Analysis of Construction Inventive Patents Based on TRIZ

In this research, a specific category of construction technologies, e.g., formwork, is selected for case study. 40 invention principles and 39 engineering parameters were applied with contradiction matrix to find out the “improving” and “deteriorating” parameters for a design case. By consulting the contradiction matrix, innovative principles can be found. It is concluded that TRIZ provides an effective approach for improvement of construction problem solving in terms of time and cost. Moreover, the principles identified by TRIZ also assist the construction technology researchers in searching direction for technology advancement. Forty innovative principles of TRIZ are used in this article to analyze the patents of formwork engineering in the construction industry in Taiwan and to investigate current innovative trend, besides, contradiction matrix is used to investigate the innovative concept of operability and automation demand of formwork.