scholarly journals Online Communication in Student Product Design Teams

Author(s):  
Georgia D. Van de Zande ◽  
David R. Wallace

New technological developments are changing how the product design community communicates in the workplace and in the classroom. Slack, an online communication application with some project management features, has become a popular communication tool among many workers and students. This paper examines the Slack conversation conducted by 16 student product development teams in a course at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 2.009: Product Engineering Processes. Following a typical product development process, co-located teams of 17–20 students each used the online communication tool in addition to face-to-face meetings to design new products in one semester. The resulting conversations were analyzed for message count over the course of the semester, message count by day of the week and hour of the day, message count by user, and communication organization. It was observed that teams tended to increase their communication right before deadlines and decrease it right after. When viewing teams’ communication patterns by day of the week and the hour of the day, it was seen that many teams increased their communication in a short period after team meetings. In both of these cases, successful teams tended to have more consistent communication. There was little correlation (R2 = 2186) between the number of hours teams reported working on the class and their Slack activity by day. When looking at a team’s total volume of communication, high volumes may indicate team members are working well, but it may also indicate they are struggling. Teams with higher levels of success tended to have more organized communication structures than teams with lower levels of success, as assessed by instructors. In addition to the data collected in this work, further research is still needed to understand with more certainty how online communication patterns correlate to teams’ levels of success or team behaviors.

2014 ◽  
Vol 1061-1062 ◽  
pp. 1233-1237 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pâmela Teixeira Fernandes ◽  
Osíris Canciglieri ◽  
Ângelo Márcio Oliveira Sant’Anna

This paper presents the findings of research exploring how designers could to evaluate and insert sustainability requirements in product design during the initial stages of the product development process. It describes the process of development of the method for sustainability consumable goods based from a literature review and explores its application in the development of packaging for cosmetic. The results show that the use of the method may be a promising solution for sustainable projects, providing the insertion of the reasoning for the inclusion of product development oriented to sustainability as a complement to traditional project requirements that existing in the models of product development.


Author(s):  
Jieun Kwon ◽  
Barry Kudrowitz

Abstract Idea visualization is a critical tool in a product development process. From early idea sketches to 3D prototyping, designers often visualize ideas for themselves and others in the process of feedback and refinement. The viewers of these ideas (clients, investors, collaborators, and consumers) rely on these visual presentations to evaluate the potential of a designer’s idea. Although sketching ideas is common practice in the product design industry, little is known about the extent to which presentation quality influences viewers’ evaluations of ideas. This paper examines the power of product sketch quality on perceived idea evaluation. In the present study, a total of 400 participants were asked to evaluate a set of product ideas presented with and without a sketch. The results show that when product sketches were presented, the participants were heavily influenced by the sketch quality when evaluating the value of the idea, and the concept ratings were somewhat different when sketches were not present. The results imply that viewers’ perceptions of idea worthiness are possibly dependent on how an idea is visually presented.


2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashish K. Rathore ◽  
P. Vigneswara Ilavarasan ◽  
Yogesh K. Dwivedi

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to conceptualise and discuss the possible insights that can be generated for product development by analysing the user-generated content available from various social media platforms. Design/methodology/approach – The paper reviews the role of user generated content in developing products and its features (e.g. appearance and shape). It delineates the directions in which the relationship between social media content and customer oriented concepts evolve while developing successful new products. Findings – The review and arguments presented in this paper suggest that the social media approach adds more value than the traditional approaches for obtaining insights about the products. Availability of users’ opinions and information about existing products provide insights for the improvement in the product design process. Co-creation and self-construal are important components that are based on customer engagement and customer behaviour, respectively, in the product design and development. Practical implications – As social media creates new ways of communication with users, businesses can include users into the product development process to improve and refine their products or for making the next generation of products. Originality/value – This paper suggests a new approach in getting useful insights about the products from user-generated contents. This way of using social media helps businesses to move forward from the traditional product development paradigms.


MRS Bulletin ◽  
1987 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 91-94
Author(s):  
Richard L. Pober ◽  
Elizabeth A. Thomson

In a relatively short period of time ceramics have become the key elements to a variety of new technologies, including integrated circuit substrates, artificial limbs, turbocharger rotors, and, of course, superconductors. By and large, however, they have not met their potential. Though advances in basic research are responsible for the breakthroughs so far, no extensive work has been done to establish the manufacturing paradigms necessary for the production of reliable, reproducible materials.The new Ceramics Manufacturing and Process Integration Laboratory (CMPIL) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was conceived to address this need. As a logical extension of the science-based Ceramics Processing Research Laboratory (CPRL), also at MIT, the CMPIL will “test” fundamental ideas as they relate to ceramics manufacturing. The goal is to create a hands-on “research factory,” complete with manufactured product, to make an impact on manufacturing productivity and teach students, staff, and visiting scientists the principles that control ceramics manufacturing systems. Other thrusts include developing innovative processing techniques and collecting operating data that will ultimately be transferred to industry.


Author(s):  
Jeffrey W. Herrmann ◽  
Mandar M. Chincholkar

Abstract This paper describes a decision support tool that can help a product development team reduce manufacturing cycle time during product design. This design for production (DFP) tool determines how manufacturing a new product design affects the performance of the manufacturing system by analyzing the capacity requirements and estimating the manufacturing cycle times. Performing these tasks early in the product development process can reduce product development time. The paper presents a comprehensive DFP approach and describes the components of the DFP tool, which gives feedback that can be used to eliminate manufacturing cycle time problems. We present an example that illustrates the tool’s functionality.


Author(s):  
Adam J. Shuttleworth ◽  
Atul Kelkar

Prior to the acceptance of computer aided engineering (CAE) software in the product development process (PDP), product development was characterized by a design-test-redesign-test cycle. This activity was time consuming and resource intensive. As CAE software tools have been integrated into the PDP, the PDP has been characterized by a design-simulate-redesign-test cycle. The addition of CAE tools to the PDP has reduced the time to market and resource consumption. Although the benefits of the integration of CAE software in the PDP process have been realized, there still exists an arbitrary relationship between the results from the CAE tools to engineering decisions regarding product design.


Author(s):  
Kuang-Hua Chang ◽  
Javier Silva ◽  
Ira Bryant

Abstract Conventional product development process employs a design-build-break philosophy. The sequentially executed product development process often results in a prolonged lead-time and an elevated product cost. The proposed concurrent design and manufacturing (CDM) process employs physics-based computational methods together with computer graphics technique for product design. This proposed approach employs Virtual Prototyping (VP) technology to support a cross-functional team analyzing product performance, reliability, and manufacturing cost early in the product development stage; and conducting quantitative trade-off for design decision making. Physical prototypes of the product design are then produced using Rapid Prototyping (RP) technique primarily for design verification purposes. The proposed CDM approach holds potential for shortening the overall product development cycle, improving product quality, and reducing product cost. A software tool environment that supports CDM for mechanical systems is being built at the Concurrent Design and Manufacturing Research Laboratory (http://cdm.ou.edu) at the University of Oklahoma. A snap shot of the environment is illustrated using a two-stroke engine example. This paper presents three unique concepts and methods for product development: (i) bringing product performance, quality, and manufacturing cost together in early design stage for design considerations, (ii) supporting design decision-making through a quantitative approach, and (iii) incorporating rapid prototyping for design verification through physical prototypes.


Author(s):  
Gregory M. Roach ◽  
Jordan J. Cox ◽  
Jared M. Young

A major challenge in industry today is to reduce the cost and cycle time in product development while maintaining enough flexibility to adapt to changing markets. Businesses are requiring more and more flexibility in order to produce custom goods at low cost. A new strategy called the Product Design Generator is presented to provide flexible product platforms through an automated design process where product variation is built into the product development process and is achieved through scalable and in some instances modular parametric models for a given product platform embodiment. A case study of web-based Product Design Generator is presented. The axial turbine disk Product Design Generator demonstrated cycle time reduction from 500 man hours to 15 minutes. This new product development strategy has demonstrated the potential to provide engineers the ability to study more potential design solutions, reduce the number of opportunities to introduce error in the product development process, and allows companies to apply a consistent design process across the organization.


Author(s):  
Marco Rossoni ◽  
Giorgio Colombo ◽  
Luca Bergonzi

Current trends in product development process highlight the increasing adoption of digital data and virtual processes. Nowadays, a huge amount of product data are collected without a clear management strategy and, oftentimes, they dont even cover the whole product development process. A global and integrated planning about information needed to sustain product design process is not a trivial task and, usually, companies underrates this issue. From the perspective of virtualization of processes, and then their automation, the lack of structured knowledge is certainly awful. This paper aims at making a critical analysis how product data evolve throughout the product design or configuration process and how they impact the product development activities. Efficient digital product twin allows companies to virtualize processes and leverage their automation, but it is important to understand how the knowledge management should be carried out. Three case studies, directly experienced by the authors, have been investigated analyzing digital data and virtual tools that allow companies to automate the design process, each one bringing a peculiar perspective of the problem.


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