X-factor

X-factor is any change in the engineering system (e.g., change in its components, parameters, etc.) that should be incorporated into the system in order to solve a problem.

Overview

X-factor is a term used in ARIZ. It refers to any entity that should be introduced into the system to help solve the problem.

The X-factor can be any resource identified in Part 2 of ARIZ, or a combination of several resources. It may be a substance, a field, a parameter, time, space, or any other characteristic – whether from the system or its supersystem.

Examples include a temperature change, a phase transition, a change in color or material, and more. The role of the X-factor is to preserve what is desirable in the contradiction while eliminating what is undesirable.

The requirements for the X-factor are defined in Step 1.6 of ARIZ.

Initially, the term X-element was used in ARIZ. However, since the word element is polysemantic in many languages, it has been replaced with X-factor in state-of-the-art TRIZ.