This paper adapts the agile scrum sprint, typically used in software development, to a prototyping sprint for mechatronic product design. The Design by Prototyping framework describes how the prototyping sprint can be used to manage the prototyping process in design projects through an agile-stage-gate hybrid model. A comparison of 18 student projects using either prototyping sprints or a traditional iterative prototyping approach shows that prototyping sprints helped students make more deliberate, strategic decisions about their use of prototypes.

The paper explores the differences between immersive and non-immersive collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) during design reviews. Based on ten reviews with one designer and two reviewers, the study shows that CVEs affect verbal communication structure. More specifically, teams usually talked less, and reviewers exchanged significantly more turn sequences in immersive than in non-immersive CVEs. Regardless of the environment, most turn sequences were related to the designer, who usually talked the most. These findings contribute to the understanding of CVEs in virtual teams.

There is a growing demand for the adoption of user-centric design processes for the development of computational biology software as usability becomes a major concern. Our team develops interfaces for a human biomolecular data portal with user-centered design, so we present a case study of the design process of a molecular and cellular query to emphasize the importance of user-centric design and reveal the complications that arise in a complex software development environment. The study follows the design process from user requirement gathering to the prototyping of a minimum viable product.

Collaboration is common practice within design disciplines and beyond. Brainstorming, discussions, and prototyping tend to occur within the same physical space. The reduction of human interaction during the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted these practices. In this paper, we focus on the possibilities and challenges of remote prototyping of four student teams by combining a double diamond approach with tools to overcome remote work challenges. The results were analyzed to understand crucial tools, advantages, and obstacles. The key challenges and opportunities were then identified and examined.

The use of agile methods can also be advantageous in the development of physical products, as pilot projects have shown so far. However, the transfer of agile methods to the entire organisation is difficult, due to the different, prevailing circumstances of the various development activities. We have therefore defined a new approach subdividing product development into agile technology-driven and traditional product-oriented development. This model considers the methodological characteristics and thus enables the combination of the benefits of both agile and traditional development methods..

Product development in today's manufacturing companies is characterized by multiple development projects under intense time constraints. This means that the success of projects impacts the company's success significantly. However, industrial practices show that many projects fail to meet their time targets. This paper presents a methodology to systematically improve project schedule adherence of development projects by combining exploratory data analysis of historic project data with project scheduling optimizations to enhance the project schedules and enable more successful projects.

As the complexity of products and their development processes increases, a trend emerged where companies try to manage the complexity through implementing agile practices on all or on some levels of the development process. It is not yet clear if an agile approach is the solution or under which circumstances it can be most effective in the development of physical products. This paper aims to compile the information from existing empirical and meta-studies to give an overview of the strengths and weaknesses of conventional, agile and hybrid paradigms.

To ensure optimal resource allocation in technology demonstration projects, the evaluation of demonstrators of various maturity, scale, and nature has to be carried out. Most of the existing approaches focus on risk assessment or projected financial return; the need for a tool supporting multi-facet projects evaluation has been identified. This paper presents R2L framework based on three major criteria, defined in detail: Leap Potential, Learning, and Risk. The framework was applied to a real flight-test demonstrator project during workshops in a major aerospace company.

Due to increasing sustainability demands, textiles manufacturing, an industry that uses substantial amounts of natural resources, energy and labour, are facing tough challenges in the years ahead. One of the more overlooked concepts with great potential for sustainable manufacturing is Industry 4.0. This paper addresses how the textile industry is engaging with Industry 4.0 technologies and applications in the context of sustainable manufacturing. A proposal for an implementation framework is introduced based on a literature review within this field.

A reason for the slow adoption of digital twins in industry is a lack of trust in the concept and between the stakeholders involved. This paper presents a Trust Framework for Digital Twins based on a literature review and an interview study, including seven recommendations: (1) explain your twin, (2) create a common incentive, (3) make only one step at a time, (4) ensure IP protection and IT security, (5) prove your quality, (6) ensure a uniform environment, and (7) document thoroughly. Together with 20 concrete measures it supports practitioners in improving trust in their Digital Twin.

Engineering change management is a central part of the product development process. This paper investigates how variations from the PGE - Product Generation Engineering can improve the evaluation of engineering changes from the wiring harness. Engineering changes that occur in an automotive wiring harness development process are analysed in a case study, evaluated in expert interviews with regard to the risk and effort connected to the implementation and compared to the types of variations. Additional influencing factors are discussed. The variations provide an indication on risk and effort.

The modular design harbors a potential development in the prosumer scope that has hardly been previously exploited. Their joint application can lead to products focused on user participation through modular design. This work proposes and validates a concept evaluation metric in the design phases that meet these characteristics. To do this, 24 external designers and prosumers evaluate five products using this method. The results and conclusions contribute to the improvement of the method and provide information on how to approach it to the prosumers.

Predicting the impact of changes in a design can be challenging, especially for complex designs. Margins are often built into the designs which can absorb the knock-on effect of such changes, erroneously allocating which can however, lead to propagation. A method for localising and sizing margins in an incremental design context is the Margin Value Method. This paper adapts MVM in the context of uncertainty in input specifications. It discusses possible ways to allocate them in a design such that undesirable effects of margins are minimised while preventing change propagation.

Stakeholders consider aesthetics and sustainability as important aspects of over-the-counter pharmaceutical (OTCP) packaging, and studies show that their interests should be represented more. To address this, a framework which supports designers to develop aesthetically pleasing sustainable OTCP packaging was generated, keeping at its core the stakeholders. The requirements were identified, leading to the architecture development and implementation in a prototype tool. Results provide a degree of evidence that the framework contributes to a user-centred design approach for OTCP packaging.

Each year, automotive OEMs implement a variety of Engineering Changes (ECs) in their production. In the timing of ECs, different KPIs are often in conflict with one another or even unknown to the OEMs. Therefore, OEMs struggle to identify the optimal date to implement an EC. This paper presents a method to determine the cost-optimal implementation date for each EC, considering time, cost, and quality KPIs based on a new EC classification rule-set. To evaluate the presented method, case-studies at a German automotive OEM were performed, two of which are discussed.

Prototyping is a vital activity in product development. For reasons of time, cost and level of definition, low fidelity representations of products are used to advance understanding and progress design. With the advent of Mixed Reality prototyping, the ways in which abstractions of different fidelities can be created have multiplied, but there is no guidance on how best to specify this abstraction. In this paper, a taxonomy of the dimensions of product fidelity is proposed so that both designers and researchers can better understand how fidelity can be managed to maximise prototype value.

Truss-like shapes can occur in topology optimization described by an assembly of finite elements or its boundary represented as a polygon mesh. Such shape description does not cover a common engineering parametrization like the lines of a frame structure and its corresponding cross-section. This article addresses the truss-parametrization of such optimization using curve skeletons and Meta Balls. While the curve skeleton is common in the truss-parametrization, including Meta Balls can lead to an overall implicit and smooth shape description.

This contribution introduces an approach for data-driven optimization of products and their product generations through a Closed-Loop Engineering approach resulting from the German research project DizRuPt. The approach focuses on data-driven product planning by ensuring data consistency and traceability between product planning, product development, and product operation by combining aspects and functions from Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and the Internet of Things (IoT). The presented approach is illustrated and validated by pilot applications from the research project.

This paper presents approaches to compare criteria and help designers make decisions based on trade-offs between criteria. The impetus for the paper is to identify possible directions to improve/innovate a product and propose a value shell model displaying various criteria or their combination to represent the effort needed to improve the criteria. The focus is on automotive market and approaches in industry and government are differentiated. Since the effort (manpower, cost and time) needed to improve a product is not public knowledge, the paper leaves the evaluation of the approach to users.

Multi-functional design has high potential to overcome e.g. increasing weight and costs of products. However, the possible solution space for integrating functions is hardly manageable. This paper presents an approach to assist in the identification of multi-functional approaches. Therefore, hybrid design principles are developed that are combinable to complex structures including specific manufacturing routes. By this, multi-functional solutions can be provided on different resolutions in order to identify the most promising approach and position for the integration of additional functions.