Laws of Technical Systems Evolution

The Laws of Technical Systems Evolution are the most general evolution trends for technical systems discovered by TRIZ author G. S. Altshuller after reviewing more than 200,000 patent abstracts.

Altshuller studied the way technical systems have been invented, developed and improved over time. He discovered several evolution trends that help engineers to predict what are the most likely improvements that can be made to a given product. Ideality is considered by some to be the most important of these laws. There are two concepts of ideality, ideality as a leading pathway of a technical systems evolution. Ideality as synonym of ideal final result is one of the basic TRIZ concepts.

History
Studying pathes of evolution of technical systems has been a primary research method of TRIZ since its inception. But until the 1970 the discovered recurrent patterns of evolution were not consolidated into a separate section of TRIZ and were scattered amongst other sections. In the 1970s Altshuller consolidated them into a new section of TRIZ that he called "The Laws of Technical Systems Evolution". It included both previously discovered recurrent patterns of evolution and newly discovered ones. Studying "laws of evolution" became an independent research topic in TRIZ. The following authors, besides Altshuller, contributed most to it: Yuri Khotimlyansky (studied patterns of energy conductivity in technical systems), Vladimir Asinovsky (proposed principles of correspondance of various components of technical systems), Yevgeny Karasik (co-authored with Altshuller the law of transition from a macro-level to a micro-level, introduced the notion of dual technical systems and studied the patterns of their evolution).

General information
In his pioneering work of 1975, Altshuller subdivided all laws of technical systems evolution into 3 categories:
 * Statics - describes criteria of viability of newly created technical systems.
 * Kinematics - define how technical systems evolve regardless conditions.
 * Dynamics - define how technical systems evolve under specific conditions.

Static Laws

 * The law of the completeness of the parts of the system
 * The law of energy conductivity of the system
 * The law of harmonizing the rhythms of parts of the system

Kinematic Laws
The ideality (TRIZ) of a system is a qualitative ratio between all desirable benefits of the system, and its cost or other harmful effects. When trying to decide how to improve a given invention, one naturally would attempt to increase ideality: either to increase beneficial features, or else to decrease cost or reduce harmful effects. The Ideal Final Result would have all the benefits at zero cost. That cannot be achieved; the law states, however, that successive versions of a technical design usually increase ideality.
 * Law of increasing ideality

Rantanen (2002) mentions a surprising example where the [[ideal] ] ultimate system is about to be achieved. The problem addressed is "improve the [[muffler]] of a gasoline engine lawn mower such as it makes less noise". But looking at the system the lawn mower serves, the real problem is "how to get the grass to be short (without making much noise}". The ideal solution thus is "to make lawn mowers unnecessary", for example - by purchasing transgenic seeds that produce short grass which does not grow too much! These seeds have not been invented yet, but given the accelerating pace of transgenic development, they might soon.


 * The law of uneven development of parts of a system
 * The law of transition to a super-system

Dynamic Laws
The development of working organs proceeds at first on a macro and then a micro level. The transition from macro to micro level is one of the main (if not the main) tendency of the development of medern technical systems. Therefore in studying the solution of inventive problems, special attention should be paid to examingin the "macro to micro transition" and the physical effects which have brought this transition about.
 * Transition from macro to micro level


 * Increasing the S-Field involvement