Recently I had my leg in plaster and I had reason to encounter a very neat piece of technology. In order to cut off the plaster without cutting the patient an oscillating saw is used.

 

I had a personal demonstration of how it cuts plaster but not skin in a way which seems almost magical and it set me off down a TRIZ thinking path. Before the saw was invented, the problem, in TRIZ terms, could be stated as a physical contradiction:

In order to cut the plaster the saw must have movement relative to the cutting surface

In order to prevent the skin being cut the saw must have no movement relative to the cutting surface

The clever thing about the saw is that it separates the physical contradiction on condition of the surface contacted. For a rigid surface such as the plaster, the saw cuts due to the fact that the surface stays put and doesn’t move with the saw, creating the required relative movement. When the saw contacts skin, the flexibility of the skin surface is exploited and the saw and skin move together, eliminating any relative movement between the saw and skin. A similar principle is used in some fabric cutting table designs to prevent damage to the table. Simple, cool and clever.�

Some of you who know me will know that I am heavily sold into the power of the latest TRIZ (inventive problem solving technique) tools. The laws and lines of technological system evolution were derived from a analysis of literally hundreds of thousands of patents and, used properly, they can really help to identify suitable next generation technologies for a specific company. I recently prepared a brief analysis of an aerospace system to illustrate how this system has evolved.

Key laws which played out here were:

• Law of increasing ideality
• Law of non-uniform evolution of systems
• Law of increasing flexibility
• Law of increasing controllability
• Law of shortening of energy flow path

Notice how the each time the system has evolved, a problem (a.k.a. “system conflict”) and a increased technological capabilities have really been at the heart of making the change. If you can get really clear on the system conflicts which exist in a technological system, you can start to identify potential next stage solutions and appropriate technologies.�

Here’s a thing. How did the ancient Britons move massive rocks to build Stonehenge? Did they need hundreds or thousands of people to move them from the Welsh hills to Salisbury plain or could one person have done it all? In this video one guy moves massive stones and even his son’s house on his own. watch?v=lRRDzFROMx0