This paper proposes an optimization framework based on the OpenMDAO software library intended for engineer-to-order products and applies it to the conceptual design of a Mobile Miner. A Mobile Miner is a complex machine and a flexible alternative to Tunnel Boring Machines for small-scale tunneling and mining applications. The proposed framework is intended for use in early design and quotation stages with the objective to get fast estimates of important product characteristics, such as excavation rate and cutter lifetime. The ability to respond fast to customer requests is vital when offering customized products for specific applications and thereby to stay competitive on the global market. This is true for most engineer-to-order products and especially for mining equipment where each construction project is unique with different tunnel geometries and rock properties. The presented framework is applied to a specific use-case where the design of the miner's cutter wheel is in focus and a set of Pareto optimal designs are obtained. Furthermore, the framework extends the capabilities of OpenMDAO by including support for mixed-variable formulations and it supports an exploratory approach to design optimization.

Aeroengine manufacturers need to better include assessment of risk and cost for realising the novel products needed to meet the ambitions sustainability driven targets for air transport. Radical technologies are needed that simultaneously require critical manufacturing processes to be assessed already in conceptual design.

In this paper, a multi-domain framework for conceptual design and evaluation is proposed that provide the ability to interactively explore the concepts that simultaneously allow a wider range of architectures can be assessed and still include weldability of the concepts.

It has been demonstrated how high level, and function driven conceptual design alternatives can be modelled and evaluated to analyse risk and resilience of architectures. Geometrical concepts generated for the most interesting regimes using design of experiments covering a desired design space. For each CAD-model the welding process can be simulated to assess feasibility and lead time for welding, and return quantified results to be included in an integrated results data set for interactive decision making. The paper is the first report from a research project that improve concurrent design of product and production concepts.

Machinery and plant engineering in Germany is characterized by small and medium-sized enterprises. The so-called backbone of German industry is in transition towards Industry 4.0, with systems becoming more complex and the development task becoming an interdisciplinary task. Systems Engineering is a proven approach to realize these systems. Projects with SE approaches were accompanied and potentials of SE were structured. In this paper, we discuss the need for action for the company-wide introduction and present a solution concept.

This paper presents a new design methodology for improving the installation of large size and long life cycle goods that need to be assembled in the field. The approach integrates a modified design for assembly (DfA) methodology. A new approach is proposed for integrating different DfA methodologies and tested in a real case study of a machine room-less (MRL) elevator. A tool for analyzing and quantifying the proposed solutions is developed. Improvements of approximately 20 pp are achieved during the elevator installation and on-site assembly process, which could mean a potential reduction in assembly time of 11 h or 6%. Additional extensions and guidelines are recommended to improve the methodology and the tool.

Topology optimization is typically used for suitable design suggestions for objectives like mean compliance, mean temperature, or model analysis. Some modern modeling technics in topology optimization require a nodal based material interpolation. Therefore this article is referred to a continuous material interpolation in topology optimization. To cover a smooth and differentiable density field, we address trigonometric shape functions which are infinitely differentiable. Furthermore, we extend a so-known global criteria method with a sharpening function based on binary cross-entropy, so that sharper solutions results. The proposed material interpolation is applied to different applications such as heat transfer, elasto static, and potential flow. Furthermore, these different objectives are together optimized using a multi-objective criterion.

Schön used the metaphor of the swamp and mountain to express the divide between the problems tackled by practitioners and scientists. This research is concerned about the same persisting dilemma between design practice and design theory. In an attempt to discuss this dilemma, we propose to explore research through design (RtD) as a privileged approach where novice designers gain knowledge as practitioners and as researchers. Being aware that RtD approach has received criticisms regarding validity, bias and reliability, we put forward a set of theoretical tools allowing designers to simultaneously proceed with design activity and data gathering processes. To do so, the designerly activity theory framework was presented and explained to two novice designers. They were asked to use the theory's model during an internship project experience, to record their daily actions and later, to proceed with analysis of gathered data. Doing so, we gained a clearer interpretation of the impacts of using a theoretical model as a complement for research through design. We discuss the depth of the participants' reflections, the awareness to less noticeable components, and the enriched dialog between practice and theory.

Prototypes can be used to create value in all phases of the product development process. Prototyping strategies that determine how prototypes are developed should therefore be considered for the prototyping process as a whole. In this paper, we analyse how partitioning strategies were used by ten novice design teams to navigate their prototyping processes during a three-week mechatronic development project. Using the ‘ProtoMapping’ method, their prototyping strategies were visualized and five different types of strategies identified. Four of the ten teams formally planned how to divide their product into modules that could be prototyped in parallel or planned when to integrate prototypes to test the full product. Still, the ProtoMaps showed that most of the teams used some partitioning strategies during their project even when they did not formally decide to do so. Novice designers should be supported in making such strategies for the prototyping process deliberately. Therefore, prototyping tools should be expanded to support not only individual prototyping activities but also the prototyping process.

Prototypes are critical design artifacts, and recent studies have established the ability of prototypes to facilitate communication. However, prior work suggests that novice designers often fail to perceive prototypes as effective communication tools, and struggle to rationalize design decisions made during prototyping tasks. To understand the interactions between communication and prototypes, design pitches from 40 undergraduate engineering design teams were collected and qualitatively analysed. Our findings suggest that students used prototypes to explain and persuade, aligning with prior studies of design practitioners. The results also suggest that students tend to use prototypes to justify design decisions and adverse outcomes. Future work will seek to understand novice designers’ use of prototypes as communication tools in further depth. Ultimately, this work will inform the creation of pedagogical strategies to provide students with the skills needed to effectively communicate design solutions and intent.

This paper discusses the formation of structures by taking the process of gene transcription and translation as the template. The hypothesis of this paper is that the gene transcription and translation process can describe the formation of structures both in engineering design and in biology. The paper first presents design examples including integrated circuit (IC) chambers, flapping wings of bird robots, and typical mechanisms and formulate the formation patterns of the design process as four steps: information interpretation, selection of building blocks, the connection of building blocks, and formation of structures. The key step of the formation process is to assemble building blocks for structures both in engineering and in biology. Building blocks in biology are amino acids while they are structures in design. The autonomous degree of the formation process depends on the level of building blocks. The reuse degree of the building blocks depends on the level of building blocks too. In biology, structures of proteins are self-organized, so one way towards design automation is to use lower-level building blocks.

Since the mid-20th century, assessing the performance of the built environment was recognized as an instrument to improve the efficiency in the design and construction processes. However, it appears difficult to identify assessment tools that currently include a holistic assessment of inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility criteria for the built environments.

A systematic literature review was performed to define the state of the art of assessment tools in the domain of civil engineering and architectural design, and to identify gaps in the criteria of inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility.

The review highlighted three fundamental aspects. First, how the binomial relationship between regulations and assessment tools is not mutually exclusive. Second, how the process of assessing buildings is shifting towards mixed evaluation methods. Third, how assessment tools have been developed with a perceivable evolutionary latency from when standards were released.

With this work, we produced a state-of-the-art overview about inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility (IDEA) in the built environment, to inform the development of tools that will foster the design of future inclusive environments.

Over the last ten years, several stakeholders from the higher education sector have been involved in the area of student activation. This is due to the fact that, among other things, lecturers can get better feedback from the learners through active learning and thus can make the lecture more goal-oriented. Due to technological progress and currently available learning platforms, interactive methods are often used, which can be carried out with the help of online tools. Among the most commonly used methods are Peer Instruction (PI) and Just in Time Teaching (JiTT).

All kinds of Mixed Reality are increasingly used in industrial and social context, such as product development processes. Through Augmented Reality (AR) technology and the constant availability of powerful mobile devices, 3D-based content can be virtually linked to the real environment. This enables teaching complex content efficiently, which is otherwise difficult to achieve using conventional methods.

This paper shows an example on the creation of an AR-Experience to activate students even in a situation, that prevents attandence learning. The procedure is explained along the design and calculation of a non-switchable clutches within the lecture "machine elements".

Model based systems engineering is often used as an alternative to the document based design of software or other technical systems. Its focus lies on the modelling of procedural aspects of the products, rather than on physical aspects. In mechanical engineering, the geometry and the physical properties of the product like strength, stiffness, kinematic and kinetic behaviour are described by CAD-systems. This paper tries to link model based systems engineering tools with modern CAD tools to facilitate the digitization of the development processes of physical products as part of the digitization of new digital business models.

Operational Excellence (EO) is increasingly present in scientific and managerial news. Increasing competition, increasingly uncertain events, demands customers and society increasingly pressing, the evolution of systems towards cyber physics systems, push organizations to adapt their engineering methodologies. Excellence operational (EO) is one of the answers proposed by the scientific literature to make engineering organizations more flexible, more responsive, more efficient and therefore more competitive. In this article, we share a state of the art of operational excellence (EO) in system engineering (IS) through its most modern methodologies: the Lean Six Sigma (LSS), Theory of Constraints (TOC) and Agility (A) with an operational approach including social and societal responsibility via the Quality-Cost-Delay-Security-Environment (QCDSE). We finish by sharing four assumptions that will serve as a basis, in our future contribution, to propose a synergy solution to implement an Operational Excellence approach in systems engineering organizations.

An efficient general arrangement is a cornerstone of a good ship design. A big part of the whole general arrangement process is finding an optimized compartment layout. This task is especially tricky since the multiple needs are often conflicting, and it becomes a serious challenge for the ship designers. To aid the ship designers, improved and reliable statistical and computation methods have come to the fore. Genetic algorithms are one of the most widely used methods. Islier's algorithm for the multi-facility layout problem and an improved genetic algorithm for the ship layout design problem are discussed. A new, hybrid genetic algorithm incorporating local search technique to further the improved genetic algorithm's practicality is proposed. Further comparisons are drawn between these algorithms based on a test case layout. Finally, the developed hybrid algorithm is implemented on a section of an actual ship, and the findings are presented.

Increasingly competitive and multifaceted business landscapes and the accelerating pace of innovation require organizations to build in-house capability to evaluate the effectiveness of their design and redesign their organizational structure to drive agile product development. The purpose of this research is to examine how the ability of an organization to implement agile is affected by the organization design. A case study based on 35 semi-structured interviews and field observations at a leading, large-size, Danish software development company was carried out. Adopting the contingency perspective, this paper presents the relevant organizational elements that can increase organizational agility and how the companies can leverage the advantages of the design. Accordingly, it provides a framework that compromises eighteen core organizational practices grouped into four categories (organizational structure and governance, culture and people, IT tools and data infrastructure, and processes) to understand the effect of organization design on agile product development.

Enhancing the appearance of physical prototypes with digital elements, also known as mixed prototyping, has demonstrated to be a valuable approach in the product development process. However, the adoption is limited also due to the high time and competence required for authoring the digital contents. This paper presents a content authoring tool that aims to improve the user acceptance by reducing the specific competence required, which is needed for segmentation and UV mapping of the 3D model used to implement a mixed prototype. Part of the tasks related to 3D modelling software, in fact, has been transferred to simpler manual tasks applied onto the physical prototype. Moreover, the proposed tool can recognise these manual inputs thanks to a computer-vision algorithm and automatically manage the segmentation and UV mapping tasks, freeing time for the user in a task that otherwise would require complete engagement. To preliminarily evaluate effectiveness and potential of the tool, it has been used in a case study to build up the mixed prototype of a coffee machine. The result demonstrated that the tool can correctly segment the 3D model of a physical prototype in its relevant parts and generate their corresponding UV maps.

Autonomous driving will not just change vehicles themselves, but also the entire concept of mobility. New business models and the expansion of individual mobility to new groups of society are merely examples of possible impact. In order to create optimal vehicles for new technologies right from the start, vehicle concept optimization helps to find suitable solutions from numerous possible variations. The package as part of a vehicle concept is currently focused on passenger cars with steering wheels and pedals. Therefore, a new method is needed to plan the package of driverless and autonomous vehicles. In this paper, we present a possible method that separates the vehicle into the interior and the front and rear wagon. This way, different seating layouts can be considered and evaluated in terms of package efficiency. In the results, we check the plausibility by rebuilding a current battery electric vehicle (BEV) and, by way of example, show the variation of the gear angle and different seating layouts, and the resulting package efficiency.

The ever-increasing competitiveness, due to the market globalisation, has forced the industries to modify their design and production strategies. Hence, it is crucial to estimate and optimise costs as early as possible since any following changes will negatively impact the redesign effort and lead time.

This paper aims to compare different parametric cost estimation methods that can be used for analysing mechanical components. The current work presents a cost estimation methodology which uses non-historical data for the database population. The database is settled using should cost data obtained from analytical cost models implemented in a cost estimation software. Then, the paper compares different parametric cost modelling techniques (artificial neural networks, deep learning, random forest and linear regression) to define the best one for industrial components.

Such methods have been tested on 9 axial compressor discs, different in dimensions. Then, by considering other materials and batch sizes, it was possible to reach a training dataset of 90 records. From the analysis carried out in this work, it is possible to conclude that the machine learning techniques are a valid alternative to the traditional linear regression ones.

The modeling of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) still represents a challenge for vehicle manufacturers. The installation of the new types of components needed for BEVs gives rise to uncertainties in the quantification of parameters like the vehicle's weight. Indeed, vehicle weight plays a key role, since it has a drastic effect on the vehicle's range, which is an important selling point for BEVs. Uncertainties in weight estimation create weight fluctuations during the early development phase and the need to resize components like the electric machine or battery. This in turn affects the components' volume and weight. However, such resizing can also lead to component collision and unfeasibility of the vehicle architecture. To solve this problem and to support concept engineers during the early development phase, an iterative approach is required that is capable of estimating weight and volume fluctuations in the relevant components. The approach should also consider the geometrical interdependencies of the components, to ensure that no collisions occur between them. Taking the gearbox as an example application, this paper presents a novel approach that satisfies these requirements.

Additive manufacturing offers great potential in geometric design through the layer-by-layer production of components. This is often used in the development of additively manufactured components to make components lighter. An even greater reduction in mass is possible if several components are combined into a more complex component. However, as complexity increases, so do the manufacturing costs, due to a higher demand for supporting structure, reworking and longer production time. Especially for complex components, which make poor use of the space available in the additive manufacturing system, component separation can be a useful way of reducing manufacturing costs. Therefore, a procedure for automated component separation is presented, which determines an optimal cutting plane with respect to the manufacturing costs. The presented procedure is evaluated using two exemplary components where a reduction of manufacturing costs up to 54 % could be achieved.