A Global Approach to Point Out Priority Problems Out of Experts’ Qualitative Data

TRIZ methods have been developed and are widely used to solve problems. But one of the recognized limitations of these methods is the way to identify the priority problem to consider. This step of problem-solving process corresponds to the Analysis of Initial Situation, and has been developed as a part of the first versions of ARIZ, but then not pursued to be developed as an independent process. In this article, the authors aim is to develop a method enabling this identification of the priority problem, out of qualitative information, based on problem experts’ interviews. The proposal is based on the exploitation of the OTSM-TRIZ Network of Problems in order to build a Network of Parameters. This second network is a graphical representation of all the influence relationships between the parameters of the system. This representation leads to a new understanding of the problematic situation, and to the identification of new directions for the problem solving steps. The proposed method will be illustrated on a case study related to plastics injection moulding process.