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 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.

Design Process Error-Proofing: Strategies for Reducing Quality Loss in Product Development

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence P. Chao ◽  
Kosuke Ishii
Keyword(s):  
Quality Management ◽  
Product Development ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Research Topic ◽  
Quality Loss ◽  
Global Organizations ◽  
Process Error ◽  
Management Techniques ◽  
Error Proofing

Design errors are a major source of quality loss in industry today. “Design Process Error-Proofing” seeks to prevent errors during product development by adapting quality management techniques. Poka-yoke solutions used in manufacturing and operation aim to prevent mistakes from occurring or detect them immediately after they are committed. The goal of design process error-proofing is to extend this strategy and develop innovative structured methods and tools that understand, predict, and prevent design errors. Because the research topic is fairly new, case studies are used to both explain and demonstrate the usefulness of solutions. Through a series of design initiatives at leading global organizations, important lessons were identified in the treatment of design errors. This paper discusses these error-proofing strategies and results.

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.

VR Based Integration of Technical and Shape Design Processes in Product Development

1997 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Brandt ◽  
Jörg Lemke
Keyword(s):  
Product Development ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Product Structure ◽  
Shape Design ◽  
Functional Design ◽  
Technical Design ◽  
Design Processes ◽  
Speed Up ◽  
Industrial Designers

Abstract The use of proven modules in engineering design is a common approach that can be understood as one of the key elements in engineering design helping to speed up product development. Today manufacturers have to be aware of the fact that there are tight links between a products shape, its functional design and the overall product structure. The “form follows function” paradigma is no longer valid for most modern products. It is obvious that there is a strong demand to reduce the expenses in technical design by supporting the communicational needs between the technical and industrial designers during the entire design process with the help of appropriate CAE tools. This paper presents an approach to integrate technical and shape design processes using advanced visualisation tools and VR technology.

scholarly journals A Tool for Systematically Accessing the Level of Readiness of Engineering Design in Product Development

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Behdinan ◽  
M. Fahimian ◽  
R. Pop-Iliev
Keyword(s):  
Product Development ◽  
Product Design ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Technical Point ◽  
Design Project ◽  
Engineering Approach ◽  
Readiness Level

 Abstract – This paper introduces a top down, system-engineering approach to develop a quantifiable and systematic tool, referred to as Design Readiness Level (DRL), to gauge design at each stage of product development. It is developed to facilitate communication between different stockholders of a design project and to address the complexities arising during all the phases of product design, from initiation to completion. The design process as one of the pillars of DRL has been studied thoroughly and is categorized into nine stages to reflect the technical flow in product development. The design stages are iterative at any level from 1 to 9 and have distinctive deliverables at the end of each stage. The deliverables simplify and characterize the assessment of the design from the technical point of view. Developing a comprehensive DRL metrics that encompasses all the stockholders’ perspectives in a design is a work in progress.

scholarly journals A Web-Based Environment for Documentation and Sharing of Engineering Design Knowledge

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin A. Rockwell ◽  
Paul Witherell ◽  
Rui Fernandes ◽  
Ian Grosse ◽  
Sundar Krishnamurty ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Product Development ◽  
Knowledge Base ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Circuit Breaker ◽  
Design Knowledge ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Distributed Information ◽  
Knowledge Framework

This paper presents the foundation for a collaborative Web-based environment for improving communication by formally defining a platform for documentation and sharing of engineering design knowledge throughout the entire design process. In this work an ontological structure is utilized to concisely define a set of individual engineering concepts. This set of modular ontologies link together to create a flexible, yet consistent, product development knowledge-base. The resulting infrastructure uniquely enables the information stored within the knowledge-base to be readily inspectable and computable, thus allowing for design tools that reason on the information to assist designers and automate design processes. A case study of the structural optimization of a transfer plate for an aerospace circuit breaker is presented to demonstrate implementation and usefulness of the knowledge framework. The results indicate that the ontological knowledge-base can be used to prompt engineers to document important product development information, increase understanding of the design process, provide a means to intuitively retrieve information, and seamlessly access distributed information.

Design Methods Used During Early Stages of Product Development: Three Company Cases

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlye A. Lauff ◽  
Daria Kotys-Schwartz ◽  
Mark E. Rentschler
Keyword(s):  
Product Development ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
New Product Development ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Design Education ◽  
Design Theory ◽  
Design Methods ◽  
Consumer Electronics ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Early Stages

Companies need to employ new design methods and tools to remain competitive in today’s global economy. Design methods are used to help teams move through the different stages of the design process, such as during project scoping, concept generation, and concept selection. Concept generation design methods are meant to help teams generate diverse, novel, and creative potential solutions. However, most design methods are developed and refined based on studies with student teams. This limits our understanding of how professionals engage with design methods in practice. This is a case study exploring the design methods used by three companies during the early stages of new product development. These companies are from the consumer electronics, footwear, and medical devices industries, and each design team within the companies was tasked with developing a new physical end product. We identified that all three teams heavily relied on internal and external benchmarking and reverse engineering design methods as part of concept generation. Ultimately, the products they developed were all considered evolutionary, meaning that the final product was a slightly improved version of similar products already on the market. This contrasts revolutionary products, which can change or disrupt the current field in one or more ways. This research contributes to design theory and methodology through empirically studying how companies engage in the design process, identifying the methods employed by professionals, and raising new questions about design methods, especially translation to industry. This research also contributes to design education by identifying methods that professionals use in practice, which can translate to direct recommendations for improving project-based engineering design courses.

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.

Experience Design Applied to Research

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea CAPRA ◽  
Ana BERGER ◽  
Daniela SZABLUK ◽  
Manuela OLIVEIRA
Keyword(s):  
Information Technology ◽  
Product Development ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Development Process ◽  
Product Development Process ◽  
Experience Design ◽  
Low Resolution ◽  
Design Concepts ◽  
Innovative Products ◽  
Technological Products

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.

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