Research on Product Technology Evolutionary Potential Mapping System Based on TRIZ

摘要

Making strategic decisions for product development is one of the toughest jobs that managers of research and development have in enterprises. Identifying EP (evolutionary potential) of product is a crucial step that can give help to this process. The patterns and lines of technology evolution belong to technology forecasting of TRIZ (theory of inventive problem solving) are applied to identify EP of a technical system and help decision-makers to make strategic decisions. This article introduces a searching method for EP and develops the radar plot structure of EP. A process of mapping EP of product based on patent analysis is then formed. Based on these techniques, software named EPMS (evolutionary potential mapping system) was developed. As an illustration the EP of washing machine in China was mapped by EPMS.