic patent searching engine based on a functional oriented search. An exemplary application is presented to explain how KOM is integrated in the problem definition process.

Keywords: Contradictions | FOS | KOM | Patents | TRIZ

Abstract: Altshuller screened patents in order to find out what kind of contradictions were resolved or dissolved by the inventors/inventions and the way this had been achieved. From this he developed a set of 40 inventive principles. Since the first Altshuller's formulation [1], the inventive principles have been largely used and studied by academic institutions and private companies operating in the product innovation field. Research on inventive principles is focused on improving principle definitions by providing a huge list of examples to be used as analogy and customizing definitions for specific domains (i.e. informatics, business, chemical, manufacturing and more others). Meanwhile, many authors worked on classifications and comparisons with other design models or problem solving methods. One of the reasons for this interest can be found in an attempt to reduce the degree of subjectivity in the use of this tool. This problem can be attributed to the high degree of abstraction with which many principles are written, inducing inevitably to a certain freedom of interpretation. In some cases, during the problem approaching, this ambiguity may lead the user not to fully capture the inventive essence. The goal of this work is to analyze all 40 principles from a new design perspective, i.e. The FBS (Functional Behaviour Structure theory) [2], in order to overcome their ambiguity and ameliorate their efficacy. New definitions have been conceived to make the user aware if he/she is acting on the function, the behavior or the structure of the device. This analysis has revealed that in many cases there is already a perfect matching between original Altshuller's definitions and FBS logic. That means a large part of the principles forces the user to act both on the function, the behaviour and the structure of the system. Where the matching with FBS is not complete, this classification/reformulation can help to enlarge the range of its interpretation/suggestions broadening the solution space. The potentiality of this work has been tested on a set of industrial case studies solved by 40 mechanical and management engineering students and by a group of TRIZ experts.

Keywords: FBS | Inventive principles | TRIZ

Abstract: In this paper we propose a creative method to support ARIZ, a step-by-step method for problem solving invented by Altshuller in 1956. Specifically, we propose a new formulation of step zero, which deals with clarifying and verifying the problem statement. Since the birth of ARIZ, step zero has been continuously updated; ARIZ-56, ARIZ-59, ARIZ-61, ARIZ-64, ARIZ-65, ARIZ-68, ARIZ-71,ARIZ-75, ARIZ-77, ARIZ-82, and 3 versions of ARIZ-85 prove all attempts to balance convergent and divergent phases in order to change the perspective on the given problem, adding useful information from the market or the patents, igniting lateral thinking and overcoming psychological inertia. After Altshuller's death, ARIZ development has been continued by TRIZ masters and followers without establishing a reference model. This paper proposes a revision of two classical Altshuller's tools, the "multiscreen method" and "76 standard solutions" to be used in the problem formulation phase. The first one is called Film MakerTM and is a simple tool to manage the cause-effect relationship through the description of a film, i.e. a sequence of events. The second one is called "111 Standards" and is a structured elaboration of Altshuller's 76 standard solutions to systematically identify alternative partial solutions. A four step method containing these tools is presented together with an exemplary case. After more than 2 years experimentation within a project commissioned by the chamber of commerce of Bergamo, involving over than 30 companies, we discuss the results and efficacy of this approach.

Keywords: ARIZ | Guidelines | Problem definition | Standard solutions

Abstract: The 76 Standard Solutions were created by G. Altshuller as solutions for common inventive problems. Since they were invented, many authors have attempted to improve them, pointing out some difficulties in applying the standards properly and the need to modify this powerful tool. A new system of 111 Standards is proposed, organizing the information of Altshuller's Standard Solutions according to a simple and rigorous functional approach. Standards are now classified by three Macro-classes which refer to harmful functions, insufficient functions and problem of measurement and detection. Every standard consists of an Action, indicating its functional purpose (such as "blocking" or "deflecting" the harmful action, "concentrate" or "enhance" the insufficient action, etc.) and a Suggestion, representing how you can realize the goal by adding or modifying fields and substances. A comparison between the old and the new system of standards is proposed.

Keywords: Function | Standard solutions | Triz

Abstract: Most common eco-design methods for SMEs often provide guidelines and suggestions too general, if not contradictories, to be considered as a real design practice. This paper presents a method, named "iTree", based on a set of eco-design guidelines specifically conceived to support designers in developing new greener products in accordance with the output of a product Life Cycle Assessment-LCA. The "iTree" guidelines are particularly suitable for SME - Small and Medium Enterprises, because they do not specifically require eco-design or problem solving experts. They have been conceived to provide clear and detailed suggestions on where and how to intervene and are based on problem solving methods, such as TRIZ, design for disassembly, and other computer aided tools, adapted for eco-design purposes and simplified for non-expert users. "iTree" method provides the user with an easy and graphical way to visualize the life cycle inventory and critical areas of intervention. For each area, it suggests only the pertinent set of guidelines, customized to the specific situation. In this way, there is a direct link between the visual outcomes of the Eco-assessment phase and the Eco-improvement phase. The experimentation of the proposed method and guidelines is described with an explanatory example. Furthermore, the method has been tested within the European project, named Remake, which aimed at testing new methods of eco-improvement for SMEs in Europe. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Eco-design | Eco-improvement | Guidelines | TRIZ

Abstract: Many forms of analyzing future technology and its consequences coexist. Some examples are technology intelligence, forecasting, road mapping, and foresight. All of these techniques fit into a field that we call Technology Futures Analysis (TFA). Unfortunately, both competitive and forecasting analyses are not well utilized in company decision-making, especially those based on analytical patent analysis. Three factors could enhance managerial utilization: capability to exploit huge volumes of available information, ways to do it very quickly, and informative representations that help to discover emerging technologies. This paper reports an effort to address these three goals via a brand new method of analysis conceived to quickly and graphically generate helpful knowledge from patents. The first novelty is to adopt a function-oriented process to identify the most important features of a product or technology. Then, we exemplify a method to manage patent search that integrates functional basis with physical and chemical effects library. The outcome is a concise and graphical state of art, which helps to define players and patterns in the development of a target technology. This takes the form of a infographic map, and is finally used to discover emerging technologies, white space opportunities or new market potentials. All the Text mining process is supported by Kompat, a semantic search engine explicitly conceived for forecasting patent search. © 2014 IEEE.

Keywords: Competitive Technological Intelligence | Patent Search | Technology Forecasting | Technology State of Art | Text Mining | White space Opportunities

Abstract: This paper proposes a design approach to support the designer during the environmentally sustainable redesign of any product that can be modeled in CAD environment. It is a systematic computer-aided design procedure based on the integration of (1) virtual prototyping tools (e.g., 3D CAD, FEA, structural optimization), (2) function modeling techniques, and (3) Life Cycle Assessment-LCA tools. The core of the approach is the configuration of structural optimization strategies specifically conceived to obtain lighter and more compact products, and therefore, more eco-sustainable. The objective of the proposed methodology is to support the designer in choosing the best triad shape-material-production in order to determine the minimum environmental impact and ensure the structural and functional requirements of the product. A case study is described to show the potential of the proposed methodology as well as a discussion of the results. © 2014 CAD Solutions, LLC.

Keywords: CAD | eco design | LCA | structural optimization

Abstract: Patents are an increasingly important source of technologicalintelligence that companies can use to gain strategic advantage. They can beused as a stimulus for R&D to search for whether someone somewhere hasalready solved the problem or a very similar one. In this way, the answer totechnical questions depends on how we are able to extract crucial informationfrom the patent corpus and translate it into knowledge. The state of the art ofIR tools for patent searches is very rich and in continuous improvement;moreover, current tools are inadequate to satisfy users' expectations. Thispaper gives a general overview of the universal tools for knowledgemanagement and proposes a combination of knowledge bases, design methodslike TRIZ and FBS theory and physical effects for improving function-basedpatent searches. An example dealing with a new design of nutcracker proposesthe use of keywords related to physical effects in order to search a non-clearlyexpressed function (or behaviour). © 2014 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

Keywords: FBS | Functional search | IR | Ontology | Patent | Physical effect | TRIZ

Abstract: This paper addresses the need for a structured approach to environmental assessment and improvement. We propose a computer-aided methodology, named Eco-OptiCAD, based on the integration of Structural Optimization and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tools. Eco-OptiCAD supports the designer during product development, highlighting when and where the core of the environmental impact lies. Furthermore, it provides effective tools to address such impacts, improving the original product, while ensuring structural and functional requirements. It foresees the synergic use of (1) virtual prototyping tools, such as 3D CAD, Finite Element Analysis (FEA) and Structural optimization, (2) function modeling methodology and (3) Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tools. The kernel of the methodology is constituted by a set of optimization strategies and a module, named Life Cycle Mapping (LCM). In particular, we have conceived ten optimization strategies converting environmental objectives and constraints into structural and geometrical parameters. They enable the designer to generate alternative green scenarios according to the triad shape-material-production. The LCM tool has been specifically developed to easily trace the growth of environmental impacts throughout the product's life cycle and allow the user to focus his effort on the most relevant aspects. Thanks to the integration of the structural optimizer with an LCA map, the designer becomes aware of the consequences that each change in the geometry, the material or the manufacturing process will produce on the environmental impact of the product throughout its life cycle. With a complete view of the product life cycle, the designer can improve a single phase, while retaining a global perspective; thus avoiding the possibility of gaining a local green improvement at the cost of a global increase in environmental impacts. An exemplary case study is presented to detail each step of the design methodology and shows its potential. Eco-OptiCAD represents a first step toward a fully integrated system for eco-design assessment and improvement, with the potential of working side by side with common design tools, in providing a constant environmental feedback. © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: CAE | Eco-design | LCA | Structural optimization

Abstract: Functional design model and in particular FBS model are, in recent years, most commonly accepted design theories to support design process. However, with regard to their use it remains widespread skepticism especially by industry engineers, more inclined to use problem solving methods. Reasons are varied and come from the way in which they approach design problem, often considered too abstract and far from everyday design reality. This paper contains a number of measures to bridge this gap. In particular is proposed an integration between FBS and TRIZ to best rationalize designer efforts in a design process based on a large set of initial requirements. The considered method addresses the determination of the main function and its implementation on the device, and then it starts to iteratively overcome the other requirements (functions) by solving contradictions. In order to obtain more practically feedback, each phase is described with technical parameters. Furthermore the method allows a quickly and economic screening of the alternatives. A design process for a chips waste compactor is carried out by using that process. © 2013 The Design Society, unless otherwise stated.

Keywords: Design engineering | Design methods | FBS | Triz contradiction

Abstract: International patent corpus is a gigantic source containing today about 80 million of documents. Every patent is manually analyzed by patent officers and then classified by a specific code called Patent Class (PC). Cooperative Patent Classification CPC is the new classification system introduced since January 2013 in order to standardize the classification systems of all major patent offices. Like keywords for papers, PCs point to the core of the invention, describing concisely what they contain inside. Most of patents strategies are based on PC as filter for results therefore the selection of relevant PCs is often a primary and crucial activity. This task is considered particularly challenging and only few tools have been specially developed for this purpose. The most efficient tools are provided by patent offices of EPO and WIPO. This paper analyzes their PCs search strategy (mainly based on keyword-based engines) in order to identify main limitations in terms of missing relevant PCs (recall) and non-relevant results (precision). Patents have been processed by KOM, a semantic patent search tool developed by the authors. Unlike all other PC search tools, KOM uses semantic parser and many knowledge bases for carrying out a conceptual patent search. Its functioning is described step by step through a detailed analysis pointing out the benefits of a concept-based search vis-à-vis a keyword-based search. An exemplary case is proposed dealing with CPCs describing the sterilization of contact lenses. Comparison could be likewise conducted on other PCs such as International (IPC), European (ECLA) or United States (USPC) patent classification codes. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Concept-based search | Patent classification | Patent mining

Abstract: The importance of methodologies and computer-aided tools for problem structuring and solving has been demonstrated by various research activities since the 1970s. The need for systematizing the first phase of problem solving activity has led the authors to the development of a dedicated procedure for problem reformulation and the implementation of a dedicated software package, named BOB-UP®. It aims at driving the user to reformulate the initial problem using a dialogue-based system hiding an accurate cause-effect analysis. BOB-UP® provides three tools (Ill-Balls diagram, Fight diagram, and a linguistic composer) that guide step-by-step the user to the right problem formulation. This paper presents the experimentation of such CAI tool within two courses at the University of Bergamo. The first is a compulsory course for the master degree in Mechanical Engineering, while the latter is an elective course for the master degree in Mechanical Engineering and Management Engineering. The experimentation has been carried out with 56 students sub-divided into three groups according to their competences on problem structuring and solving and technical background. We considered five problems related to industrial applications coming from different technological domains to demonstrate the independence of the results from the specific industrial area. Finally, results are discussed presenting advantages and drawbacks. They have been evaluated according to specific criteria to evaluate its usability and efficacy; in addition, students were asked to fill a questionnaire to comprehend the perception they have on BOB-UP® usefulness and potential. © 2013 TEMPUS Publications.

Keywords: BOB-UP® | CAI tools | Cause-effect analysis | Engineering education | Problem structuring | TRIZ

Abstract: The key factor in decision-making is the quality of information collected and processed in the problem analysis. In most cases, patents represent a very important source of information. The main problem is how to extract such information from the huge corpus of documents with a high recall and precision, and in a short time. This article demonstrates a patent search and classification method, called Knowledge Organizing Module, which consists of creating, almost automatically, a pool of patents based on polysemy expansion and homonymy disambiguation. Since the pool is done, an automatic patent technology landscaping is provided for fixing the state of the art of our product, and exploring competing alternative treatments and/or possible technological opportunities. An exemplary case study is provided, it deals with a patent analysis in the field of verruca treatments. © 2013 Future Science Ltd.

Abstract: Patent literature contains over 70 million patent documents, so the amount of information available to companies and the opportunity to derive business value and market new products from this collection is huge. However, presently an effective information extraction is a difficult task because patentees typically write using their own lexicon, style and strategy in describing their inventions. This paper presents a discussion about open problems and a way to overcome them by a new functional search based on Function-Behaviour-Physical effect-Structure ontology. This ontology is used for a technology transfer activity by patents, with the aim of making users aware of how technologies, not yet exploited in their own field, have already been patented in other domains and exactly for achieving their same desired goal. To reach this objective a multidisciplinary approach is proposed, combining design ontologies with information retrieval tools. A case study has been presented to demonstrate how the conceived framework is strategic to search for patents and automatically classify them according to the proposed ontology. Copyright © 2012 by ASME.

Keywords: Function | Information retrieval | Knowledge-base | Patent search | Technology transfer

Abstract: The present work sets the basis for the development of a systematic eco-sustainable computer aided design procedure. During years modules for the specific design of all phases of a product life-cycle have been developed: manufacturing, assembly, reliability, maintainability, resilience, disassembly, end-of-use, etc. This work instead places itself in a broader context of "Design for ecology". It means to overcome the limits of a classic design process such as "Design for X", through an approach that makes the designer aware of the consequences that each design modification (to the geometry, the material or the manufacturing process) determines on the environmental impact of the product entire life-cycle. This work proposes a method of integrated management of (1)virtual prototyping software (such as structural optimization, FEM and CAD), (2) function modelling methodology and (3) LCA tools. It is mainly based on the configuration of structural optimization strategies especially conceived to obtain lighter and more compact products, therefore, more eco-sustainable. The method, due to the nature of the instruments it employs, can be applied only to products that can be modelled in a CAD environment. The article, in particular, shows how to articulate the workflow between virtual prototyping and LCA tools. A case study regarding a moped rim is used to explain the procedure while software implementation is still underway. Copyright © 2012 by ASME.

Abstract: A highly interdisciplinary group of specialists was recently involved in the development of new machinery models and contents for the Museo Leonardiano in Vinci. Virtual models have revealed themselves as extremely effective tools for initiating dialogue between history and technique; they allow quick bidirectional communication of complex concepts without the need for simplification. The study of machines, mechanical and technical processes involves the analysis and interpretation of drawings and verbal descriptions, in the light of all relevant historical traces. The complexity of the task requires the cooperation of skilled historians, literary men, engineers, physicists, architects and technicians. All of these specialists are accustomed to very particular languages, working methodologies and means of research; these differences result in an outcome that does not always manage to completely live up to expectations. Here virtual prototypes have not been a goal, but a starting point: with the start of the first model development, the research quickly speeded up. This paper discusses three main topics: 1) the results achieved with the introduction of the virtualization in a multidisciplinary workgroup aimed at the reconstruction of the dockyard of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence. 2) Analysis and role of Leonardo da Vinci's machines; 3) the simulation of the casting process of the huge bronze monument for Francesco Sforza, designed and accurately planned by Leonardo da Vinci and never executed. During the last 10 years, the study (still on-going) involved in-depth research of the historical documents, the definition of Leonardo's technical glossary, an evolutionary study on Leonardo's sketches led by TRIZ and creativity methods, physical simulations and mechanical reconstructions. Elements that have been continuously linked with each other by the 3D virtual models of Renaissance machinery, which have been used as sketchbooks on which both technicians and historians recorded every step of their work, making it immediately available for the others in a common and easy to understand language. Virtual models have also been a precious means to verify design consistency: as for typical engineering activities, they were used to check the kinematical behavior of machines, their structural capabilities, and the opportunities for integration with other machines and components, revealing new and sometime surprising stories. © 2012 IEEE.

Keywords: 3D virtualization | multidisciplinary approach | Renaissance | technical evolution | TRIZ

Abstract: Today innovation has to meet the environmental aspects. The ever increasing scarcity of resources and the higher level of pollution are orienting consumers and therefore industries towards a cleaner production and green products. Within a time to market which is constantly reducing, companies need tools to quickly develop new products which provide customer and business value together with a lower environmental impacts. In this paper, we propose a method to support innovation projects, taking into account also environmental requirements. The specific goal is to drive systematically the designer towards more sustainable products or processes, without interfering with its traditional design approach. The method is based on an integration of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tools for collecting and processing information from all life cycle phases of the product, with a reworking of the TRIZ fundamentals (as the Ideal Final Results, Laws of Technical Systems Evolution and resources) for identifying where and how to intervene on it. An application case is used to show the potentiality of the presented method.

Keywords: Eco-Design | Eco-guidelines | IFR | LCA | TRIZ

Abstract: Patents are an important source of technical knowledge which is increasing its fundamental role in supporting design activity. Analogical thinking, for example, is based on a fruitful and previously unnoticed analogy with an existing solution and patent in another area. Patents reveal solutions to technical problems, and they represent an inexhaustible source of information: more than 80 percent of man's technical knowledge is described in patent literature [1]. Therefore automation of systems for patent retrieval, especially for commercial use, is in great demand. Manual extraction of desired patents is very costly and time consuming. This article proposes an inventive procedure to create a thesaurus, identifying the pool of keywords related to a given product based on a combination of creativity methods and a pre-built thesaurus of physical effects. Keywords are classified into a hierarchical tree diagram according to the FBS Function/Behaviour/Structure classification [2]. This classification, called KOM® - Knowledge Organizing Module [3], can be used for building a state of the art, problem solving activity support, carrying out technological transfer and forecasting activities. In this work, the algorithm for automatic patent digging aimed at building the state of the art of a system or of a technology is presented. Novel and key points are widely illustrated in this paper, together with an explanatory case study. © 2011 by ASME.

Keywords: FBS | Information retrieval | Patent | Technical creativity | Text mining | Thesaurus

Abstract: It is proven that a low accuracy in setup or an insufficient attention during the problem structuring[1] may affect the accuracy of the final solution[2], while a problem that is properly defined is virtually solved[3], especially for "ill-defined" problems. Many efforts have been made since the 1970s for improving problem assessment, managing problem information (their functioning, constraints and requirements) and avoiding psychological barriers and memory loads[4]. Other studies have been focused on overcoming trivial points of view, such as lateral thinking[5] and to systematize an abstraction path for the initial situation by using theoretical models as functional models[6], cause effect analysis, and contradictions[7]. This work takes into account this background in problem solving methods, especially root cause analysis[8] and TRIZ[7], the theory of inventive problem solving. In this paper, a set of steps, called BOB-UP® have been conceived in order to support designers during the correct reformulation of the initial problem. This procedure has the aim to reformulate every technical problems, turning an ill-defined initial problem into a well-defined final problem. In this paper the framework of the procedure based upon an inedited cause-effect analysis is widely shown. For completing each design step, ontologies, linguistic rules, modeling tools and sketches are carefully integrated. Novel and key points are extensively presented in this paper, together with an exemplary case about a toaster implementation. The overall procedure was translated into software to ease the completion. The output of such computer aided reformulation consists of a "well defined" problem reformulation. Unlike the most famous and traditional cause-effect approaches, in the BOB-UP® environment the user is guided step by step to identify the best level of detail, focusing on the undesired effect(s), and finally identify the crucial element on which intervention is needed. A preliminary validation, conducted with 9 industrial cases by 30 users selected from the teaching staff of the University, research assistants and PhD and Master Degree students in Mechanical Engineering, has demonstrated the effectiveness of the method. Copyright © 2011 by ASME.

Keywords: Cause-effect analysis | Problem reformulation | Problem solving | Psychological barrier | Sketch | TRIZ

Abstract: The development of a Computer Aided Inventing system, assisting product designers in the creative stage, is a lengthy process because of lack of any real systematization of design knowledge for software implementation. The existing development tools for knowledge-based systems offer limited support for intelligent design. A knowledge-based architecture for intelligent product implementation is described in this paper. It is aimed at facing those problems where radical implementation is needed. Intended solutions are not based on improvement of existing inventions, but are oriented towards a new technological jump. A modification of the function-behaviour-structure (FBS) ontology is proposed to analyze the product to be innovated. Then an innovative behaviour oriented search aids the designer to systematically conceive a set of alternative behaviours, by means of a combination of three different creativity methods. The identified function-alternative behaviour couple is then automatically translated into targets for an automatic patent digging activity. Modified FBS ontology is also exploited to classify all the information collected at functional, behavioural and structural level, and a specific algorithm provides both patent search and classification in the form of a tree-like diagram. The software can be implemented as a support for building patent technological surveys, a personal knowledge database, technological transfer and forecasting. Copyright © 2002-2012 The Design Society. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Engineering Design | FBS | Knowledge Management | Technical Creativity

Abstract: Patents are an increasingly important source of technological intelligence that companies can use to gain strategic advantage. Public databases, such as Espacenet, offer for free, available over the internet, some millions of documents with constant format and always updated. So, the answer to most of our technical questions depends on how we are able to extract crucial information from patent corpus and translate them into knowledge. A general overview on universal tools for knowledge management (bibliometric, text mining, semantic) is proposed, with the aim to highlight what problems have already been overcome and what still needs to be done, especially for TRIZ users who want to identify technical features in a text. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011.

Keywords: Data Mining | ENV model | FBS | Ontology | TRIZ

Abstract: The paper discloses a method for conceptual design oriented to generation of new product concepts based on in-depth knowledge and experience of systematic innovation methods and tools, but that does not require specific advanced skills to be performed. The method has been freely inspired by TRIZ Laws of Technical System Evolution (LTSE). It is structured as a sequence of practical guidelines and operative rules that guide designers through an unconventional paradigm leading to breakthrough ideas and new solutions. It has been checked through a set of test cases offered by local companies and performed by engineering students. Copyright © 2011 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

Keywords: Creativity | Design guidelines | Laws of technical system evolution | Product development | TRIZ

Abstract: This article presents a methodological study on the potential use of structural optimization strategies for eco-design to support engineers during the design process of green products. The structure of the traditional process of eco-design now depends on the personal skills of the designer and his ability to integrate in the traditional design process the requirements of eco-sustainability. The objective of this study was to address guidance on integrating environmental aspects into a computer aided inventing product design and development extending the functionality of the traditional design process to green product design. The proposal arises combining eco-inventive principles with the design approach based on structural optimization tools so creating a knowledge-rich CAE process linking CAD, FEM, Optimization tools and LCA based tool. CAI tool is used to generate unconventional geometries and to trace the best promising direction of intervention. LCA integration allows the user in real-time to measure the environmental impact of his design choice calculated as a variation on the main indexes of environmental sustainability. A case study about the eco improvement of a steering plate for trial motorcycles is presented and discussed with the aim to introduce potential benefits of such an inventive eco design approach. © 2011 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing.

Keywords: CAI | Eco guidelines | Eco-design | Inventive Design | Structural Optimization | TRIZ

Abstract: TRIZ literature presents several papers and even books claiming the efficiency of Altshuller's Laws of Engineering System Evolution as a means for produce technology forecasts. Nevertheless, all the instruments and the procedures proposed so far suffer from poor repeatability, while the increasing adoption of innovation as the key factor for being competitive requires reliable and repeatable methods and tools for the analysis of emerging technologies and their potential impact. The present paper proposes an original algorithm to build a Network of Evolutionary Trends for a given Technical System with repeatable steps. Such a goal has been achieved by integrating well known models and instruments for system description and functional analysis. The overall procedure, still under further development, has been clarified by means of one of the case studies carried out for its validation. © 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Keywords: EMS model | FBS model | Functional basis | Laws of engineering systems evolution | Technology forecasting

Abstract: Due to the growing interest in innovation issues, support for suitable problem definition is increasingly important and desired, focusing on the identification of the right direction of work without getting lost on useless roads [1]. This work presents a set of rules, conceived by the authors to better define the right reformulation of the initial problem. Most of the philosophical reflections about the concept used to build this procedure are presented. Particular attention is focused on the definition of the exact zone of the critical element to work on, in a specific and precise instant of time. Time and space ontologies, and an historical excursus about operative time, are accompanied by many technical examples in order to provide a deep awareness about classical problem solving steps, already present in ARIZ 85C but used in a different way. © 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Keywords: Operative time | Operative zone | Problem reformulation | Psychological inertia | TRIZ

Abstract: This paper discloses an innovative step by step method based on TRIZ tools used according to the general approach suggested by FMEA. The aim of the proposed method consists in building an improved risk management model for design and to enhance the capability of anticipating problems and technical solutions to reduce failure occurrence. The method adopts tools used to model the system, such as functionality, Su-Fields models, resource evaluation and tools dedicated to problem solving such as standard solutions. The resulting method allows a better definition of the system decomposition and functioning and provides a sharp definition of the events and failures potentially occurring into the system, which is not provided by standard FMEA. Moreover, the high importance given to resources since the beginning of the method is extremely effective for understanding system evolution and to generate resource-based solution to problems dealing with product risk. The overall method has been developed so that technicians are not supposed to have a high level expertise in TRIZ tools. In order to evaluate the method it was tested with students with basic level TRIZ education and some application with industrial case studies were performed. © 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Keywords: ENV model | FMEA | Risk management | Su-Field | TRIZ

Abstract: In this work a method for identifying the key points and supporting an eco-design activity for SMEs is presented. Amongst the different concurrent approaches in the literature, Active Innovation Management (AIM), is currently developing, jointly with the University of Bergamo, an integrated approach based on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and TRIZ eco-guidelines. The main goal of this integration is to simplify the eco-design approach in order to make it accessible to European small medium enterprises (SMEs). All activities are part of a European Community (EC) project called REMake. The proposed method consists of a preliminary scan of a given product or process in order to disclose all involved flows of material and energy, and to assess its environmental impact by means of traditional LCA indexes. The hot points of the process are then identified adding to classical LCA criteria a brand new index, called the "IFR index", conceived from the TRIZ "Ideal System" concept. Once key points are identified, a set of 330 eco-design guidelines are introduced to develop alternatives and modifications to the given system with the aim of providing a lower global environmental impact. A first version of those guidelines [3, 8, and 9] was conceived starting from the eight natural Laws of Evolution of Technical System (LTSE) introduced by Altshuller [10]. Here an extended version allows the user to work in each phase of the product life cycle, and integrates other TRIZ tools and best eco-practices. Preliminary results of the application in SMEs will be presented with a case study concerning a textile home-furnishings and bed linen painting company. © 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Abstract: Sustainability is one of the most recent theme designers have to deal with and sustainability parameters are quickly gaining the top of the list of the requirements any product has to fulfil. Due to standards, legal regulation and customer growing awareness of environmental issues, engineers cannot avoid turning their everyday activities from design to eco-design. By the way, a significant drop of environmental impact of products cannot be achieved by simply adding a 'green' constraint to the already overpopulated list of design constraints. To answer to this issue a plurality of methods are available helping the designer (or pretending to) to assess product lifecycle or to provide suggestions on how to innovate the product or process according to sustainable goals. Within this context, the present work describes a way of using TRIZ concepts and tools in order to both assess and innovate a technical system so that some practical activities to ensure sustainable results can be easily embodied into everyday design practice. The main novelty on the operative level consists of an original method based on a set of Guidelines derived from Laws of Technical System Evolution (LTSE) in order to assess the value of existing solution (e.g. using Resources and Functionality as a metric of evaluation), to understand the most promising directions of improvement and to improve said solution also according to sustainability requirements. The paper will show the way Guidelines are applied with practical examples and an industrial case study will be presented and discussed. © 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Keywords: Eco-design | Eco-guidelines | LTSE | Resources

Abstract: Marketing strategies are focusing on innovation as the key for being competitive; as a consequence, product development processes must be improved in order to have a link as close as possible between conceptual design and detailed design activities. Within this context, TRIZ and TRIZ-based methodologies and tools are still poorly integrated with product embodiment means: CAD/CAE systems are not suited for supporting the designer in the conceptual design phase and at the same time inventive/separation principles, standard solutions etc. can hardly be translated into a modification of a CAD model and the only opportunity is to restart the modeling process. A small consortium of Italian Universities is analyzing the opportunity to use Design Optimization tools as a means for linking Computer-Aided Innovation (CAI) tools with Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems: www.kaemart.it/prosit. Among the specific objectives of the project, this paper describes how to analyze TRIZ technical contradictions by means of Design Optimization tools, with the aim of translating them into physical contradictions. The suggestions provided by inventive/separation principles are therefore converted into a new Design Optimization problem for the development of a novel solution. © 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Keywords: Computer-aided innovation | Shape optimization | Systematic design | Topological optimization | TRIZ

Abstract: In recent years the development of household appliances has increasingly focused on the reduction of noise. In this paper we report on attempts to reduce the sound-power level by a new systematical approach. A step by step method integrating different design models as Triz, Theory of inventive problem solving by Altshuller, FBS by John Gero, anticipatory failure analysis, and a specific noise knowledge database, is proposed in order to systematize the assessment phase and suggest improvements onto the system. Noise database, created by authors, collects an already known set of effective technical solutions on noise reduction, well organized to be offered to the user when needed. At the difference of other approaches, the method forces to reformulate the problem in terms of conflicting requirements and to work in managing an huge number of design parameters related to the whole set of potential noise physical effects. An exemplary application, in the field of vacuum cleaner, is here presented. Thanks to IMETEC (trademark of TENACTA Group S.p.a.), the Italian leading manufacturer of small household appliances, for allowing us to show some fragment and solution of the following application. © Organizing Committee of TMCE 2010 Symposium.

Keywords: Failure analysis | FBS | GTI | Noise reduction | Problem solving | TRIZ

Abstract: TRIZ literature presents several papers and even books claiming the efficiency of Altshuller's Laws of Engineering System Evolution as a means for producing technology forecasts. Nevertheless, all the instruments and the procedures proposed so far suffer from poor repeatability, while the increasing adoption of innovation as the key factor for being competitive requires reliable and repeatable methods and tools for the analysis of emerging technologies and their potential impact. The present paper proposes an original algorithm to perform a functional analysis aimed at building a Network of Evolutionary Trends for a given Technical System with repeatable steps. Such a goal has been achieved by integrating well known models and instruments for system description and function representation. The overall procedure has been already validated in a number of industrial case studies and it's here clarified by means of an example about the production of tablets in the pharmaceutical manufacturing sector.

Keywords: EMS model | FBS model | Functional basis | Laws of engineering systems evolution | Technology forecasting | TRIZ

Abstract: The application of standard Information Extraction techniques to Patent Analysis has several limitations partially due to the difference existing between patents and web pages, which are the object of the biggest majority of information search. Indeed, while in other fields customized processing techniques have been developed, the number of studies fully dedicated to patent text mining is very limited and the tools available on the market still require a relevant human workload. This paper presents an algorithm to identify the peculiarities of an invention through an automatic functional analysis of the patent text; as a result a ranked list of components and functions is provided as well as a selection of meaningful paragraphs disclosing the details of the invention. An example related to laser irradiation devices for medical treatment clarifies its basic steps. © 2007 International Federation for Information Processing.

Abstract: TRIZ, the Soviet-initiated Theory of Inventive Problem Solving, is gaining acknowledgement both as a systematic methodology for innovation and a powerful tool for technology forecasting. Nevertheless, the analysis of patents necessary for gathering the data to be used for the previsional activity is very cumbersome and sometimes unworthy due to the intrinsic low reliability of forecasting tasks. With this perspective it is necessary to speed up the identification of the technical/physical conflict(s) overcome by an invention, according to its textual description. Although text-mining tools have reached relevant capabilities for extracting useful information from huge sets of documents, no specific means are available to support the analysis of patents with the aim of identifying the contradiction underlying a given technical system. This paper proposes a computer-aided approach for accomplishing such a task: the algorithm is described and validated by means of practical examples. Copyright © 2007 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

Keywords: Analysis of contradictions | Patent analysis | Technology forecasting | Text mining | TRIZ