A study on product development using the TRIZ and additive manufacturing

Abstract

Additive manufacturing (AM) has become an important methodology in modern manufacturing due to its unique features. AM is a promising technology that allows designers to innovate product over a wide range and acquire the full advantages of this technology. However, there are significant limitations with using AM to its maximum capacity. After comprehensive literature survey, it was discovered that in addition of creation, AM possess considerable problems like material usage, cost, cycle time, quality consideration. TRIZ is a problem-solving technique that incorporates different tools to develop specific solutions to problems in a creative and innovative way. The purpose of this paper is to understand the concept of TRIZ and implement TRIZ theory in additive manufacturing. Also, this paper aims to form TRIZ matrix specifically for designers to easily solve problems in additive manufacturing. The TRIZ matrix helps designers to design product without compromising the effectiveness of the other features considering the situation where solution to one problem creates an entirely new problem. Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM) is used to provide design rules and enhance its suitability to AM. This approach is combined in the form of “A Study on Product Development using the TRIZ and Additive Manufacturing “and it is used as an idea generation tool that can generate innovative solutions for design problems. A case study of CPU fan is introduced to evaluate the proposed methodology. The TRIZ-based DfAM approach results in a reduction in material usage and also a reduction in overall print time.