Green product design based on the BioTRIZ multi-contradiction resolution method

Abstract

The impacts on the environment of many commercial products have not been fully considered in past years. For the sustainable development of Earth's resources, future product design should move towards not only innovation, but also fundamentally in the green direction. Currently, the BioTRIZ method may provide a satisfactory solution for a single contradiction of green product design. However, if there are multiple contradictions existing due to multiple operational fields, difficulty in implementing design aspects may be posed. For this reason, this paper develops a BioTRIZ multi-contradiction resolution method targeting a green product design, which can find the crucial contradictions and thus achieve the necessary invention principles (IP). By summarizing the green factors and further dividing operational fields, the deduced matrix table becomes highly effective in the design. Accordingly, designers can be assisted to quickly find the operational fields under multiple contradictions. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified using a product example of a window-cleaning robot design.