Science of inventive engineering

As we will immediately discover, the history of inventive engineering was created by polymaths, people who were talented and extremely accomplished in several separate domains. As a matter of fact, only such people are able to acquire knowledge from different domains, integrate it, and subsequently create a new quality or a new understanding in the form of 

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The huge majority of designing problems are routine. Very few designing problems are inventive, but when they occur they are usually unavoidable, very important for stakeholders, and critical for progress in engineering. In Chapter 5.6, TRIZ, we will present a formal classification of inventive problems. We should bear in mind, however, that some inventive problems may be considered wicked. Wicked problems are basically outside the scope of inventive engineering, but this science creates at least an opportunity to tackle them. 

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Steam power was fully developed before the introduction of the science of thermodynamics. The steam engine was designed and built by ordinary working people, such as Mr. Newcomen and Mr. Watt. Mr. Watt s invention is illustrated in Fig. 18.1. 

The Structured Abstraction technique comes in handy when you ve identified a functional contradiction that stands in the way of an innovation—and when other ideation techniques have fallen short. Because Structured Abstraction is deeply grounded in science, engineering, and the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ), it s best to seek the help of an expert when using this technique. 

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