Prioritizing the initial problem choice in the inventive design process: Proposal of an FMEA-AHP-based method

Abstract

Abstract Today, companies are competing to improve the innovation cycle time in order to gain pioneering advantages in the market. To achieve this goal, these companies could apply the TRIZ-based systematic approaches such as Inventive the Design Methodology (IDM). Nevertheless, one of the criticisms often leveled is that these approaches are time-consuming due to the demands for building a complete map to clarify a problem situation in the initial analysis phase of the inventive design process. As a result, the Inverse Problem Graph (IPG) method has been proposed to increase the agility of the process by starting the problem formulation from an initial problem located in the lower level of a problem situation. The application of the IPG method decreases problem formulation time by identifying a limited number of problems. However, this method does not provide any tool for prioritizing the initial problems in the process. The purpose of this article is to integrate a Failure Mode Effect Analysis (FMEA) - Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) based method into the IPG method to prioritize the initial problems in the first phase of the design process. The proposal capability is finally tested through its application in a case study on the Lattice Structure.