Amputees face a number of challenges when acquiring and using a prosthesis, with major issues being the cost of the device, the time it takes for their custom prosthesis to be developed and delivered, as well as the challenges they face to get it regularly serviced and maintained. The other stakeholders involved, including the prosthetists and standard systems manufacturers, have a difficulty to collectively handle so many issues that occur to the different amputees. To address these challenges, our research reported in this paper contributes an approach to how these can be handled, through a Prescriptive approach entitled Adaptive Prosthetic Life-Cycle Service System (adProLiSS) Framework. Unlike other product service systems, adProLiSS is designed to explicitly involve and serve the amputee and their evolving needs during different phases throughout the amputee's life. This impacts how a prosthetic device needs to be designed to ensure a smoother interaction between the amputee and the device. The adProLiSS preliminary evaluation shows an improvement by which amputees can be efficiently provided with a prosthesis that evolves with their changing needs and aspirations, this fostering a longer term 'patient-centred care' service.

This paper explores how small-but–detectable changes in manufacturing protocol can alter interaction-design preferences for users. Building on a number of previous studies by the authors, this paper focuses on the manufacture of a set of emotionally attuned pattern-based surface texture designs by means of computer-numerically controlled (CNC) machining. An experiment is subsequently reported that explores how the variations in toolpath rastering approach can affect the visual and tactile qualities of the textures in relation to interaction-design preferences, with a focus on psychological experience. The implications with respect to user-centred design (UX) and manufacturing protocol more broadly are subsequently discussed, with recommendations for a reconfiguration of computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) approaches to better encode the diverse preferences that users may have when considering how products are manufactured.

The requirements space is increasing due to non-functional areas such as security, resilience and sustainability gaining in importance. This creates a complex and dynamic space which makes it hard for engineers to take good data driven design decisions. Increasing the quality of design decisions allows to better set up development projects and develop more successful products and services. The design can most heavily be influenced in the early design phases, where design flexibility is high and resource commitment is low. Unfortunately, the system knowledge is also low in early phases. The Engineering Graph is a concept that connects data from different internal and external sources. It allows to connect product data stored in Product Lifecycle Management systems with system models and also add external sources from the Wikimedia Knowledge Graph, World Health Organization and World Bank. This interconnected data allows the support of engineers in managing the complex and dynamic requirement space and provide high system knowledge in the early design phases to support design decisions.

Complex research problems are increasingly addressed by interdisciplinary, collaborate research projects generating large amounts of heterogeneous amounts of data. The overarching processing, analysis and availability of data are critical success factors for these research efforts. Data repositories enable long term availability of such data for the scientific community. The findability and therefore reusability strongly builds on comprehensive annotations of datasets stored in repositories. Often generic metadata schema are used to annotate data. In this publication we describe the implementation of discipline specific metadata into a data repository to provide more contextual information about data. To avoid extra workload for researchers to provide such metadata a workflow with standardised data templates for automated metadata extraction during the ingest process has been developed. The enriched metadata are in the following used in the development of two repository plugins for data comparison and data visualisation. The added values of discipline-specific annotations and derived search features to support matching and reusable data is then demonstrated by use cases of two Collaborative Research Centres (CRC 1368 and CRC 1153).

Several researchers have reported on the effectiveness of knowledge-based inventive stimuli, known in the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ), in enhancing engineering creativity, but few authors have focused on the comparative analysis of structured ideation in engineering design in terms of quantitative and qualitative outcomes. Previous studies have mainly concentrated on the investigation of exemplary selected single stimuli rather than on a critical assessment of the relationship between the structured application of inventive stimuli and their contribution to engineering design. The paper describes a method for the automated formulation of elementary creative stimuli for product or process design at different levels of abstraction and in different engineering domains. The experimental study evaluates the impact of structured automated idea generation on inventive thinking in engineering design and compares it with previous experimental studies in educational and industrial settings. The outlook highlights the benefits of using automated ideation in the context of AI-assisted invention and innovation.

Engineering knowledge forms an essential part of our planetary fight against climate change. Traditionally, engineering curricula emphasizes the importance of technical knowledge and encourages to specialize in niche areas, where engineers develop themselves into experts. However, it is important to be able to reflect on complex societal challenges from a variety of perspectives to produce not only innovative, but also long-lasting and inclusive solutions for the greater good. This paper aims to understand the extent of systems thinking abilities of engineers by differentiating experts from novices. The study traces sustainability connections made by professional engineers and master's level engineering students when solving engineering design problems. This qualitative study highlights seven recurring themes that relate to the global sustainability discourse and describe a problem-centred approach through a real-life case that focuses on paper and pulp production, through a thematic analysis of 59 responses. The results portray system-level differences in how novice and expert engineers approach sustainability questions and how these differences shape their solution spaces.

The current regulatory framework for Electrical and Electronic Equipment (EEE) is changing and now requires manufacturers to disclose the environmental performance of their products. This means that manufacturers must perform a life cycle analysis (LCA) on their entire range of products. An LCA is a recognized and standardized methodology for assessing the environmental impact of activities. However, communicating this information to consumers is challenging because it can be complicated.

Despite this challenge, there is currently no common standard for communicating environmental information to consumers. The objective of this study is to explore the best practices for conveying environmental information. To achive this, a review of current environmental labeling approaches and recommendations available in the literature is conducted. Additionally, consumer requirements are collected and analyzed through a questionnaire that employs both quantitative and qualitative methods. The information collected is then used to develop the best practices for implementing environmental labeling for EEE.

Design is a highly nonlinear chaotic dynamic process with many possible solutions, which requires enormous knowledge for designers. This paper investigates how environment-based design (EBD) methodology can help designers use only necessary knowledge for their creativity based on three methods: information search, knowledge acquisition and knowledge application. The methods are applied in an aircraft pylon design, which is evaluated by two aerospace design specialists. The paper discussed the different roles of EBD for novice and expert designers in regard to overcoming emotion and knowledge barriers to achieving designer creativity.

Considering transformation processes within organizations, reflection is an enabler for learning and adaption of engineering processes, methods, and tools. Moreover, reflection as a core element of agile engineering approaches. However, a sound understanding of reflection behaviors of engineers or engineering teams is lacking. In this paper we proposed a structured reflection procedure including different dimensions to reflect on. To analyse reflection behavior of engineers and engineering teams we propose a coding scheme comprising of nine behaviors. The coding scheme allows to evaluate the reflection behavior in real time and give feedbacks to improve the quality of reflection. The proposed coding scheme is initially tested within a workshop with industry partners.

E-scooters have become a popular form of personal transport with millions of E-scooters used worldwide. This paper details an initial investigation into the relative differences in rolling resistance for a range of e-scooter tyres. Tyre performance was measured using dynamometer-based coast-down tests to determine the coast-down distance and coefficient of rolling resistance of each tyre. Insights from testing showed that e-scooter tyres had coefficients of rolling resistance that were 3.5 to 6 times the coefficient of rolling resistance of a 700x32C bike tyre. Comparisons between tyres of similar specification showed the tyres with solid inserts had more rolling resistance than a pneumatic tyre at the rated pressure. Comparisons of equivalent airless and pneumatic tyres the rated pressure indicated airless tyres had slightly better performance in terms of coast-down distance. The results also show how a decrease in tyre pressure increases rolling resistance, highlighting the importance of maintaining rated tyre pressure to improve e-scooter efficiency. The results from this study provide useful insights into the performance of tyres that can be used on low-powered vehicles.

Technological life cycles are driven by the changes in the shape and level of innovation, yet innovation rate is not directly observable and is difficult to trace. Innovation measured by patent-citation networks (PCN) cannot be estimated solely by quantity, whereas quality-adjusted quantity measurements are still prone to bias. Our paper complement PCN data analysis with an agent-based simulation (ABS) on networks to uncover the latent innovation that automatically accounts for the quality and quantity components instead of decoupling them. We build dynamic PCN for radio frequency 'CMOS' technology and subsequently develop ABS to replicate underlying innovation network formation. Comparing the real and synthetic data, we isolate latent innovation rate in PCN and by mapping pivotal patent assignees — innovators, we calculate the diversity of innovators in the technology market. Identifying innovation patterns, we show that, early on, innovation structures are less diverse and exploratory, but this grows and matures eventually until value creation become an expensive endeavor. Contrary to what is observed, we show how the abundance that appears are less significant publications mostly driven by exploitation in the technology market.

Industrial practice shows that products are developed in generations. Innovation success with complex technical systems can only be achieved economically by using existing solutions as references. These references come from predecessors, competitors, and even industry-external sources. The model of SGE – System Generation Engineering describes these relationships. The iPhone is often used as an example of an innovative product developed in generations. Multiple studies have examined the iPhone. However, none of these studies systematically considers the influence of the product context on references and variations. In this contribution, an evolutionary descriptive model based on the model of SGE is applied to 15 iPhone product generations. The central result is an overview of the variation shares over the generations and the relationships between context factors, reference-based variation activities, and innovation success and hypotheses for causalities. This is one of a series of case studies to investigate these causalities. The study showed how the iPhone remained successful in its context: not through a high new development share, but through strategically placed variations and the use of references from various sources.

External sources of inspiration can promote the discovery of new ideas as designers ideate on a design task. Data-driven techniques can increasingly enable the retrieval of inspirational stimuli based on nontext-based representations, beyond semantic features of stimuli. However, there is a lack of fundamental understanding regarding how humans evaluate similarity between non-semantic design stimuli (e.g., visual). Toward this aim, this work examines human-evaluated and computationally derived representations of visual and functional similarities of 3D-model parts. A study was conducted where participants (n=36) assessed triplet ratings of parts and categorized these parts into groups. Similarity is defined by distances within embedding spaces constructed using triplet ratings and deep-learning methods, representing human and computational representations. Distances between stimuli that are grouped together (or not) are determined to understand how various methods and criteria used to define non-text-based similarity align with perceptions of 'near' and 'far'. Distinct boundaries in computed distances separating stimuli that are 'too far' were observed, which include farther stimuli when modeling visual vs. functional attributes.

Design for disassembly (DfD) approaches are crucial in supporting the industrial circular economy transition. In literature, a great amount of DfD methodologies is available, however, it is still not clear how they can be used to improve product circularity. To address this gap, our work proposed a systematic literature review of DfD methodologies applied in the field of product design with the aim to provide an overview of the topic in the last decade (i.e., from 2012 to 2022) in terms of methods applicability (i.e., design phase), required parameters and integration capability with circularity assessment. As a result, the paper shows that DfD methods are mainly used in the later design phase to improve product sustainability performances, but a method that simultaneously considers DfD and CE is currently missing. Based on the obtained results, we outlined the requirements that a new DfX method would need to consider both DfD and CE simultaneously. Finally, we proposed a modified version of the butterfly diagram in which DfD parameters are linked to CE indicators to help visualize the connection between the two areas.

Prior research has shown the importance of latent user needs for enabling innovation in early product development phases. The success of a product is largely dependent on to what extent the product satisfies customer needs, and latent user needs play a significant role in impacting the way the product or service unexpectedly delights the user. Complications arise because traditional need finding methods are not able to account for the nuances of latent user needs. A user's need is multidimensional while traditional methods are built on deductive reasoning. The traditional method isolates parts of the user's needs, only pointing to what is deducible within its search space. To address this, we introduce abduction as a way to broaden traditional need finding methods. From a logic based argument it is shown that abduction accounts for the dimensionality of user needs by integrating various traditional need finding theories using design knowledge to isolate the latent need. This theoretical development shows that latent need finding must go beyond a deductive focus, to developing methods that are able to conjecture with the deduced facts in order to abduce the latent user need.

The influence of culture on design is reflected in many aspects, such as design creativity, communication within design groups, and individuals' creative performance. Culture has a profound impact on design. For example, studies have identified the positive effect of a higher individualism-collectivism value on design team performance. To examine the influence of individual cultural values on the experience of creativity in ideation, we experimented by recruiting participants from different counties to complete two ideation tasks. Moreover, we collected their cultural values and experiences of creativity through two questionnaires. We also examined the connections between individuals' cultural values and their experiences of creativity in ideation. The results show five correlations between individuals' cultural values and their experiences of creativity when the country setting was a control variable. Recommendations based on the findings include that explorations of cultural influence and the relationship between culture and design or other fields irrelated to the country or society level have to measure individual cultural values (with the country setting as a control variable) instead of adopting country cultural scores.

Creativity is an essential factor in the development of innovative products. 4 Step Creation (4SC) is a method for systematic ideation and can be used to enhance the new product development process. It aims to promote creativity in interdisciplinary teams and provides a framework for collaboration so that original ideas can emerge, laying the foundation for innovation. At the same time, the method can be used for continuous improvement of existing systems. In this contribution 4SC is used in a design method experiment following the Design Method Validation System (DMVS) to validate design methods in product development. The experiment was carried out at PAD2022 International Summer School on the example of a vacuum cleaner robot. Findings show, that the developed method promotes transparency, traceability of ideas and thus communication in the team. It also facilitates the integration of different stakeholders in the ideation phase. The experiment also shows that the DMVS is well suited for planning, conducting, and evaluating design experiments.

In reengineering technical components, the robust automation of reverse engineering (RE) could overcome the need for human supervision in the surface reconstruction process. Therefore, an enhanced computer-based geometric reasoning to derive tolerable surface deviations for reconstructing optimal surface models would promote a deeper geometric understanding of RE downstream processes. This approach integrates advanced surface information into a deep learning-based recognition framework by explicitly labeling geometric outliers and subsurface boundaries. For this purpose, a synthetic dataset is created that morphs nominal surface models to resemble the macroscopic surface pattern of physical components. For the detection of regular geometry primitives, a 3D-CNN is used to analyze the voxelized components based on signed distance field data. This explicit labeling approach enables surface fitting to derive suitable shape features that fulfill the underlying surface constraints.

Climate change and the growing consumption of natural resources has made it increasingly clear that engineering must focus on the development of more sustainable products. To do so, the methodologies for developing products need to address sustainability. However, many of the frequently used methodologies, such as Modular Function Deployment (MFD) or the Life Phases Modularisation (LPM), do not do that sufficiently. The product life phases, these methodologies are based, only address sustainability in the form of recycling. That is why a broader approach to sustainability, such as the R-imperatives, is not considered. Therefore, in this contribution, the model of product life phases is extended by integrating the R-imperatives. Furthermore, the module drivers resulting from the extended product life phases that are necessary to apply the MFD and the LPM are developed. Finally, the positive impact of the developed module drivers on the product architecture is shown by applying the resulting method onto an industrial example.

Evidence-based practices play an essential role in the development of eHealth systems. Prior research has investigated the challenge of shared understanding between professionals from the fields of health sciences and design and has highlighted the need for effective alignment of development and research practices in eHealth. However, there is a limited understanding of epistemological differences between these fields and how professionals conceptualise evidence. In this paper, we investigate how healthcare and design professionals think about evidence and how they implement evidence practices in their work. We interviewed eight professionals and used reflexive thematic analysis to identify the challenges and strategies associated with their evidence practices. Our results identify five shared evidence practices between healthcare and design professionals: stakeholder-driven, process-driven, problem-driven, effect-driven, and solution-driven. These five evidence practices indicate opportunities for closer alignment of development and research practices among healthcare and design professionals and offer a basis to create a shared understanding of evidence between both fields.