Concept-to-Value: Method and Tool for Value Creation in Conceptual Design

Author(s):  
Ndrianarilala Rianantsoa ◽  
Bernard Yannou ◽  
Romaric Redon

This paper is dealing with the problem of steering the conceptual design by value. Indeed, the preliminary phase of the design process, which generates the innovative concepts that will be developed in detail, already defines broadly the created value of an innovation project. Contrarily to the detailed design that consists in design solutions refinement for well defined performances increase, the conceptual design is characterized by the fact that the design objects, like the design problems, the design concepts and knowledge, are not frozen, known or precised, and have to be defined progressively in a value creation way for customers and stakeholders. Since there are few works on this issue, we try then to suggest a conceptual design process based on the capture and evaluation of the generated intermediate objects for the maximization of the created value of this phase, and so of an innovative project. A descriptive model, a value model and a prescriptive production model of the intermediate objects are thus built and explained.

Author(s):  
Seth R. Crouch ◽  
Gregory M. Mocko

Requirements are an essential element to engineering design as they are used to focus idea generation during conceptual design, provide criteria for decision making during concept selection, and verify the chosen concept fulfills product needs. Because they are essential to the entire design process, emphasis must be placed on ensuring that they are correct. This research focuses on a value-based methodology useful for challenging and validating established requirements. A case study was conducted on an industry-sponsored project to use this value-based process on the requirements that constrain the design of an automotive seat. A human anthropomorphic model, comfort value model, occupant safety model, and a model of an automotive seat are integrated to establish an H-point travel window to maximize the safety and comfort of an automotive seating structure. This case study shows that this approach provides evidence to establish requirements based on value to the human rather than legacy seating requirements.


Author(s):  
Takashi Asanuma ◽  
Jumpei Kawashima ◽  
Yoshiki Ujiie ◽  
Yoshiyuki Matsuoka

In recent years the demands of users and the social problems have been diverse. In design, the diverse demands of users and problems of the society have created increasingly complex design problems. Therefore, it is important to understand values and images of the design objects and analyze the relation among design objects, human beings and its environment to respond to the complicated design problems. A number of design modeling methods that realize above points have been proposed. Consequently, it is necessary for designers and engineers to derivate the exact design solution that responds to the complicated design problems. However, the framework of design modeling methods in design has not been established. Moreover, most of the current studies on the methods only respond to the problems in each aspect of design [1]. Therefore, designers and engineers apply the design modeling methods in each design process based on their knowledge and experiences. The guideline of selection for the application of design modeling methods has not been shown. Consequently, the guideline for selecting the design modeling methods is needed for designers and engineers to apply the methods appropriately in design.


2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (06) ◽  
pp. 1350086 ◽  
Author(s):  
MLADENKO KAJTAZ ◽  
ALEKSANDAR SUBIC ◽  
MONIR TAKLA

The research presented in this paper has extended the substructuring technique into the nonlinear domain in order to apply the finite element analysis (FEA) method to complex nonlinear structural design problems in the conceptual design stage. As conventional FE models based on substructures allow only linear analysis, it was necessary in this research to introduce a new algorithm capable of linearizing nonlinear structural problems with sufficient accuracy in order to enable evaluation of engineering design concepts in a more objective and rigorous manner in the early stages of design. The developed method was implemented within a commercial FE solver, and validated using a select number of case studies. The results obtained for the two sample solutions indicate that the new method has achieved an improvement in accuracy of 90% and 98% respectively compared to the conventional FE-based approach applied to the same class of design problems.


Author(s):  
Tolga Kurtoglu ◽  
Albert Swantner ◽  
Matthew I. Campbell

AbstractConceptual design is a vital part of the design process during which designers first envision new ideas and then synthesize them into physical configurations that meet certain design specifications. In this research, a suite of computational tools is developed that assists the designers in performing this nontrivial task of navigating the design space for creating conceptual design solutions. The methodology is based on automating the function-based synthesis paradigm by combining various computational methods. Accordingly, three nested search algorithms are developed and integrated to capture different design decisions at various stages of conceptual design. The implemented system provides a method for automatically generating novel alternative solutions to real design problems. The application of the approach to the design of an electromechanical device shows the method's range of capabilities and how it serves as a comparison to human conceptual design generation and as a tool suite to complement the skills of a designer.


Author(s):  
Richard J. Malak ◽  
Christiaan J. J. Paredis

Decisions made during conceptual design can have a major impact on the success of a design project, and designers must take care to select a concept that leads to a desirable design solution. However, the inherently imprecise nature of design concepts complicates decision making. A single concept relates to a large set of specific design implementations, each of which has a different level of desirability based on the tradeoffs designers are willing to make. Thus, designers must consider tradeoffs across the many possible implementations of a design concept in order to decide between concepts rigorously. To accomplish this efficiently, designers require an abstract understanding of the characteristics of a design concept. In this paper, we describe an approach to modeling design concepts that is based on an extension of the notion of a Pareto set, called a parameterized Pareto set. Using this construct, designers can generate a model based on information about prior implementations of a design concept in a way that includes tradeoff information while being independent of implementation details and reusable for different design problems. We demonstrate the approach on the conceptual design of a gearbox. The example involves two different design scenarios that serve to demonstrate the reusability of the model and effectiveness of the overall approach.


Author(s):  
Sumbul Khan ◽  
Khushbu Maheshwary ◽  
Ryan Arlitt ◽  
Lucienne Blessing

Abstract Conventional forms of design assessment are time consuming for instructors. Crowdsourced assessment of students’ design concepts raises the need of efficient rubrics that facilitate novices to score similar to experts, in reduced time. We investigate rubrics in the context of conceptual design problems, that comprise open-ended questions, requiring students to express their design concepts and supporting rationale using text and sketches. We conducted exploratory post-hoc analysis on assessment data collected by instructors of a Design program at a Singaporean secondary school. Our results suggest that integrated rubrics — that consider both text and sketch component together — are better suited for the assessment of conceptual design problems, than task-specific rubrics, that consider textual and sketch components separately. Evidence from both novice assessors as well as experts suggests that the articulation of design rationale using text is crucial for the assessment of conceptual design problems as it provides assessors input into why design decisions were taken, thus aiding in the evaluation process. Our insights are relevant for developing frameworks that employ crowdsourcing for the assessment of conceptual design problems.


Author(s):  
Asli Agirbas

AbstractToday, in the field of architecture, bio-inspired algorithms can be used to design and seek solutions to design problems. Two of the most popular algorithms are the genetic algorithm (GA) and swarm intelligence algorithm. However, no study has examined the simultaneous use of these two bio-inspired algorithms in the field of architecture. Therefore, this study aims to test whether these two bio-inspired algorithms can work together. To this end, GA is used in this study to optimize the rule-based swarm algorithm for the conceptual design process. In this optimization test, the objective was to increase the surface area, and the constraints are parcel boundary and building height. Further, the forms associated with swarm agents were determined as variables. Following the case studies, the study concludes that the two bio-inspired algorithms can effectively work together.


Author(s):  
Andrea CAPRA ◽  
Ana BERGER ◽  
Daniela SZABLUK ◽  
Manuela OLIVEIRA

An accurate understanding of users' needs is essential for the development of innovative products. This article presents an exploratory method of user centered research in the context of the design process of technological products, conceived from the demands of a large information technology company. The method is oriented - but not restricted - to the initial stages of the product development process, and uses low-resolution prototypes and simulations of interactions, allowing users to imagine themselves in a future context through fictitious environments and scenarios in the ambit of ideation. The method is effective in identifying the requirements of the experience related to the product’s usage and allows rapid iteration on existing assumptions and greater exploration of design concepts that emerge throughout the investigation.


2006 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 170-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Koishi ◽  
Z. Shida

Abstract Since tires carry out many functions and many of them have tradeoffs, it is important to find the combination of design variables that satisfy well-balanced performance in conceptual design stage. To find a good design of tires is to solve the multi-objective design problems, i.e., inverse problems. However, due to the lack of suitable solution techniques, such problems are converted into a single-objective optimization problem before being solved. Therefore, it is difficult to find the Pareto solutions of multi-objective design problems of tires. Recently, multi-objective evolutionary algorithms have become popular in many fields to find the Pareto solutions. In this paper, we propose a design procedure to solve multi-objective design problems as the comprehensive solver of inverse problems. At first, a multi-objective genetic algorithm (MOGA) is employed to find the Pareto solutions of tire performance, which are in multi-dimensional space of objective functions. Response surface method is also used to evaluate objective functions in the optimization process and can reduce CPU time dramatically. In addition, a self-organizing map (SOM) proposed by Kohonen is used to map Pareto solutions from high-dimensional objective space onto two-dimensional space. Using SOM, design engineers see easily the Pareto solutions of tire performance and can find suitable design plans. The SOM can be considered as an inverse function that defines the relation between Pareto solutions and design variables. To demonstrate the procedure, tire tread design is conducted. The objective of design is to improve uneven wear and wear life for both the front tire and the rear tire of a passenger car. Wear performance is evaluated by finite element analysis (FEA). Response surface is obtained by the design of experiments and FEA. Using both MOGA and SOM, we obtain a map of Pareto solutions. We can find suitable design plans that satisfy well-balanced performance on the map called “multi-performance map.” It helps tire design engineers to make their decision in conceptual design stage.


Actuators ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 133
Author(s):  
Tobias Vonderbank ◽  
Katharina Schmitz

Increasing performance in modern hydraulics is achieved by a close investigation of possible enhancements of its components. Prior research has pointed out that electromechanical actuators can form suitable alternatives to hydraulically piloted control systems. Since the requirements at these actuation systems depend on the operating conditions of the system, each actuator can be optimized to the respective hydraulic system. Considering that many different conceptual designs are suitable, the phase of conceptual design plays a decisive role during the design process. Therefore, this paper focuses on the process of developing new conceptual designs for electromechanical valve actuation systems using the method of function structures. Aiming to identify special design features, which need to be considered during the design process of electromechanical actuation systems, an exemplary actuator was designed based on the derived function structure. To highlight the potential of function structures for the development of new electromechanical valve actuation systems, two principal concepts, which allow the reduction of the necessary forces, have been developed by extending the function structure. These concepts have been experimentally investigated to identify their advantages and disadvantages.


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