To objectively and quantitatively study transcribed protocols of design conversations, we apply a semantic analysis approach based on dynamic semantic networks of nouns. We examined the applicability of the approach focused on a dynamic evaluation of the design problem solving process in engineering design educational settings. Using a case of real-world case, we show that the approach is able to determine the time dynamics of semantic factors such as level of abstraction, polysemy, information content, and quantify convergence/divergence in engineering design conversations.

This paper presents models that identify two “cultures” of computational design practice. By reviewing the established culture of computational optimization efforts and contrasting it with the emerging work integrating human-factors into these optimizations, this paper argues that there are sets of key assumptions, outputs and tools that can be synthesized for a generalizable understanding of computational design. Furthermore, this synthesis facilitates the identification of key tools suited to computational design efforts seeking to integrate the complex data associated with human-factors.

The more dynamic and unpredictable the development constraints, the more agile the development project should be to cope with and utilize inherent change. Especially in such contexts, aligning with the project's mission and vision, committing to next steps, and documenting the development path is challenging. To support the decision making process of self-organized agile development teams with an overview, a recent research paper proposes the Progress Map. The investigation at hand applies the Progress Map in semi-industrial development projects to empirically validate its applicability and performance in the form of a multi-case study. The results indicate that, given future refinements, this instrument can be valuable to plan, document, and communicate the progress of an agile development project.

This study provides insights into the capabilities and performance of generative AI, specifically ChatGPT, in engineering design. ChatGPT participated in a 48-hour hackathon by instructing two participants who acted out its instructions, successfully designing and prototyping a NERF dart launcher that finished second among six teams. The paper highlights the potential and limitations of generative AI as a tool for ideation, decision-making, and optimization in engineering tasks, demonstrating the practical applicability of generating viable design solutions under real-world constraints.

This pilot study examines how design students comprehend collaborations with external organizations— the roles and involvement of different actors in a design process. The study looks at two undergraduate courses where a total of 33 design students collaborate with a municipality and governmental agency. Data focuses on the students' terminology in regard to the external organizations and is collected through questionnaires, voice recording, workshops and written assignments. The data analysis is both quantitative and qualitative, focusing on the word frequency and semantics of the terminology. The results show that the students were not used to working closely to external organizations. This is reflected in the prevalent use of the term “client” instead of “collaborative partner”. Not working closely with organizations nor users is reflected in the students’ inabilities to handle the complexities that emerge when working with multiple stakeholder and users. At the end of the paper, suggestions are made of ways to develop students’ comprehension of ways to involve external organizations and users in the design process.

This article investigates human geometry in design, allowing exploration of unknown geometries in Paralympic sports equipment. By creating a configuration map exploring the solution-space, optimal sit-ski seating positions–in the sense of performance and ergonomics–can efficiently be found for individual athletes. A physical prototype was developed, and an experiment was designed to identify changes in performance due to different geometries. The design method and application make it possible to translate critical angles onto geometries, and test individuals for optimal work ergonomics.

Sustainability is a key issue for manufacturing companies, which detail in their annual corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports how they plan to operationalise the seventeen sustainable development goals set by the United Nations in 2016. Design is deemed particularly relevant to integrate sustainability issues, and many design for sustainability (DFS) approaches have developed since the 1980s. However, the lack of understanding of the relationship between CSR and design prevents DFS approaches from enabling sustainability issues to be integrated in the design process in a relevant manner with the CSR strategy of a company. Consequently, we developed a mapping methodology in order to provide a better understanding of the CSR-design relationship. This mapping methodology consists in (1) identifying the relevant CSR goals that can be managed during the design process, (2) gathering information about the links between these CSR goals and the design process through semi-structured interviews, and (3) building a map representing these links. We started to apply our mapping methodology in an application case in the automotive industry. The first results of this application are presented in this article.

While designing and discussing exhibitions in science centers, common conceptual framework is needed. This paper provides a framework based on participation, virtuality, and collaboration, and two models - a Rubik's cube model and a Scatter plot space. They are suitable tools for analysis and overview of existing and planned exhibitions, as well as for conceptual analysis during the design process. The classification and the models for the interaction have been developed in a research by design process, where 45 prototypes have been designed, exhibited and tested.

The Pugh Method of Controlled Convergence is evaluated based on social choice theory, both from an axiomatic basis, and by examining all possible cases of attribute ranks for a range of numbers of alternatives and numbers of attributes. The evaluation shows that, for a typical Pugh application, concept selection varies with the arbitrary choice of datum or is simply incorrect in about one-third of the cases. While there are merits to the iteration steps and creation of new alternatives within the Pugh method, a simpler and more expressive concept ranking procedure can give far superior results.

In order to meet the quality standards required in today's product development process, the designer must be able to draw on the knowledge contained in standards at all times. However, in today's digital work environment, these are usually only available in paper or PDF form. To support the designer during the product development process, a research project examine how knowledge from standards can be made available digitally and integrated into his working environment. This paper presents a concept with a RESTful service as a central knowledge base, which provides knowledge in the form of microservices. The implementation is carried out using welding assemblies as an example. To achieve the high-quality requirements and to implement them, the standard contents had to be prepared in a machine-interpretable and cross system way.

Product-Service Systems (PSS) are seen as key enablers of circularity. However, better sustainability performance of PSS when compared to transactional business models is not given and it must be carefully considered in the design process. The early-stage PSS design is considered crucial because it determines most of the future offerings' impact. Nevertheless, manufacturing companies struggle with PSS design and often rely on ad hoc intuitive approaches with low success rates. Current PSS design approaches have been dispersed in literature until a recent systematic literature review by the authors proposed a comprehensive generic process model to enable the inclusion of sustainability considerations in the early stages. This paper takes the generic process model as a starting point and instantiates it to the context of two manufacturing companies, seeking to (i) explore the instantiation process from a generic to company-specific process models to support manufacturing companies; and (ii) reflect upon and prepare an evaluation of the generic process model concerning eight predefined criteria. The study reveals a number of potential areas for improving both generic and instantiated process models.

The increasing need to motivate and engage participants in the co-design has led to the trend of employing game elements in the early phase of the design process to facilitate the activities. However, most have described the gamified co-design by its methods, purposes, and functions. How games theoretically contribute to achieving those goals is still uncovered. This research aims to bridge this theoretical-practical gap by first defining the game principles from the literature. Then investigate how those principles manifested in two case studies with detailed game elements. Finally, we present a framework that links the game principles and purposes/functions by reflecting the cases.

The paper presents a Model-Driven approach for Product-Service System (PSS) Design promoting an increased digitalization of the PSS design process based on the combination of data-driven design (DDD) activities and value-driven design (VDD) methods. The approach is the results of an 8-year long research profile named (omitted for blind review) featuring the collaboration between (omitted for blind review) and nine industrial companies, in the field of PSS Design. It combines VDD models and the supporting data-driven activities in the frame of PSS design and aligns with the product value stream and the knowledge value stream in the product innovation process as described by Kennedy et al. (2008). The paper provides a high-level overview of the approach describing the different stages and activities, and provides references to external scientific contributions for more exhaustive descriptions of the research rationale and validity. The approach is meant to ultimately drive the development and implementation of a simulation environment for cross-functional and multi-disciplinary decision making in PSS, named Model-Driven Decision Arena, describe in the concluding part of the paper.

Combining agility and convergence in the development of physical products is a major challenge. Rooted in a design thinking approach, Stanford's ME310 process model attempts to resolve the conflicting priorities of these two design principles. To investigate how successful Stanford's hybrid process model is in doing so, we have used a qualitative case study approach. Our paper begins by outlining this process model's fundamental principles in terms of engineering design methodology. Subsequently, we present the results of our empirical analysis, which tracks the coevolution of problem and solution space by meticulously examining all prototype paths in ten of Stanford's ME310 student projects. We have discovered that convergence during solution finding does not correspond to the process model's theoretical specifications. Even in the phase of the final prototype, both the technical concept and the underlying problem formulation changed frequently. Further research should focus on combining the prototype-based ME310 approach with methods from systems engineering which allow for a more comprehensive theoretical exploration of the solution space. This could lead to improved convergence during solution development.

Small and medium-sized enterprises are affected by changing development, production and selling paradigms in globalized industries, where innovation is a driver for sustainable competitiveness. However, innovating is highly challenging for small and medium-sized enterprises, as human resources are very limited and know-how are often highly specialized. It is often unclear which fields and factors provide the capability to innovate and which measures or methods can be applied to promote innovation based on existing competencies.

For this reason, the aim of this paper is to present a framework to support the innovation capability of SMEs by identifying promising fields for innovation and providing suitable innovation methods. A particular focus in this paper is a methodology for the description and identification of fields to foster the innovation capability in SMEs as a part of the introduced framework.

We propose to combine Collaborative User Experience Design (CUXD) projects with the integrated product and process modelling theory CPM/PDD to formalise the CUXD process model. CPM/PDD is discussed as a Design Theory and Methodology (DTM) to describe a product as well as the product development process based on a clear distinction of characteristics and properties. CUXD is presented as a cross-disciplinary, human-centred development model. It focuses on team collaboration, relates to concepts of Design Thinking, Agile Development as well as Lean UX and it highlights user experience metrics.

Small scale fabrication spaces have shown their potential to support our local supply chains during the collapse of many global supply chain networks at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. In anticipation of these spaces becoming more significant in local supply chains, it is increasingly important to reduce their environmental impacts. This work investigates the life cycle of small scale fabrication spaces by interviewing 18 participants from these spaces in the United States. Key insights from the interviews include the following: a) material selection, robust inventory management, and user support for material disposal are factors influencing optimal flow of materials and equipment through a fabrication space; b) lack of information from manufacturers and suppliers is a critical obstacle to achieve optimal use of materials and equipment, and informed decision making related to environmental sustainability and ethical labor practices; c) there are opportunities to take advantage of where financial and sustainability goals align; d) individual motivators for fabrication influences sustainable behaviors; and e) effective education about material and equipment use helps fabrication space users with more sustainable decision making.

Computer aided tolerancing (CAT) in the automobile industry is implemented by CAD tools. These tools analyze the manufacturability of complex assemblies with rigid single parts in an early stage to reduce the product development time and the cost for hardware prototypes. This paper proposes an approach to implement tolerance simulation for a compliant assembly, which includes manufacturing processes such as clinching, bolting and hemming by applying tolerance simulation tool. The fender- BIW system is simulated as a compliant–rigid system and the simulation model is applied to two production scenarios. The simulation results are compared with real measurement data, which demonstrates the efficacy of using simulation in early production as opposed to prototyping or other methods of design by showing the strong correlation between simulation results and as-built products.

Bio-inspired design is an innovative methodology for transferring biological solutions into technical solutions, for example for the design of weight- and load-optimized components. Bio-inspired design therefore offers great potential for meeting the challenges of designing additively manufactured components, such as avoiding warpage, supporting structures and material minimisation. Nevertheless, apart from bio-inspired topology optimization tools, bio-inspired design is rarely used in industrial practice because for many companies the practical applicability up to the prototype is not obvious. The aim of this work is therefore a practical approach to the search for biological systems, analysis, abstraction and transfer of analogies. We apply bio-inspired design on the design of a microtiter plate manufactured by stereolithography, whose dimensional accuracy is impaired by warpage. Here, the venus’ flower basket, a deep-sea sponge, can serve as a model. It has a hierarchical structure of silicate needles whose elements are abstracted for bio-inspired transfer. We show and evaluate the transfer of different analogies using a prototype.

3D printing is a widely used technology for automating the fabrication of prototypes. The benefits are wide reaching, and include low required expertise, accurate geometric form and the processibility of many materials. However, production of certain forms – especially large forms – can be slow. From review of the sub-systems, the hotend is commonly found to be the limiting factor. To improve this, a modified nozzle design is considered that incorporates a flat copper plate within the flow stream. Analytical simulation was used to guide this design before experimental methods validated the modifications. The maximum volumetric rate for the standard hotend nozzle is 14 mm3/s. The best performing modified nozzle increased the maximum volumetric flow rate to 26 mm3/s – an 86% increase. A series of popular parts were further considered, demonstrating a maximum ∼48% fabrication time reduction, and a mean of ∼23%. This enables 3D printed prototypes to be made more efficiently – both with regards to the design cycle and energy use – and allows designers to use the technology more rapidly than previously possible. By extension, this improves the efficiency of the design process.