Capturing Creativity: Using a Design Repository to Drive Concept Innovation

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matt R. Bohm ◽  
Jayson P. Vucovich ◽  
Robert B. Stone
Keyword(s):  
Component Analysis ◽  
Design Knowledge ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Original Design ◽  
Modern Design ◽  
Design Project ◽  
Design Concepts ◽  
Design Methodologies ◽  
Search Feature ◽  
Original Concept

This paper describes how a design repository can be used as a concept generation tool by drawing upon archived function-based design knowledge. Modern design methodologies include several types of activities to formally generate design concepts. Typical concept generation methods range from open-ended creative brainstorming activities to quantitative function-component analysis. A combination of two such methods—the Chi Matrix and Morphological Matrix techniques—is the basis for this work. Building on existing functionality of the design repository, desired product functions can be specified in a search of stored design knowledge, returning a Morphological Matrix of artifacts solving the specified functions. Such a search is termed a Morphological Search. The repository Morphological Search feature is evaluated against concepts generated in a previous original design project. Results of the Morphological Search return are then compared to ten of the original concept variants generated during the design project. This comparison shows that 76% of the specified subfunctions return results and that, on average, 61.35% of the components used in the hand-generated concepts can be derived by using the Morphological Search feature.

Using a Design Repository to Drive Concept Generation

2008 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Matt R. Bohm ◽  
Jayson P. Vucovich ◽  
Robert B. Stone
Keyword(s):  
Component Analysis ◽  
Design Knowledge ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Original Design ◽  
Modern Design ◽  
Design Project ◽  
Design Concepts ◽  
Design Methodologies ◽  
Search Feature ◽  
Original Concept

This paper describes how a design repository can be used as a concept generation tool by drawing upon archived function-based design knowledge. Modern design methodologies include several types of activities to formally generate design concepts. Typical concept generation methods range from open-ended creative brainstorming activities to quantitative function-component analysis. A combination of two such methods—the chi-matrix and morphological matrix techniques—is the basis for this work. Building on existing functionality of the design repository, desired product functions can be specified in a search of stored design knowledge, returning a morphological matrix of artifacts solving the specified functions. Such a search is termed a morphological search. The repository morphological search feature is evaluated against concepts generated in a previous original design project. Results of the morphological search return are then compared to ten of the original concept variants generated during the design project. This comparison shows that 89% of the specified subfunctions return results and that, on average, 77% of the components used in the hand-generated concepts can be derived by using the morphological search feature.

Impacting Designer Creativity Through IT-Enabled Concept Generation

2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ken English ◽  
Aziz Naim ◽  
Kemper Lewis ◽  
Susanne Schmidt ◽  
Vimal Viswanathan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Information Technology ◽  
Information Integration ◽  
Scientific Basis ◽  
Design Knowledge ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Design Concepts ◽  
Scientific Phenomenon ◽  
Concept Representations ◽  
Two Populations ◽  
Initial Results

One of the innovation’s fundamental mechanisms, designer creativity, is both unsupported by rigorous information-technology-enabled tools and uncharacterized as a scientific phenomenon. In this paper, we present VISUALIZEIT—a project seeking to identify a scientific basis and develop the supporting cyberinfrastructure needed to facilitate, evaluate, and disseminate information-technology-enabled innovation methodologies that augment designer creativity. This particular research paper describes a method of synthesizing concept representations through the development and expansion of platforms focused on computational concept generation, clustering of design concepts, a repository of archived design knowledge, and an information integration and representation interface. We also present the initial results from implementing VISUALIZEIT using two populations of students.

Concept Opportunity Diagrams: A Visual Modeling Method to Find Multifunctional Design Concepts

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Kuhr ◽  
Kristin Wood ◽  
Dan Jensen ◽  
Richard Crawford
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Process ◽  
Design Theory ◽  
Design Principle ◽  
Design Space ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
Visual Modeling ◽  
Design Concepts ◽  
Fully Functioning ◽  
Original Concept

A transforming product is a system that has different functionality when physically changed or reconfigured into a different state. This increased functionality allows diverse customer needs to be met in a single product. Transforming devices have become more prevalent in recent years, as customers desire both increased capabilities and reduced complexity to reduce waste in our society. When designing a multifunctional product that transforms from one state to another, it can be difficult to conceptualize a design that does not reduce effectiveness or provide a compromise in either state. Transformational Design Theory has been developed and shows basic principles and facilitators that enable transformation to occur within a product space. An illustrative example is a chair designed to flip over to be used as a table. Flip is one of the 19 facilitators that are found in transformation design. This is also an example of expose/cover, a transformation design principle. Certain principles and facilitators are more prevalent than others in different design domains (such as tools, storage, organisms etc.). If we know the states that exist within the transformer, concept opportunity diagrams can be used to determine the opportunities for transformation within each state. When the diagrams are paired with a constituent relationship chart specific to each domain, new design concepts may be facilitated. This technique creates a cognitive process for designers where they process a series of questions when creating the concept opportunity diagram. The diagram will help them understand the unanticipated additional design space of each state. The Constituent Relationship Chart is a tool that allows them to apply their knowledge of these states to the facilitator hierarchy so that prospective facilitators can directly contribute to originally unforeseen design concepts. This paper presents this twofold process known as the Transformer Diagram Matching Method and shows the results on a fully functioning prototype of an office supply transformer. Although the proposed process is detailed, it allows the designer to find a large number of quality concepts they would not have foreseen otherwise. Our original concept generation processes produced thirty eight ideas, but this process added another thirty two ideas to the design space. The paper indicates specifically how this method can be integrated in with the standard transformational design process as well as suggests strategies for implementation within other design techniques.

Environmental Analysis of Consumer Products During the Conceptual Phase of Product Design

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matt R. Bohm ◽  
Karl R. Haapala ◽  
Kerry Poppa ◽  
Robert B. Stone ◽  
Irem Y. Tumer
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Product Design ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Life Cycle Analysis ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Consumer Products ◽  
Design Knowledge ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Analysis Techniques ◽  
Research Show

This paper describes efforts taken to further transition life cycle analysis techniques from the latter, more detailed phases of design, to the early-on conceptual phase of product development. By using modern design methodologies such as automated concept generation and an archive of product design knowledge, known as the Design Repository, virtual concepts are created and specified. Streamlined life cycle analysis techniques are then used to determine the environmental impacts of the virtual concepts. As a means to benchmark the virtual results, analogous real-life products that have functional and component similarities are identified. The identified products are then scrutinized to determine their material composition and manufacturing attributes in order to perform an additional round of life cycle analysis for the actual products. The results of this research show that enough information exists within the conceptual phase of design (utilizing the Design Repository) to reasonably predict the relative environmental impacts of actual products based on virtual concepts.

Energy in the 1980s - Operational experience in nuclear power stations

1974 ◽  
Vol 276 (1261) ◽  
pp. 571-586
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Power ◽  
Nuclear Energy ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Electrical Power ◽  
Operating Experience ◽  
Operational Experience ◽  
Original Design ◽  
Safety Requirements ◽  
Design Concepts ◽  
Power Stations

From the first self-sustaining nuclear reaction to the present day represents a span of three decades: within that time large-scale generation of electrical power from nuclear energy has become acknowledged as economic, safe and environmentally acceptable. Within the U .K . 10% of electricity consumed is of nuclear origin. Some of the C.E.G.B. reactors have been in service for over 10 years. The operating experience that has been gained shows how the original design concepts have been ultimately developed. Some of the difficulties encountered and the engineering solutions are presented. Operating experience feeds back to the design philosophy and safety requirements for future nuclear plant. In this way a foundation is provided for the further exploitation of what must become a major source of energy in the next decade.

scholarly journals Information exchange : the effect of new information typologies on library architecture

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Lawrence Friesner
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Academic Libraries ◽  
Information Exchange ◽  
Original Design ◽  
Design Project ◽  
New Information ◽  
Information Media

This thesis document investigates contemporary forms of information media and their effects on library architecture. The reseach portion of this document concludes with a design project that illustrates a solution to programmatic infill imposed upon academic libraries built prior to the rise of digital media. The casualties of injecting additional porgram elements into older libraries are the print collections. Many such libraries have adopted roles resembling community centres and have lost space devoted to quiet study and book stacks. The driving concept for this project was to return the program of the Ryerson University Libary to a state closer to its original design. By reintroducing lost collections and quiet work areas, the interactive and digitial program elements are forced outside the walls of the original building. This expelled program has been reformatted into a new archetype and is skinned as such, creating an additional university building focused on information exchange.

scholarly journals How do designers generate new ideas? Design heuristics across two disciplines

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seda Yilmaz ◽  
Shanna R. Daly ◽  
Colleen M. Seifert ◽  
Richard Gonzalez
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Strategies ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Design Concepts ◽  
Design Heuristics ◽  
Frequent Use ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
Industrial Designers ◽  
Protocol Study ◽  
High Degree ◽  
Design Heuristic

Research supports the central role cognitive strategies can play in successful concept generation by individual designers. Design heuristics have been shown to facilitate the creation of new design concepts in the early, conceptual stage of the design process, as well as throughout the development of ideas. However, we know relatively little about their use in differing disciplines. This study examined evidence of design heuristic use in a protocol study with 12 mechanical engineers and 12 industrial designers who worked individually to develop multiple concepts. The open-ended design problem was for a novel product, and the designers’ sketches and comments were recorded as they worked on the problem for 25 min and in a retrospective interview. The results showed frequent use of design heuristics in both disciplines and a significant relationship to the rated creativity of the concepts. Though industrial designers used more heuristics in their concepts, there was a high degree of similarity in heuristic use. Some differences between design disciplines were observed in the choice of design heuristics, where industrial designers showed a greater emphasis on user experience, environmental contexts, and added features. These findings demonstrate the prevalence of design heuristics in individual concept generation and their effectiveness in generating creative concepts, across two design domains.

A Knowledge Extraction and Design Support System for Supporting Industrial and Product Design

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
W. B. Lee ◽  
W. M. Wang ◽  
C. F. Cheung ◽  
Z. H. Wu
Keyword(s):  
Product Design ◽  
Support System ◽  
Knowledge Extraction ◽  
Design Stage ◽  
Generation Process ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Design Support ◽  
Design Concepts ◽  
Design Support System ◽  
Design Ideas

Industrial and product design involves a lot of unstructured information for the generation of innovative product design ideas. However, the generation of innovative design concepts is not only time consuming but also heavily relies on the experience of product designers. Most existing systems focus mainly on the technical aspects of realizing product designs, which are inadequate to support concept generation process at the pre-design stage. In this paper, a knowledge extraction and design support system (KEDSS) is presented. The system aims at extracting key design concepts and depicting the trends of these concepts from the massive amount of unstructured design information in the open domain. A summary report, a related concept list, and concept trend graphs are produced based on the inputs of the designers' design ideas. A series of experiments have been conducted to measure the performance of the system. Moreover, the system has been successfully trial implemented as part of a public service platform for modern industrial design of injection molding machinery and equipment.

Concept Generation Algorithms for Repository-Based Early Design

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jayson Vucovich ◽  
Nikhil Bhardwaj ◽  
Hoi-Hei (Terence) Ho ◽  
Manjeshwar Ramakrishna ◽  
Mayur Thakur ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Markov Model ◽  
Hidden Markov Model ◽  
Design Research ◽  
Hidden Markov ◽  
Functional Model ◽  
Dynamic Programming Algorithm ◽  
Programming Algorithm ◽  
Design Knowledge ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Failure Data

Modern product and engineering design research explores methods for formally generating design concepts from stored knowledge. We discuss a design methodology which utilizes archived design knowledge gained from product dissection to aid novice designers in developing new product designs. In this design paradigm, new designs are developed as a model of the product’s intended functionality, rather than a model of actual, physical components. This paper formulates an algorithm to automatically generate a set of components to instantiate such a functional model using archived design knowledge, which maps components to the functions they can satisfy and provides precedents for which components can be connected. In order to avoid generating an exponential number of instantiations, component failure data is leveraged to develop a dynamic programming algorithm. In addition, a method which uses this information to train a Hidden Markov Model is also developed. This Hidden Markov Model is consulted to generate a set of instantiations with low failure rates while avoiding exponential runtime.

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