Sustainable Services and Systems through systematic innovation methods

The development of Sustainable Service Systems (3s) requires an innovative approach. Traditionally, innovation has been equated to ‘high risk’. The recently introduced TRIZ-based systematic innovation methods can reduce this risk. This paper highlights the tenets from TRIZ which make this systematic innovation method particularly well suited to be applied in sustainable design. Subsequently, this paper shows how TRIZ has been deployed to investigate an exemplar 3S case study relating to the design of an energy system. The case study demonstrates the use of TRIZ tools to improve the ‘product-service’, ‘use-service’ and ‘result-service’ concepts of that energy system. As market drivers shift from product-service, to use-service, to result-service paradigms this study shows that the design emphasis shifts from first-cost, to life-cycle cost, to maximum-benefit. This evolution of sustainable service systems (3s) demands an increasingly holistic approach to the design process that requires the original definition of ‘the system’ to be extended to include a super-system.