Especially in the Laser Powder Bed Fusion (L-PBF) technology for metals, current manufacturing systems require the use of support structure to withstand recoater forces and lower thermal induced stresses. These support structures set limitations on the design freedom and affect the surface quality, part cost and lead-time in an undesirable manner. Complex parts, which were not possible with conventional manufacturing methods, can be produced without these limitations. While some companies claim to print parts with horizontal overhangs without the use of support structure, academic research seems to deal with these limitations by defining design guidelines rather than eliminating them. In order to highlight the discrepancies between academia and industry, a structured review is presented. As result, severe differences in knowledge were discovered, which might emerge from the use of unconstrained cutting-edge systems in industry. Eventually support-free L-PBF is not yet fully developed, but the use of support structure can be drastically reduced by optimizing the build process.

Design method validation is an important research activity in method development. But the design method's applicability is often left out in validation, although it is a necessary step and it enables further validation steps. Currently, there is a lack of support for the assessment of design method applicability. We present an approach to provide support for iterative studies on three aspects of design method applicability. We evaluate the approach in a single case study. In the study, we investigate the applicability of a method for model building in analysis, in three iterative steps of the approach. Application of the approach produced valuable insights on the method applicability. The results show how aspects of applicability can be assessed using the presented approach. Therefore, the approach can contribute to the standardisation of design method validation, especially for early stages of validation, which is currently discussed in the community.

Increasingly digital products and services make cybersecurity a crucial issue for designers. However, human-centered designers struggle to consider it in their work, partially a consequence of the high psychological distance between designers and cybersecurity. In this work, we build on the Design for Cybersecurity (DfC) Cards, an intervention to help designers consider cybersecurity, and examine a project-based design course to understand how and why specific DfC cards were used. Three findings result. First, designers found the intervention useful across all design phases and activities. Second, the cards helped design teams refocus their attention on the problem domain and project outcome. Third, we identify a need for support in framing and converging during user research, opportunity identification, and prototyping. We argue that the psychological distance between designers and the problem space of cybersecurity partially explains these findings, and ultimately exacerbates existing challenges in the design process. These findings suggest that design interventions must consider the psychological distance between designer and problem space, and have application in design practice across many complex problem domains.

One often-cited benefit of using metal additive manufacturing (AM) is the possibility to design and produce complex geometries that suit the required function and performance of end-use parts. In this context, laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) is one suitable AM process. Due to accessibility issues and cost-reduction potentials, such ‘complex’ LPBF parts should utilise net-shape manufacturing with minimal use of post-process machining. The inherent surface roughness of LPBF could, however, impede part performance, especially from a structural perspective and in particular regarding fatigue. Engineers must therefore understand the influence of surface roughness on part performance and how to consider it during design. This paper presents a systematic literature review of research related to LPBF surface roughness. In general, research focuses on the relationship between surface roughness and LPBF build parameters, material properties, or post-processing. Research on design support on how to consider surface roughness during design for AM is however scarce. Future research on such supports is therefore important given the effects of surface roughness highlighted in other research fields.

Work-integrated learning (WIL) is an educational approach that intentionally scaffolds work experiences throughout undergraduate education. This approach has been proven to provide many benefits to students, including increased grade point averages, better job prospects after graduation and skill development. As such, we expect WIL experiences to contribute to engineering student's ability to design, a central aspect of both engineering education and practice. We found little evidence of research related to WIL experiences in the design literature, so we conducted a secondary data analysis on 33 publications from engineering education literature focusing on student WIL experiences with design. The review found evidence of students using a design process and recognizing the importance of designing within context, focusing on health, safety and ethical concerns of being an engineering designer. However, there was little evidence found of what students actually designed (i.e., components, systems or processes). We highlight some interesting areas for future research, specifically for design researchers to investigate how student work experiences are contributing to their development of design knowledge, skills and abilities.

Sustainable products are becoming increasingly important for companies in order to succeed. However, the development of sustainable products poses a complex challenge, because alongside the classical product development requirements, additional social, economic and ecologic requirements arise. Despite the increasing relevance of this topic, sustainability is not yet fully integrated into the product development processes and mindsets within companies. Simultaneously, the integration of sustainability into engineering education is still insufficient and traditional teaching formats seem to be inadequate to teach such complex and multifaceted topics. Within this publication, the development, the contents and the implementation of two different university engineering courses for sustainability and environmentally compatible product development are described and compared. The different approaches to develop and incorporate sustainability into the engineering education and the usage of innovative teaching concepts are demonstrated to encourage and inspire other universities.

Digitalization and sustainability are major challenges for today's manufacturing industry. While digitalization is characterized by the incorporation of digital technologies in the products and services as well as the value creation architectures, sustainability requires them to balance economic, environmental and social issues. In both areas, especially Product Service Systems (PSS) are constantly gaining importance. This results in so called smart PSS that integrate digital technologies as well as sustainable PSS which aim at a positive impact on sustainability. Both two concepts cannot be clearly delimited since smart PSS might be designed for sustainability as well and sustainable PSS might be used with digital technologies. This paper aims to investigate the interrelations. To that, digitalization patterns of products and services are evaluated regarding their sustainable impact. The evaluation is conducted by a survey in research and industry. Furthermore, the design of the underlying value creation architecture is investigated. Here, a methodology is proposed enabling companies to optimize their value creation architecture.

Packaging waste has become a significant problem in China. The paper stems from growing awareness of packaging and environmental protection.

To explore the perception of Chinese consumers on packaging and sustainability, the research takes Wuzhen as a case, based on the economic situation, industrial advantages and potential for implementing sustainable measures. It also investigates the current situation of packaging design in the town. By using empirical analysis in the form of questionnaire and semi-structured interview, the survey was carried out from three aspects: tourist attitude towards shopping products in Wuzhen, tourist perceptions of packaging characteristics, tourist perceived importance of sustainable. In the end, the paper discusses the packaging design of Wuzhen from the perspective of materials, function and design. This research is aimed to explore Chinese consumers' views of packaging and environmental sustainability and provide insights to the packaging industry to further enhance the effectiveness of environmentally packaging.

Long-term behaviour changes are critical to answering societal and individual challenges surrounding areas such as sustainability and health. Current understanding of how to bring about sustained behaviour is focused on the identification of Behaviour Change Techniques (BCTs) without explicit guidance on how these should be matched with technological solutions. Based on this gap we set out to answer the research question: What is the relationship between BCTs and interactive immersive technologies with respect to long-term, sustainable behaviour? To this end, we report a literature review on technology trends in the fields of human computer interaction, human robot interaction, and game design. Based on this review we develop three main contributions with implications for design theory and practice. First, we propose a number of characteristics and mechanisms in emerging immersive technologies. Second, we highlight technological pathways connected to specific BCT clusters likely to be disrupted: technology as a conveyor of information, an augmenter of feedback, and as an embodiment of empathy. Third, we explore these connections between BCT clusters and the actual technological interventions.

There has been a growing recognition that a systems thinking approach, which pays attention to the entire dynamic system, its constituent parts and the interactions among those parts, is an effective approach for tackling complex issues that exhibit nonlinear behaviour and involve multiple stakeholders. To understand a complex system, a systems thinking approach must identify the leverage points, which are non-intuitive and difficult to identify. This paper proposes a design tool called System Design Canvas, which supports the identification of system variables and leverage points from technological sensing data and human data while understanding stakeholders' mental model. The present case study confirms that System Design Canvas can identify system variables and leverage points that are required for the current agricultural system in Cambodia.

Due to the increasing smartization of products and the ecosystems in which they are typically embedded, holistic considerations of future value-added systems are becoming increasingly important. This also determines fundamentally new challenges for the engineering of the future's smart Products. In order to be able to address the increasingly fuzzy system boundaries associated with this, this contribution introduces a System of Systems Engineering Lifecycle Concept considering smart products and services as core components of connected System of Systems ecosystems. Main characteristics of smart products and system of systems are discussed and in a real existing scenario of a sustainable landfill the presented System of Systems Engineering Lifecycle Concept is used as a System of Systems Framework for the given Use-Case.

For the user perception of vehicles and consequently the success of automobile design, the body layout and especially the proportions of vehicles are pivotal. In the present study, the SAE main dimensions length (L108), wheelbase (L101), height (H100) and width (W103) of 697 vehicles from different OEMs were examined. The analysis reveals a tendency of increasing length, wheelbase and especially width of vehicles in recent years. Regarding the ratios of these dimensions there are clear correlations, as revealed by an analysis with linear regression. We find particular strong synchrony in the increases of the pairs W103 - L108 and L101 - L108 and lesser so between the ratio E = L108/L101 and the vehicle length. The latter can be explained by vehicles with a high L108 being less compact, i.e. the proportion E increases. Finally, it is discussed whether technological changes lead to revolutionary or evolutionary changes in dimensions. The historical development and the moderate proportional changes of BEVs indicate a measurable but evolutionary development. In contrast, disruptive technologies such as automated driving can significantly change the vehicle layout and thus encourage a more revolutionary change in proportions.

Since decades, researchers are developing methods, tools, and processes for the development of mechatronic systems. In the last decade, this field has widened, including, amongst others, aspects such as cyber-physical systems (CPS) or the internet of things (IoT). Still, little concrete guidance can be identified for engineers who have to decide whether to realize a certain product function mechanically, electronically, through software functions, or with combinations thereof. The goal of the paper is to contribute to the development of guidelines for design engineers in which domain (or in which combination of domains and other areas) to allocate the solution for an engineering problem.

The healthcare sector is facing significant challenges that require a systems approach, resulting in a rapid growth in the application of systems approaches in healthcare since the beginning of the 21st century. Consequently, healthcare practitioners and policymakers now desire to understand the evidence-base for the approach, but little evidence of the kind desired exists. This paper is a first step in conducting a narrative review of the application of systems approaches in healthcare based on a systematic review of the academic and grey literature. First, the emergence of the approach in healthcare is explored. Second, specific examples of applications of systems approaches in healthcare are examined to identify any missing elements in current practice. Third, fourteen reviews of the approach in healthcare published in the last ten years are analysed. The results suggest that the use of the approach in healthcare will most likely continue to increase, however, significant work remains for the design and systems community to demonstrate the effectiveness of systems approaches, specifically in providing convincing measures of impact on patient and service outcomes.

Today we live a high increasing digitalization in industry 4.0. As part of the evolution of CAD solutions on the market, there is a particular interest in new generation software which are distributed as Software-as-a- Service (SaaS) such as Onshape, 3D Experience, Fusion 360, etc. In order to prepare engineering students for integrating such software within the Université de Technologie de Compiègne (UTC), a further practicing study is carried out in this paper. This study aims to identify, analyze, experiment, evaluate and compare the capacities of Cloud-based CAD solutions on the market and in scientific research work in order to define potential benefits for their implementation in mechanical engineering education. Therefore, we tested two use scenarios of the two Cloud-based software; Onshape and Fusion 360 on a case study. Then, we discussed the comparison results.

The research presented in this paper explores features of temporal design neurocognition by comparing regions of activation in the brain during concept generation. A total of 27 engineering graduate students used brainstorming, morphological analysis, and TRIZ to generate concepts to design problems. Students' brain activation in their prefrontal cortex (PFC) was measured using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Temporal activations were compared between techniques. When using brainstorming and morphological analysis, highly activated regions are consistently situated in the medial and right part of the PFC over time. For both techniques, the temporal neuro-physiological patterns are similar. Cognitive functions associated to the medial and right part of the PFC suggest an association with divergent thinking and adaptative decision making. In contrast, highly activated regions over time when using TRIZ appear in the medial or the left part of the prefrontal cortex, usually associated with goal directed planning.

Against a pandemic, speed is crucial, and open innovation (OI) helps to empower the human capital distributed around the world to tackle the disease and to launch rapid testing of possible solutions. This article aims at showing an OI program - called “TEN” Transform Emergency Now! - ideated and developed by the University of Bologna to identify, design, and implement useful solutions to tackle specific issues coming from pandemics. With an action research-innovation management approach, the University developed two iterations to identify what elements to take into account to define a program that works for this effort. In TEN, Frugal Innovation (FI) principles were injected in a 10 days hackathon to favor the use of locally available resources and raw materials and exclude non-essential features. Results show that Frugality can become an element of OI by (1) pushing the team towards basic functionality and minimal features of the solutions and low-cost implementation. (2) Designing, in parallel with the solution, an ‘implementation network’, with a specific process design and program's organizational perspective. We believe that TEN has the potential to be an OI approach designed for emergencies.

The vehicle exterior design conveys a variety of visual information. Among these are the brand identity, assumed characteristics, and the vehicle's age or newness. While previous research focusses mainly on the first two attributes, we broaden the perspective by examining the age perception for vehicle model portfolios across brands.

Information of age is embedded not only in branding but also in the entirety of a vehicle's exterior design features. Therefore, this paper examines how participants of a self-reported study perceive individual models inside successive product portfolios without typical branding. The stimulus patterns were derived from 12 different series of BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi and edited accordingly. A total of 67 models from the years 1968 to 2019 were presented and evaluated in terms of perceived age, model and brand recognition.

The results show that most vehicles are perceived as newer than their actual age, successive model generations are clearly distinguishable and participants were able to sort all models in their correct chronological order. Finally, design-related age perception and knowledge-based age perception are introduced as possible underlying concepts of the visual perception of product age.

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.

The proper use of methods is increasingly important as design challenges are more complex and involve more stakeholders. Such work also demands high reflective ability from designers. Reflective thought processes do not necessary produce positive outcomes for the process and the individual involved. Positive reflection is goal oriented while negative reflection is typically self-oriented. In design education, reflection by students is often treated as rather trivial or only rudimentary support is offered. Research in cognitive science shows that poor reflection can hurt students' well-being, abilities and confidence over time. Thus, there is a need to better understand method use and reflection in design education more specifically when done poorly. We take a theory-building approach and interviewed 12 design students and recent graduates and investigated instances of method use where these led to negative experiences and effects. In doing so, we show different types of negative experiences that students have when using methods, the effects that these experiences have and how they relate to problematic use of methods and poor reflection practices. We end with implications for design education and design research.