Investigating the Relationships Between Additive Manufacturing and TRIZ: Trends and Perspectives

Abstract

As Industry 4.0 is the driving force behind the manufacturing industry in this period, increasing importance is being attached to its enabling technologies, formerly known as the nine pillars. In particular, within this context, interest in Additive Manufacturing – AM is constantly growing. For this reason, the authors have considered as appropriate to carry out a literature search to assess whether there is any relationship between AM processes and product design and development practices after 2011. Particularly, the authors were interested in considering the use of additive technologies in relation to the TRIZ – theory of inventive problem solving - and its tools. To this end, it has been decided to carry out a search among the publications contained in the Scopus Database. 115 potential papers have been identified for analysis. After a careful selection, 14 papers, containing information on AM and TRIZ useful for our survey, were selected. Reading these works, it was possible to identify current research trends related to the use of creative problem solving strategies such as TRIZ and its combined use with AM, ranging from the definition of particular integrated methodologies of product development to the definition of guidelines for Design for AM or technological predictions, the state of the art of current research, highlights possible levers of intervention and potential developments and future trends.