The document summarizes two state-of-the-art creative design methods: ASIT (Advanced Systematic Inventive Thinking) and C-K Theory. ASIT is a simplified version of TRIZ and uses five thinking tools and the "closed world concept" approach. C-K Theory models the creative design process as interactions between a Concept space and a Knowledge space using four operators. It was developed from mathematical forcing methods and aims to overcome fixation effects. Examples of applying each method are provided.

1. 2013
Pulkit Vijayvargiya
Reg. No. 201388279
11/11/2013
State of the art Creative and
Innovative Design Methods

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2013
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“I declare that this submission is entirely my own original work.
I declare that, except where fully reference direct quotations have been included, no aspect
of this submission has been copied from any other source.
I declare that all other works cited in this submission have been appropriately referenced.
I understand that any act of Academic Dishonesty such as plagiarism or collusion may result
in the non-award of my degree.”
Signature: Pulkit Vijayvargiya
Date: 11/11/2013

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Abstract
Creative and Innovative design is central to modern designing activity and act as a powerful force in
personal and organizational success. There are many approaches and methods for creative and
innovative designing. This report intends to demonstrate state of the art design methods in the field
of creativity and innovation. It reviews some of the recent major creative and innovative design
methods like ASIT and C-K Theory. It also presents some of the recent developments in domain of
these methods with examples. A comparative analysis of these methods is also brought in to picture.
Introduction
Today, critical customer requirements, globalized business and a high end development in
technology have led to robust business competition and market uncertainty. It is now highly
important to put more stress on innovation and creativity than speed and quality of production
while designing a new product [1]. As per U.K. treasury report on creativity in business [2] top
multinational innovative companies generate 75% of their revenue from the services or products
that are not in existence 5 years ago. Thus providing unique, creative and innovative products to
customers is the biggest challenge for any organization. There are many researches and methods
are proposed to increase the creative and innovative values in products [3-8]. All methods are very
traditional, diverse and different in approach. As creativity and innovation has achieved such a huge
importance in the stream of engineering design, this had led to the actuation of many systematic
and creative design methods like TRIZ (Theory of inventive problem solving in Russian) [9], ASIT
(Advanced systematic inventive thinking) [10], SCAMPER [11]etc. A very different and innovative
approach of designing is also evolved as a result of these revolution called as C-K Theory [12]. These
methods are very different from conventional and popular methods of creative thinking like
Brainstorming, Brain writing, Metaphoric Thinking, Outrageous Thinking, Mind mapping etc. They
are very systematic in nature and their application requires a vast technical or engineering
background in the particular research domain. According to Hatchuel [14] these new methods are
more tailored in the genesis of new artifacts and ideas rather than problem-solving. In this report
two of the major state of the art methods ASIT and C-K theory are discussed and compared with
examples. ASIT is one of the most recent, refined and simplified form of the most popular inventive
designing method TRIZ *9+. The main governing principal of ASIT is its ‘Closed World’ approach [10].
On the other hand C-K theory [12] is one of the latest breakthroughs in the field of creative design
methods it has some unique features which keep it apart from other conventional methods of
design [15] and it can also be used to analyze and successfully employ other creative methods [16].

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Findings: Review of ASIT and C-K Theory
ASIT
ASIT is the acronym for “Advanced systematic inventive thinking” *10+. It was first developed by
Horowitz [13] in Israel. ASIT is derived from and is a simplified form of famous Russian methodology
called as TRIZ (‘Theory of Inventive problem solving’) [9]. ASIT works on the same principle as TRIZ
i.e. ‘Vast majority of inventions complies with relatively small set of principles, and these principles
can be used to boost our thinking’ *13+. In comparison to TRIZ which is more complex and composed
of 40 different tools [9] ASIT is based on only 5 simplified tools, 1 condition and 1 principle [14]. The
main principle of ASIT is apposite to that of conventional creative design methods i.e. it deals with
‘closed world concept’ (CWC) *10+ and not to the ‘out of the box’ approach like other conventional
methods. Like TRIZ, idea behind ASIT is not to find how inventors work but to study what they do
and to study the result of their work. According to Horowitz [10] five of the main ‘Thinking tools’ or
‘Thought-provoking tools’ of ASIT are:
1) “Unification”: To find the solution of a problem by allotting a new function to an existing
element.
2) “Multiplication”: To find the solution of a problem by inserting an altered form of an existing
element in to the present system.
3) “Division”: To find the solution of a problem by separating elements in to different parts and
reorganize them.
4) “Breaking symmetry”: To find the solution of a problem by varying the symmetry of an
element from symmetrical to asymmetrical.
5) “Object Removal”: To find the solution of a problem by taking out one element from the
system and attributing its function to other existing element.
ASIT tools are found out to be very simple to use and understand, on the same time
they provide better and fast solutions as compared to TRIZ [16]. ASIT is now widely used in different
industries like Ford as a tool for inventive idea generation and also to train hundreds of engineers
[17]. Kaplan [19] suggested that ASIT is much alike properties as SCAMPER (an old version of
systematic problem-solving methods) [11]. Kaplan after comparing these two methods summed up
that ‘ASIT is a combination of SCAMPER and closed world concept’ *19+. Further development in ASIT
was done by Jerry [23], he proposed a new method called as FASiT in place of ASIT. FASiT was more
simplified form of ASIT and was very easy to use as it is based on only three tools [24].

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C-K Theory
C-K Theory, also called as Concept-Knowledge design theory was first proposed by Hatchuel and
Weil [12]. It is one of the major breakthrough in the in the field of engineering design. C-K Theory is a
creative design method derived from a Mathematical method called as “The Forcing Method”
[20,22]. It introduces the idea of design in the mathematical world. Hatchuel [12] called C-K theory
‘an expansion machine’ as it helps to realize expansion of ideas and sources; which in turn generate
creative solutions. In the language of C-K theory Hatchuel defined creativity as a “resistance to
fixation effect” [12]. (Fixation effect: Is a set of rules we have in our mind and we have difficulties to
change make them evolve) [12]. C-K theory is considered to be an effective tool to overcome fixation
effects and come up with potential and creative solutions [20].
C-K theory is defined as the interaction between K-Space (Knowledge space) and C-Space (Concept
Space) [12]. Concept (C) is the first step of C-K theory. It can be defined as a brief or preposition
which is not true or does not carries a logical status in the designer’s knowledge scope. On the other
hand Knowledge (K) is defined as the group of prepositions having a logical status in the designer’s
knowledge scope [12]. (See fig.1)
Figure 1: Graphical representation of C-K Theory [12]

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C-K theory works on the core concept of precisely what happens while travelling
from C- Space to K-Space (CK) or vice versa (KC), it defines the creative design process as the
application of 4 operators: 1) CC, 2) CK, 3)KC, 4) KK [16]. According to [21] when new
knowledge is added to concept (KC), concept gets expanded in to new partition which is a
disjunction process. But different concepts at the same time can also be stayed as concepts (CC),
or on the other hand can generate new knowledge (CK), which is conjunction in nature. Finally the
C-K designing process is ended when the undecided preposition in C-Space becomes decidable in K-
Space. This concept can be realized by “Design Model Square *19+. (See fig. 2)
There are many studies going on for the experimental validation and
improvement of C-K theory [15, 16, 23]. Kazakci [25] explained the procedure to improve creativity
design tools with the help of C-K Theory, he added another space called environment to concept and
knowledge space. Reich [16] improved the ASIT by modifying and using the C-K Theory. Ullah [15
mentioned the integration of internet system with C-K Theory to give it new dimensions and
features.
Figure 2: Design Model Square [12]
Practical application of C-K Theory
C-K theory was successfully employed in many companies world-wide like Thales, Renault etc. [22].
An acceptable example of C-K theory application in MINATEC IDEAs Laboratory® (MIL) was explained
by [23]. MIL is a giant research platform in the field of Micro-nanotechnology created jointly by HP,
France Telecom, CEA (French atomic commission) and ST Microelectronics. Each company is diverse
in nature and invests a huge sum of money in MIL; they expect to achieve new competencies via
creating new innovative products through MIL in their core domain. Thus due to such a huge variety

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of core fields it was very difficult for MIL to decide to work on a straightforward project and come up
with an innovative product or service.
Figure 3: Driving Innovation fields by using C-K Theory [23]
Thus they started using C-K Theory of design with a common purpose of exploring
different innovation areas (For example: Visual interface, Energy and Mobility etc.) pandered by
micro-nanotechnology with a final goal of maximum advantage of its partners. C-K tree were drawn
for different areas. “Energy and Mobility” theme with “New energy production system” came up as a
most interesting concept for all partners. Following C-K design approach was used by the MIL team:
(Also see fig. 3)
1) Selection of innovation-Area (C selection).
2) Knowledge collection and approach from KC to create new partitions in C-Space.
3) Use CC approach for project positioning in the innovation areas and integration of CK.
4) Examination of sub-innovation areas and follow back the step 2.
As a result of systematic C-K approach, MIL puzzled out the exact share of each project in the
particular area and came up with the final idea (project) they have to work on. They also figured out
the existing knowledge they have for the particular project and the new skills they needed to hire in
order to fulfil the missing knowledge.

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Comparison of Methods
Both of the design methods ASIT and C-K Theory endorse creativity and innovation. Both of them are
very well adopted by industries and employed successfully. Yet they are based on different notions
[16]. ASIT is introduced as a method which is derived from experiments and observations [10], on
the other hand C-K Theory is introduced as a hypothesis of designing that imbeds creativity as an
inherent part with supporting evidences of its pertinence [12,14,20,21]. A problem of ‘Metal acid
test’ was introduced by *16+ in order to understand the implementation of both methods. (See fig.4)
Figure 4: The acid test problem solved with ASIT’s Unification tool and C-K theory [16]
According to problem, reaction of acid on metal sample parts is required to be tested;
metal parts are kept inside a container in order to perform the test but a problem raised during the
test is that the container itself get eroded because of the acid. Solution of this problem by ASIT was
to make drill holes in the metal sample parts so that acid does not touch the container. This solution
is very creative but on employing it many unpredictable problems may arrived which are out of the
scope of actual problem definition. Thus the idea generated from ASIT ‘Unification’ tool is not the
most creative solution of problem; it is required to be detailed much further. On the other hand on
proceeding with C-K theory method many interesting and different creative solutions came in to
picture. And this designing process will continue till the idea generated is truly justified in the
knowledge space [21]. Thus, ‘closed world’ the main principle of ASIT *10+ can be said as one of its

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biggest limitation. With C-K theory of design a designer can think out of the box [12] to generate
creative solutions which is not possible in case of ASIT.
Conclusion
ASIT is a very powerful, simple and specific method of creative and innovative designing. But its
‘Closed world’ or ‘stay in the box’ approach leads to generate very narrow or specific solutions which
in turn makes ASIT not a preferred method of creative designing. C-K Theory is one of the ‘state of
the art’ design method which by interplay between C-Space and K-Space explains how creativity is
possible inside a design process, how the new concepts can be generated using the knowledge and
how design process is defined as the application of C-K operators. C-K allows a designer to think ‘out
of the box’ and discuss what can be learned from judgments by opening the doors of possibilities to
develop breakthrough ideas. But C-K theory does not define the strategies for researching the C-K
spaces when design process actually occurs.
Hence both the methods have their own advantages and disadvantages, but if both the
methods are integrated to each other as proposed by [16] a new more consistent creative and
innovative design method can be developed. This new method will have all the unique problem
solving features of ASIT by overcoming its ‘closed world concept’ paradox by C-K theory and thus
giving a new dimension in the field of creative and innovative design.

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