scholarly journals Set-Based Thinking in the Engineering Design Community and Beyond

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sourobh Ghosh ◽  
Warren Seering
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Product Development ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Concurrent Engineering ◽  
Theoretical Construct ◽  
Work Related ◽  
Academic Communities ◽  
The World ◽  
Set Based Design

Since a series of academic case studies had revealed Toyota’s unique product development practices to the world, a flurry of research has been conducted into set-based design, also known as set-based concurrent engineering. In this paper, we review work related to set-based design across academic communities in efforts to find common themes and influences. After a review of this literature, we inductively arrive at two Principles of Set-Based Thinking: considering sets of distinct alternatives concurrently and delaying convergent decision making. These Principles allow us to articulate a working description of set-based design. We then examine these two Principles at work in a case example of a common theoretical construct in design.

Media Culture in Nomadic Communities

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allison Hailey Hahn
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Land Tenure ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Northern China ◽  
Media Culture ◽  
Government Action ◽  
Lakota Sioux ◽  
The World ◽  
Nomadic Communities

Media Culture in Nomadic Communities examines the ways that new technologies and ICT infrastructures have changed the communicative norms and patterns that regulate mobile and nomadic communities' engagement in local and international deliberative decision making. Each chapter examines a unique communicative event, such has how the Maasai of Tanzania have used online petitions to demand government action. How Mongolians in northern China have used micro blogs to record and debate land tenure. And how herding communities from around the world have supported the Lakota Sioux protests at Standing Rock. Through these case studies, Hahn argues that mobile and nomadic communities are creating and utilizing new communicative networks that are radically changing local, national, and international deliberations.

scholarly journals The Analysis of three Case Studies as a guide to the Development of Pedagogy in Engineering Design Education

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Burns
Keyword(s):  
Product Development ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Design Education ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Engineering Product ◽  
Knowledge Based ◽  
Engineering Design Education ◽  
Dynamic Formulation

The Case Study has become a pedagogical vehicle ofchoice in helping engineering students to gain perspective on the multidisciplinary realities of design. What once were termed ‘war stories’ have evolved to a level where case studies are available and downloadable on all manner of topics. For the fundamental knowledge-based issues of engineering, example questions have commonly been created to help the student manoeuvre through all manner of possible combinations of application. The case study is not however fabricated, and relies on the reporting and documentation of a real design or engineering product development. In recent years many of these case studies have been related to ethics and communication, but very few have been related to ongoing product development and issues of Industrial Design. This is not surprising since the creation of such case studies is time consuming, and design is often a ‘messy’ process in which few companies would be keen to expose their failures along the way. Nevertheless case studies are a vital part of Engineering Design education and offer excellent potential for the development of the pedagogy vital to the dynamic formulation of Engineering Design Education. This paper references three design projects undertaken professionally by the author as an Industrial Designer working with predominantly engineering based companies. The aim is to identify critical aspects of these projects that could be used as lessons, perhaps, but not necessarily, as case studies, but to be incorporated into engineering design education.

The Ethics Project

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 285-302
Author(s):  
Jason Brennan ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Opportunity Cost ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Role Playing ◽  
Strategic Decision ◽  
Ethical Principles ◽  
Entrepreneurial Activity ◽  
Strategic Decision Making ◽  
The World

This paper describes the “Ethics Project”, a semester-long entrepreneurial activity in which students must make real-life decisions and then reflect upon their decisions. The Ethics Project asks students to think of something good to do, something that adds value to the world, and then do it. Along the way, they must navigate problems of opportunity cost or feasibility versus desirability, must anticipate and overcome strategic and ethical obstacles, and must ensure they add value, taking into account their costs. Rather than role-playing through case studies, students live through real-life case studies which result from their own choices. When properly administered, the Ethics Project trains student to be principled leaders who integrate ethical principles into strategic decision-making, and who can discover and overcome their own moral limitations.

Tempting Fate

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul C. Avey
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
The United States ◽  
Biological Weapons ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
The World ◽  
Chemical And Biological Weapons ◽  
Tempting Fate

Why would countries without nuclear weapons even think about fighting nuclear-armed opponents? A simple answer is that no one believes nuclear weapons will be used. But that answer fails to consider why nonnuclear state leaders would believe that in the first place. This book argues that the costs and benefits of using nuclear weapons create openings that weak nonnuclear actors can exploit. It uses four case studies to show the key strategies available to nonnuclear states: Iraqi decision-making under Saddam Hussein in confrontations with the United States; Egyptian leaders' thinking about the Israeli nuclear arsenal during wars in 1969–70 and 1973; Chinese confrontations with the United States in 1950, 1954, and 1958; and a dispute that never escalated to war, the Soviet–United States tensions between 1946 and 1948 that culminated in the Berlin Blockade. Those strategies include limiting the scope of the conflict, holding chemical and biological weapons in reserve, seeking outside support, and leveraging international non-use norms. Counterintuitively, conventionally weak nonnuclear states are better positioned to pursue these strategies than strong ones, so that wars are unlikely when the nonnuclear state is powerful relative to its nuclear opponent. The book demonstrates clearly that nuclear weapons cast a definite but limited shadow, and while the world continues to face various nuclear challenges, understanding conflict in nuclear monopoly will remain a pressing concern for analysts and policymakers.

Modelling the Information Flows in Engineering Design: A New Paradigm

1997 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver P. Boston ◽  
Stephen J. Culley ◽  
Christopher A. McMahon
Keyword(s):  
Product Development ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Information Model ◽  
Information Flows ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
Formal Modelling ◽  
Software Application ◽  
Modelling Techniques

Abstract The work presented within this paper represents a step towards providing the understanding necessary to improve support for engineering designers undertaking their day-to-day activities. In particular, it presents an evolving technique for both modelling and managing the information flows between the design functions of customers and suppliers engaged in product development. The technique, termed the Multifunctional Information Model (MIM), provides an easy to read, continually updateable record of bilateral information exchanges, mapped onto the design process phases. It was derived from observations of engineering designers in practice, and has subsequently been applied to a number of case-studies. The paper first considers the required characteristics of such a model, and evaluates a number of the formal modelling techniques against these. It then presents a ‘walk-through’ of the development of MIM, followed by an overview of its implementation in a software application.

scholarly journals Christina Cameron, Recognizing Associative Values in World Heritage

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-26
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
World Heritage ◽  
World Heritage Sites ◽  
Heritage Sites ◽  
Its Analysis ◽  
Knowledge Based ◽  
The World ◽  
Outstanding Universal Value ◽  
Expert Study

With the increased interest in the commemoration of sites of memory, including battlefields and sites of genocide, UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre commissioned an expert study in 2018 to clarify the way criterion (vi) is applied to recognize the associative values at nominated properties. The study was intended to facilitate knowledge-based decision-making for properties with strong associative values. This paper outlines the lack of clarity and the World Heritage Committee’s concerns about the definition and application of criterion (vi). After documenting the evolution in the wording of criterion (vi), the article explains the important contribution of the 2018 report, in particular its analysis of 240 statements of Outstanding Universal Value that have used criterion (vi). It concludes that further studies should focus on the analysis of the 240 World Heritage sites using precedents from previous inscriptions and case studies to theorize the six associations of criterion (vi), namely events, living traditions, ideas, beliefs, artistic works and literary works. Such research should also address methodologies for protecting and managing the attributes of associative values. These additional studies would support more consistent and knowledgeable use of criterion (vi) and thereby enhance the recognition and protection of associative values at World Heritage sites.

Making sense of engineering design review activities

2007 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 243-266 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory Huet ◽  
Stephen J. Culley ◽  
Christopher A. McMahon ◽  
ClÉment Fortin
Keyword(s):  
Product Development ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Study Data ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Product Development Process ◽  
Mapping Technique ◽  
Design Review ◽  
Meeting Capture ◽  
Knowledge Intensive

AbstractEngineering design reviews, which take place at predetermined phases of the product development process, are fundamental elements for the evaluation and control of engineering activities. These meetings are also acknowledged as unique opportunities for all the parties involved to share information about the product and related engineering processes. For product development teams, the knowledge generated during a design review is not as secondary as it may seem; key design decisions, design experiences, and associated rationale are frequently made explicit. Useful work has been carried out on the design review process itself, but little work has been undertaken about the detailed content of the meeting activity; it is argued that understanding the transactions that take place during a meeting is critical to building an effective knowledge-oriented recording strategy. To this effect, an extensive research program based on case studies in the aerospace engineering domain has been carried out. The work reported in this paper focuses on a set of tools and methods developed to characterize and analyze in depth the transactions observed during a number of case studies. The first methodology developed, the transcript coding scheme, uses an intelligent segmentation of meeting discourse transcriptions. The second approach, which bypasses the time consuming transcribing operation, is based on a meeting capture template developed to enable a meeting observer to record the transactions as the meeting takes place. A third method, the information mapping technique, has also been developed to interpret the case study data in terms of decisions, actions, rationale, and lessons learned, effectively generating qualitative measures of the information lost in the formal records of design reviews. Overall, the results generated by the set of tools presented in this paper have fostered a practical strategy for the knowledge intensive capture of the contents of design reviews. The concluding remarks also discuss possible enhancements to the meeting analysis tools presented in this paper and future work aimed at the development of a computer supported capture software for design reviews.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document