Design Support for Maintenance Tasks using TRIZ

Design for Maintenance is a method to optimize maintenance activities during the design process. To help maintenance engineers, the chair Maintenance Engineering at the University of Twente has set up a list of 37 guidelines. However, these guidelines only state the goal that should be achieved, but do not define the actions that should be taken to solve maintenance-related problems during the design phase. TRIZ is a product and process innovation method that uses various tools that propose paths to possible innovations and solutions. As such, TRIZ promises it could be a useful addition to the existing set of 37 maintenance guidelines. In this research the compatibility of TRIZ and maintenance guidelines is explored using a 3 stage research plan. Firstly, applicable guidelines are linked to TRIZ methods. In a second step these links are grouped and generalized so not every maintenance guideline also needs a unique TRIZ strategy. Finally a roadmap is presented that helps during Design for Maintenance activities in solving maintenance problems with the support of TRIZ tools.