The remote management of equipment is part of the functionalities granted by the design principles of Industry 4.0. However, some critical operations are managed by operators, machine setup and initialization serve as a significant illustration. Since the initialization is a repetitive task, industrial robots with a smart vision system can undertake these duties, enhancing the autonomy and flexibility of the manufacturing process. The smart vision system is considered essential for the implementation of several characteristics of Industry 4.0. This paper introduces a novel solution for controlling manufacturing machines using an embedded camera on the robot. This implementation requires the development of an interactive interface, designed in accordance with the supervision system known as Manufacturing Execution System. The framework is implemented inside a manufacturing cell, demonstrating a quick response time and an improvement between the cameras.

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.

Within the on-going ecological transition, mobility systems are considered as sociotechnical systems that raise several challenges for local authorities due to the different levels of decision, a complex stakeholder network and the numerous objectives to be dealt with. Designers are therefore seeking to develop new frameworks to support local authorities moving towards more sustainable mobility systems. Based on the French context, this study relies on an analysis of the regulation and an interview-based survey that depict the mobility design from the local authorities’ perspective. First, it investigates the objectives defined in the law and the difficulties met by local authorities. Then, it highlights the main political, organisational, and knowledge barriers for sustainable mobility. Finally, it proposes a set of recommendations to create a framework to better define and prioritise the objectives, ensure efficient planning and monitoring, clarify the interactions between actors, and enhance mobility plans.

To enable the emergence of new and efficient vehicle design from the transport system perspective, a formulation of a multifunctional vehicle-transport design optimisation problem is presented. System- wide measures of transportation and vehicle efficiency measures are conceptually considered in an integrative design approach to drive the transport solutions towards more resource-efficient and eventually more sustainable solutions. Considered efficiency measures associated with the system-wide aspect are namely, productivity and service efficiency, and measures associated with vehicle attributes are namely mass and shape efficiency. The conflicting nature of these measures is balanced using optimisation methodologies through multiple transportation scenarios with varying transport demand and deterministic drive cycles. The obtained optimisation results demonstrated that there is a strong interconnectivity between the vehicle's overall configuration and transportation aspects. Thus, conceptually demonstrating how the inclusion of various transport-vehicle efficiency measures simultaneously in an integrative design approach during the early vehicle design may yield a more efficient and better overall system performance.

Single-use products often end up in the environment as waste, threatening ecosystems and human life. This indicates a need to transition towards sustainable reuse routines. In this study, we investigate to what extent reusable products are already established in society and what design properties users require. We compare the results between user clusters and countries. To create a meaningful list of reusable products to investigate, we distinguish four categories based on typical barriers by means of focus groups (n=3) and interviews (n=32). Next, we did a survey (n=3000) in three countries (Belgium, Russia, U.S.) to define user clusters and investigate product usage and design requirements. Most established products are hard-material products such as lunch boxes, while intimate hygiene products, such as menstrual cups, are not established yet. Multifunctionality and compactness are the most indicated product requirements. There are significant differences between countries and clusters for both research questions. We conclude that different types of users have different needs: while a sharing system might work for one group, a customizable option would be more suitable for others.

This paper explores the suitability of Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) as an enabler of Design Automation in the turbomachinery industry. Specifically, the paper provides 1) a preliminary estimation of the effectiveness of ANNs to define values for design variables of reciprocating compressors (RC) and 2) a comparison of ANNs performance with traditional and more computationally demanding methods like CFD. A tailored ANN trained on a dataset composed by 350+ Baker Hughes’ RC automatically assigns values to 8 geometrical variables belonging to multiple parts of the RC in order to satisfy two target conditions linked to their thermodynamic performance. The results highlight that the ANN-assigned parameters return an optimal solution for RC also when the target values do not belong to the training dataset. Their predictive capacity for RC thermodynamic performance, with respect to CFD, are comparable (i.e. less than 2% in terms of calculated absorbed power) and the approach enables a significant gain in terms of computational time (i.e. 2 minutes vs 10 hours). Future perspectives of this work may involve the integration of this tool in an advanced DA method to lead Design Engineers (DEs) during the whole design process.

Research on partly configurable products is emerging. Key concepts of these types of products have been scarcely synthetized, as definitions of partly configurable products in high-variety, low-volume industrial context are limited. These products incorporate modular and integral designs, which calls for an overview on the relations of key concepts defining them. The problem is approached through an exploratory literature review, which allowed an overview of the key concepts over product modularity and partly configurable products. Those were synthetized further define partly configurable products. As a result, four types of partly configurable products are given. This review supports vantage over the key concepts and their relations for reuse with partly configurable products in academia. For practitioners the presented attributes and given examples support in understanding of concepts and their relations with partly configurable products.

The transition towards circular economy means a radical systemic shift that requires re-design and innovation of business models. However, this radical systemic shift also creates high levels of uncertainty, which pose challenges to the circular business model innovation (CBMI) process. Using the transition towards circular plastics as a case context, this study aims to conceptualize different forms of uncertainty affecting CBMI, and to link them with approaches for managing these uncertainties. Based on interviews with incumbent manufacturing firms that have transitioned to circular plastics, or are in the process of doing so, we identified three domains of uncertainty: goal uncertainty, development uncertainty, and outcome uncertainty. We discuss the nature and sources of these uncertainties, and present different approaches chosen by manufacturers to manage these uncertainties in the context of their business. Our findings highlight the complex nature of uncertainty, and the importance of a nuanced consideration of uncertainty as a factor in the CBMI process. Moreover, our mapping of core uncertainties for CBMI and approaches to manage these uncertainties can guide practitioners in the innovation process.

Increased focus on sustainability significantly impacts product development portfolio management in organizations. This paper focuses on the significant unaccommodated uncertainty caused by the green transition for current mid- and long-term portfolio management processes. These uncertainties arise in areas such as the regulatory environment, market demands, and technical capabilities. This paper makes four contributions: First, current product portfolio management literature is mostly employing deterministic practices. Uncertainties are incompletely addressed, and current methods fail to address the deep uncertainties of the green transition. Second, building a literature-based conceptual framework of the sources of uncertainty in 6 areas: Business Models, Technology, Regulation and Legislation, Finance and Insurance, Market and Consumer, and Organizational Context. Third, preliminary empirical evidence supports the usefulness of our model for product development portfolio management. Fourth, concluding with a suggested empirical research agenda to develop a deeper understanding of challenges towards method and theory development to support the green transition on the portfolio management level.

The advent of immersive and interactive technologies has facilitated the growth of the museum and gallery sector by offering a variety of new experiences. In the UK and China, in particular, the museum and gallery sector lies at the heart of the creative industries and makes a significant contribution to cultural growth. Both countries have recognised the impact of such technologies on the growth of the sector and have actively sought opportunities to use them for bilateral collaboration. However, the interest in immersive and interactive technologies among museum and gallery audiences remains underexplored, as do their preferences and behavioural patterns with respect to such technologies. This study discusses the key findings of user research, exploring the awareness, experiences and preferences of current museum and gallery audiences regarding (i) immersive and interactive museum and gallery experiences and (ii) the cultural exchange between the UK and China.

Resilience is a widely studied concept that is a key objective in the design and development of sustainable systems. This is especially true for the agricultural systems critical to food production, economic viability, and sustainability of our communities, as farmers seek to meet increasing demand in the face of shocks such as climate change and natural disasters. Although there is a rich body of work examining resilience, there is limited understanding of how the concept of resilience should be tailored for agricultural systems. This study seeks to address this gap by performing a systematic literature review of 50 papers selected from SCOPUS using the PRISMA protocol. A summary of research topics and characteristics by geographical region is presented. The paper also categorizes the types of shocks studied and the corresponding response methods. Results suggest that the focus of resilience research changes by region, which may indicate that design strategies and objectives should also differ by region. Furthermore, the work identifies a need for more simulation-based quantitative research into the impact of resilience.

Recently, methods and approaches such as Participatory Data Analysis, Data-Enabled Design, and Contextual Inquiry have highlighted how design activities can benefit from behavioral data. This data offers new ways to learn from what people do and how they do it, across time and space. However, behavioral data introduces changes and frictions to design activities and poses several challenges for designers to overcome. In this paper, we conduct two workshops with 18 expert designers, from industry and academia, to understand the nature of these challenges, beyond the technical aspects. We contribute by underlining the challenges and opportunities of incorporating behavioral data into design activities; including a design perspective on data, interacting with participants, and interacting with regulatory bodies. We translate our findings into opportunities for a better alignment between regulatory bodies, designers, and participants. We propose to harness the iterative nature of design activities and embedded it into a process that allows for continuous reflection, reassessment, and review of highly dynamic datasets.

Design and engineering are fundamental activities in shaping the world we live in. Educating new generations in design and engineering, therefore, is crucial to build a better and more sustainable world. The changes in education for the transition from a linear economy to a circular economy, in particular, has become a priority for many educators. Aligned with the circular economy, a promising umbrella concept and practice called 'upcycling' is emerging. The concepts and practices in the circular economy and upcycling overlap depending on the definitions of the terms in various disciplines and sectors in different parts of the world. This has caused some confusion and misunderstanding. For educators aiming to teach students about sustainable design, production and consumption, it is beneficial to distinguish between these two concepts. Understanding the relationships (or interrelationships) between them in theory and practice is important for the educators to offer clear guidance and recommendations to future designers and engineers. This paper provides literature review on upcycling and circular economy, compares these two concepts, and visualises their interrelationship as draft teaching materials for design education.

Many immersive approaches for design activities show a great potential for their specific use cases, but still overall usage of extended reality technology in product developers day-to-day work is little. The user's workflow between classical desktop work environment and its immersive counterpart is interrupted by both a data gap and an interface gap. The three-dimensional product data usually needs preparation and the user has to physically change the interface in use. The hybrid augmented reality computer workstation aims to close these gaps. A hologram of the current model is visualized next to the screen in reach of the user for intuitive inspection and spatial interactions. In this paper we present use cases for this novel immersive workstation in the CAD workflow. An explorative user study of the typical product designer`s workflow reveals the most common activities. Guided by those, eight uses cases are formulated and classified into fundamental, drafting, and modelling CAD tasks. These cases include novel hybrid augmented reality interactions derived from literature, which are assessed with respect to their applicability.

Behavioural design has been gaining momentum to address critical societal challenges such as elderly care. At the same time, it struggles to deal with complex challenges and integrate multiple contextual factors' influence in domains like healthcare. Behavioural design processes lack guidance on how to prevent this and instead define problems that are ecologically valid. Conventional design methods do guide designers to do this. Thus there is a need to investigate how design methods can support behavioural designers to explore the context and integrate multiple perspectives on the problem, resulting in context-sensitive problem definitions. To respond to this need, we present a case where designers used a combination of design methods to investigate the complex context of hygiene in nursing homes. We show how combining different design methods supported the designers in advancing their understanding of a complex context and the problematic behaviours that occurred in it. We conclude by discussing the importance of using design methods to reveal important insights at the early stages of the behavioural design process.

The concept of inclusivity involved an understanding of people, programmes and places, embedded with complex issues. 21 student designers took part in a first-of-its-kind five-day codesign programme to develop solutions for inclusive and engaged communities with residents. This quasi-experimental study aimed to develop a value-based approach using likelihood ratio table and a Naïve Bayes classifier method to assess the success of a codesign programme, in comparison to past programmes with different design challenges. Methodology proposed a systematic investigation to evaluate this programme holistically. Students discussed with stakeholders to uncover the complexities of human and environmental factors in design at early stage of ideation, and semi-structured participants’ observation tasks were considered instead of researcher's observations in the method of assessment. Selected teams were introduced to two new design methods to empathise better with seniors, i.e., Care Circle and See and Shoot. Findings revealed that these teams showed greater levels of critical inquiry when overcoming three key challenges, i.e., (1) identifying key personas, (2) examining potential use environment, and (3) access to market.

The emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT) has brought more challenges for designers to fully understand networked objects and develop pleasurable user experiences (UXs). Due to the radical change of products when they are connected, traditional experience design theories may not be applicable in this new context. Based on two well-established UX design theories, this paper presents a survey study that investigated the pleasurability of IoT devices by comparing a representative IoT device (i.e., the smartwatch) and its conventional form (i.e., the wristwatch). An online questionnaire was deployed to gather feedback from parallel wristwatch and smartwatch users. Their experiences using both types of watches were quantitatively and qualitatively compared by data analysis. The results highlighted the differences in UXs between smartwatches and wristwatches in three types of pleasure and five psychological needs. The study revealed design opportunities to improve the pleasurability of smartwatches and provides novel design insights informing the development of pleasurable UXs for future IoT devices.

The early use of Robust Design (RD) supports the development of product concepts with low sensitivity to variation, which offers advantages for reducing the risk of costly iterations. Due to the lack of approaches for early evaluation of product robustness, the embodiment-function-relation and tolerance (EFRT-) model was developed, which combines the contact and channel approach and tolerance graphs. The information exchange of both approaches offers a high potential for reliable robustness evaluation results. However, that potential currently relies unused, since the link between applicable robustness criteria and the extended information is missing. To solve this problem, four research steps were determined: (1) understanding of robustness, (2) collection of RD principles, (3) identification of EFRT-model information and (4) mapping of RD principles and information. The results show nine adapted RD principles, the identified model information for the robustness evaluation, the evaluation criteria as well as their mapping. Utilizing the mapping and the proposed criteria in this contribution, a more comprehensive robustness evaluation in early stages is enabled.

Packaging of potatoes, vegetables and fruits (PVF) currently deals with the fragile opposition of food waste reduction and packaging resource consumption. In order to understand how designers can rethink this always negative balance and outcome of waste creation, research was done to understand packaging and preservation of PVFs from both a technological and consumer perspective. A mixed research approach was applied, including literature study, expert interviews, packaging analyses, consumer survey and photo study. In sum, we concluded that the main function of packaging is preservation, including both protection from outside influences and conservation in best possible conditions. Optimal preservation should consider each PVF's respiration and transpiration needs, and ethylene sensitivity. Consumers are mostly not aware of correct preservation methods. However, on the other hand, their awareness evokes an important tendency to ban plastics without considering their positive impact on food preservation. In the paper, design opportunities are formulated for new reusable packaging, reducing waste creation and offering higher quality in food preservation and consumer experience.

Tuned mass dampers may be used to improve vibrational behavior of structures. However, they require space to move. This paper presents an approach to incorporate tuned mass dampers into a lightweight-optimized structure without extra space requirement. It is based on (1) topology optimization (TopOpt) with unit cells and (2) vibration reduction with multiple tuned mass dampers (m-TMD) within the unit cells. The topology optimization is performed with a physics-informed penalty factor, unique to the chosen unit cell. Subsequently, the weight optimal density distribution is realized by populating the design domain with unit cells of ten different densities. To reduce the induced vibration, m-TMDs are placed inside the cavities of the unit cells in the grey scale regions. The effectiveness of the approach is demonstrated for the design of a 2-segment robot arm. The resulting unit cell robotic arm (UC-Arm) is 3.6% lighter than the reference model, maintains the same static performance, and shows a 60% smaller dynamic displacement in the observed frequency range. No extra space is required for the motion of the m-TMD.