System of System Based Sociotechnical Complexity Challenges in Product and Process Design

Unique characteristic of system of system based product life cycle challenges evolves different level of systems. This means the product design system and process level system consideration are very important besides the system level issues for product and process development which are part of systems of system. These core issues include the physical elements, assembly process and its related cognitive elements of component to that particular assembly and its process at Sub system level which are fundamental of System of system in holistic perspective of new product and process design. Any system level change or variety affects the next adjacent system in the same product as a member of same family of a system of system. In this paper the aspect of Hybrid electric car battery has been explored to reduce the system of system level sociotecnical complexity in product design. In this context, the affect of changeability in the assembly system level has been explored and DFA analysis and the complexity Index of the product at physical structure, assembly process and cognitive system level been discussed to draw analogy for making an understanding of similar nature of the system in platform based product and process family development.

Automated Assignment of Physical Effects to Functions Using Ports Based on Bond Graphs

Innovation processes are highly susceptible to cyclic influences, such as evolving knowledge due to new technologies. In order to cope with these challenge, computational support is required. Paper-based design methods have vast amounts of knowledge at their disposal in the form of design catalogues. However, lacking a computational implementation, these knowledge sources provide no support for considering dynamic influences in the innovation process. The presented method is targeted at making the physical effects contained in design catalogues available for computational design synthesis approaches. For this purpose, this paper introduces the notion of abstraction ports that is used to represent the valid mapping between functional operators and physical effects. For the automated assignment of abstraction ports, a method has been developed that analyzes the equation structure of physical effects. This approach is derived from the modeling technique of bond graphs and is independent of any selection process proposed by design catalogues. Moreover, it allows for the formalization of evolving knowledge in new physical effects that are not yet contained in design catalogues. The assignment of abstraction ports has been successfully validated through the formalization of the physical effects of two design catalogues. Future work comprises the integration of quantitative characteristics of physical effects and the realization within the object-oriented graph grammar system booggie.

The Role of Sketch Finish and Style in User Responses to Early Stage Design Concepts

Conceptual sketches of design alternatives are often employed as a tool for eliciting feedback from design stakeholders, including potential end-users. However, such sketches can vary widely in their level of finish and style, thus potentially affecting how users respond to a concept. This paper presents a study of user responses to three objects drawn in styles ranging from rough hand sketches to CAD drawings. This study also considers the amount of design time required to create the sketches. Results show that respondents generally ranked realistic, “clean” hand sketches the highest over other types of sketches, particularly “rough” sketches. These types of sketches took longer than other types of hand sketches to create, but were still much faster than CAD renderings. Results also suggest that the complexity and familiarity of an object can influence how users respond to a sketch.

Identifying Enablers and Barriers to Successful Platform-Based Product Development: A Case Study From Business-to-Business Products

Product development teams are facing continued pressure to develop more products in less time and with fewer resources. Platform-based developed is commonly seen as a solution to increase capacity of the product development pipeline. This research identified enablers and barriers to successful platform-based product development. This was achieved through a comprehensive literature review of the current state of the art and an exploratory case study of product development practices within a business-to-business environment from companies with significantly different cultures and experiences with platform-based product development. Key enablers identified in this research include institutionalizing systems engineering, development and communication of product development roadmaps, augmentation of phase gate review process and critical parameter characterization. Operational recommendations from this research are considered to be possible to implement without significant changes to existing processes and organizational structures.

Reliability and Accuracy of Bootstrap and Monte Carlo Methods for Demand Distribution Modeling

Estimation of demand is one of the most important tasks in new product development. How customers come to appreciate and decide to purchase a new product impacts demand and hence profit of the product. Unfortunately, when designers select a new product concept early in the product development process, the future demand of the new product is not known. Conjoint analysis is a statistical method that has been used to estimate a demand of a new product concept from customer survey data. Although conjoint analysis has been increasingly incorporated in design engineering as a method to estimate a demand of a new product design, it has not been fully employed to model demand uncertainty. This paper demonstrates and compares two approaches that use conjoint analysis data to model demand uncertainty: bootstrap of respondent choice data and Monte Carlo simulation of utility estimation errors. Reliability of demand distribution and accuracy of demand estimation are compared for the two approaches in an illustrative example.

A Review of Design for X Methods for Medical Devices: The Introduction of a Design for FDA Approach

This paper focuses on the importance of the regulations, in particular the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in the development of medical devices. The FDA regulates medical devices to assure that these products are safe and effective before their release into the Unites States market. We introduce the concept of Design for FDA (DfFDA) and describe DfFDA guidelines for medical device development. While many researchers describe the regulations in the form of reviews and models, the literature to date has not reported a DfFDA method. Here, DfFDA is proposed as a method to be used in parallel with other DfX methods when applicable. The DfX methods identified include: Design for Validation (DfV), Design for Reliability (DfR), Design for Quality (DfQ), Design for Manufacturing (DfM), Design for Assembly (DfA) and Design for Usability (DfU). This paper also reviews the literature addressing the FDA regulations and DfX methods, and an overview of the FDA regulations is presented. DfFDA is developed to increase awareness about regulatory compliance and promote designers to consider the regulations throughout the development process of medical devices.

A Model for Making Part Sourcing Decisions for Long Life Cycle Products

Long life cycle products, commonly found in aviation, medical and critical infrastructure applications, are often fielded and supported for long periods of time (20 years or more). The manufacture and support of long life cycle products rely on the availability of suitable parts, which over long periods of time, leaves the parts susceptible to a number of possible supply chain disruptions such as suppliers exiting the market, counterfeit part risks, and part obsolescence. One solution to mitigating the supply chain risk is the strategic formulation of suitable part sourcing strategies (optimally selecting one or more suppliers from which to purchase parts over the life of the part’s use within a product or within an organization). Strategic sourcing offers one way of avoiding the risk of part unavailability (and its associated penalties), but at the possible expense of qualification and support costs for multiple suppliers. Existing methods used to study part sourcing decisions are procurement-centric where cost tradeoffs focus on part pricing, negotiation practices and purchase volumes. These studies are commonplace in strategic parts management for short life cycle products; however, conventional procurement-centric approaches offer only a limited view when assessing parts used in long life cycle products. Procurement-driven decision-making provides little to no insight into the accumulation of life cycle cost (attributed to the adoption and use of the part), which can be significantly larger than procurement costs in long life cycle products. This paper presents a new life cycle modeling approach to quantify risk that enables cost effective part sourcing strategies. The method quantifies obsolescence risk as “annual expected total cost of ownership (TCO) per part site” modeled by estimating the likelihood of obsolescence and using that likelihood to determine the TCO allowing sourcing strategies to be compared on a life cycle cost basis. The method is demonstrated for electronic parts in an example case study of linear regulators and shows that when procurement and inventory costs are small contributions to the part’s TCO, the cost of qualifying and supporting a second source outweighs the benefits of extending the part’s effective procurement life.

Service Information Database for Consumer Acceptance

Hardly any engineering product is free of trouble and it has to go through service work, corrective or preventive. Fixing a mechanical pencil with a jammed lead is relatively an easy task for a mechanical engineer, whereas maintaining a power plant requires thorough planning, material handling, work order processing, and huge workforce. Naturally service work for large structures require a well designed database. The authors have shown [1] the importance of feeding service information back to the designer for authorization so the serviceperson will not “invent” maintenance work that may lead to product failure. This paper further suggests opening the whole service process to the public. The idea is especially valuable for some industries that need public acceptance, e.g., nuclear power generation. Nuclear power generation is often a subject of debate for public acceptance. This paper discusses two incidents of cover-ups by utility companies that caused large setback in their public acceptance, one case of overreaction triggered by the media showing dramatic accident scenes without explaining what was going wrong, and an example of poor management that cost a utility company its credence with the public. Up to the time of these incidents utility companies, out of the mindset of “Public do not understand our highly technical operation so telling them what is going on just creates confusion,” tended not to fully explain events that may have affected the public. Thanks to the way information flows around the world these days, even though we may not follow the “techy” words, there are those that understand the phenomena and are good at rephrasing the information so we can easily understand them. The utility company in the poor management case, Chugoku Electric Power Company (ENERGIA), in its efforts to recover the public trust, started a new service information system on the web that opens information about troubles and nonconformance in their plants to the public. This paper explains this new system that is currently in operation. It is a total change in the way a utility company interacts with the public. The courageous step by ENERGIA raises the public knowledge and awareness of nuclear power generation and assures security and safety to the society. The INTERNET is making it harder for companies, administration, educational institutions or any other entities to operate without public acceptance. Opening information is a way we all have to get used to in the coming years.

A Validation Regarding Effectiveness of Scenario Graph

Scenario Graph is a structured mind mapping methodology that aids design teams to generate potential scenarios for new products and services while visually organizing contextual information. Since its introduction in industry and academia, the Scenario Graph has helped design teams to capture new values and behaviors of potential customers during the problem formulation stage. At the same time, the Scenario Graph, sharing a common challenge with various design methods, has faced difficulty regarding validation of its effectiveness as a design method. This paper describes a validation framework for a method in problem formulation stages and an experiment, which compare ideation results of 87 people — 43 people with the Scenario Graph method (as a test group) and 44 people with the Brainstorming (as a control group) — to solve an identical problem. While the results show no statistically significant difference in the number of ideas generated, the data reveals statistically significant differences in the quality of ideas. The test group, which used the Scenario Graph, yielded ideas that were more novel, feasible, and abstract than the control group, which used the Brainstorming, did. These metrics represent a way to measure the quality of ideas in the domain of engineering design. Our experiment confirms the hypotheses that the Scenario Graph is effective in improving the performance of idea generation sessions, which is consistent with qualitative evaluations. The lessons, gained from this experiment, provide an insight on how this method can be effectively used during the early stages of concept generation of a company’s process for product and/or service development.

The Role of Conceptualization and Design in Product Realization

The term Product realization is usually used to describe the physical realization of a product in the product development cycle. Therefore, the term may or may not include conceptualization and design phases. Considering that product realization means bringing a product to reality, it is important to study the concept of reality to understand the role of conceptualization, design, and manufacturing in product realization. In this paper, the concept of reality is expanded to include the perceptual and virtual realities as integral parts of the product realization process. This paper discusses the three phases of realization and their interactions. It also addresses the key roles of conceptualization, design and manufacturability in the realization process. To illustrate the concepts, presented in the paper, some examples are included.