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Over half of the respondents mapped this problem as a
contradiction. Common themes were our desire to improve the life
of the blade (duration of action of moving object, or
reliability/robustness). What is stopping us was the subject of
less certainty. Some people decided that the stopping feature
was the strength of the blade material, while others opted to
map the stopping feature as the blade thickness – which they
stated ‘we need to be as thin as possible’.
Some of the nicest solutions to
these contradictions came from applications of Principles 14 and
17 – both of which related to changing the geometry of the
blade. One person used Principle 35 as the inspiration for
changing the blade material. They then used the patent database
and found a very nice ceramic solution from another industry.
A smaller segment of
respondents used our Evolution Potential concept and started
their analysis by comparing the current design of blades with
the trends of evolution. The nicest solution came from the
Mono-Bi-Poly and increasing Asymmetry trends. This respondent
derived what appears to have considerable potential as a
compound blade with self-sharpening properties – so that as it
wears, the sharp profile is maintained.
One other person thought that
the Dynamization trend was pointing towards a completely
different shaving concept – that of using some kind of a gel
that will dissolve the hair. We couldn’t see any evidence in
this answer that it was practically possible to turn this
attractive concept into a practical reality.
Finally, one person took this
concept a step further started their analysis with the ideal
final result that the blade should sharpen ‘itself’.
Interestingly, when they used this start point as the basis of a
patent search, they came up with a quite different answer to the
ones we saw from the Evolution Potential analysis (although when
we reverse engineer the solution inspired by the patent
database, we can see how it fits to some of the trends not
utilised by those looking at Evolution Potential.
All in all we saw some nice
solution concepts. Our favourites, is probably the
self-sharpening compound blade. We suspect that combining
individual ideas would create a much stronger overall concept.
Interestingly, nearly every respondent found ‘a’ good answer and
decided to stop. We always recommend that problem solvers
continue to generate more answer even after they find a really
good one. After all, our job is to turn the ‘good’ solution into
a truly great one.
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Nobody decided to
respond to this question. If we had been asked to answer this
question ourselves, we would have recognised that an
‘everlasting razor’ would have been very disruptive to the
current industry. Potentially everyone on the planet is a
customer for a razor. So selling 6 billion is probably
‘sustainable’ is probably going to give a fairly sustainable
customer base in any event. We might extend the model by adding
some new function or attribute to the razor in order to
encourage the consumer to want to replace (a la Swatch, or by,
for example, suggesting to the consumer that as they get older,
their skin changes and that therefore what they should do is
consider buying a razor for their relevant skin type.