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Darrell Mann
Department of Mechanical Engineering
University of Bath
Bath, BA2 7AY, UK
Phone: +44 (1225) 826465
Fax: +44 (1225) 826928
E-mail: D.L.Mann@bath.ac.uk
Barry Winkless
Advanced Manufacturing Technologies (AMT Ireland),
University College Cork,
Cork City, Ireland.
Tel: (087) 9720544/ (021) 4903436
Email: winkfull@hotmail.com
This article seeks to explore the applicability of the 40 Inventive Principles of classical TRIZ across the
food industry. The work comes in the wake of initial work to investigate the usefulness of TRIZ to help
solve food related problems (Reference 1). The intention here has been to develop a food industry analogue
to previously published articles highlighting examples of the 40 Principles in engineering (Reference 2),
business (Reference 3) and architecture (Reference 4) environments.
Use this document as a reference when seeking to ‘eliminate’ food-related design contradictions using the
40 Inventive Principles. Future articles will explore the applicability of other TRIZ tools in the definition
and solution of food production, processing and packaging problems.
We have colour-coded the examples such that text in green relates to ‘food processing’ concepts and ideas,
and blue text relates to ‘food packaging’ solutions.
Principle 1. Segmentation
A. Divide an object into independent parts.
Separate ‘fruit’ and ‘yoghurt’ portions in a yoghurt container
TV Dinners
‘Salt’n’Shake’ potato chips contain separate sachet of flavouring
Ice cubes
Cheese slices
Striped (tooth)paste container
Individual cup coffee sachets
Segmented Garlic Bread/ French Baguettes
DairyLea Lunchables
B. Make an object easy to assemble or disassemble.
‘Just add hot water’ snack pots
Silver-foil milk bottle tops
Tear-strip/weak-point/etc openings
Microwave dinners where no removal of packaging or film piercing is needed??
C. Increase the degree of fragmentation or segmentation.
Turn two pot yoghurts into three-pot yoghurts
‘One-cup’ tea-bags
Multiple small doors on frozen-food cabinets
Variety-pack cereals
Crushed ice
‘Sandwich pickles’ - pickles chopped to sizes consistent with expected height of a sandwich
Principle 2. Taking out/Removal/Extraction
A. Separate an interfering part or property from an object, or single out the only necessary part (or
property) of an object.
Non-smoking areas in restaurants
Nutrasweet - sweetness without the calories
Separate egg white from egg- for baking purposes.
Low fat products -products with low fat and al the flavour (supposedly)
Two-step sauces- vegetables have been ‘taken out’.
Principle 6. Universality A. Make a part or object perform multiple functions; eliminate the need for other
parts.
Thermo-chromic spoon changes colour when temperature is too hot
Thermo-chromic beer bottle label changes colour when beer is cold enough
(Re-sealable) food container becomes a storage jar
Jelly container that doubles as a re-usable jelly mould???
Nutella spreadable chocolate- after product is consumed packaging can be used as a drinking glass.
Honey flavoured Elf Grahams packaging- can be turned into hand puppets.
B. Use standardised features.
Use of Standards in e.g. quantity measures -kg, litres, etc
Standard tin diameters to facilitate stacking
Energy Efficiency (refrigerators).
Vegetable grading of size.
Principle 8. Anti-weight A. To compensate for the weight of an object, merge it with other objects that
provide lift.
Mix air into souffle to achieve rising effect
Size constituent parts within meusli so that each portion contains the appropriate quantity of each (e.g.
small, dense things tend to migrate to the bottom of the packet)
Knead bread.
B. To compensate for the weight of an object, make it interact with the environment (e.g. use aerodynamic,
hydrodynamic, buoyancy and other forces).
‘Float’ toppings on top of quiche, etc prior to cooking (make use of surface tension effects
.
Principle 9. Preliminary anti-action
A. If it will be necessary to perform an action with both harmful and useful effects, this action should be
replaced with anti-actions to control harmful effects.
Irradiated food
Genetically modified food benefits some properties (at the potential risk of making the world resistant to
anti-biotics)
B. Create beforehand actions in an object that will oppose known undesirable working stresses later on.
‘China blackbird’ inserted in deep-fill pie improves temperature circulation within pie-filling during
cooking
‘Widget’ in Guinness to combat poor head formation.
Principle 10. Preliminary action A. Perform, before it is needed, the required change of an object (either
fully or partially).
Pre-cooked meat/salad/etc products
Part-cooked bread
Pre-grated cheese/carrot
Marinading
De-seeded fruit
Instant mashed potato
Pre-formed pastry products- i.e. croissants in tins, vol-au-vonts.
Stir-Fry vegetable mixes.
Vegetable preparation before delivery to food manufacturer (i.e. sliced, diced etc.)
Hatfield Simply Tender Fresh Pork- injected with a solution to increase tenderness.
B. Pre-arrange objects such that they can come into action from the most convenient place and without
losing time for their delivery.
Cook using a recipe detailing sequence of events required
Principle 19. Periodic action A. Instead of continuous action, use periodic or pulsating actions.
Facilitate removal of sauce from bottle by shaking
Take account of seasonal effects - Easter eggs, Christmas cake, etc
B. If an action is already periodic, change the periodic magnitude or frequency.
Multi-speed blenders
Multi-blade knives have different size flutes for cutting different texture products
C. Use pauses between actions to perform a different action.
Simmer
Add-in herbs and spices during dwell between microwave heating times (i.e. heat/stand-or-stir/heat)