If designers want to communicate quality aspects of the product, there is a need to bring these characteristics into the measurable space of perceived quality (PQ) attributes. To illustrate the solution for designers' dilemma of the “best design choice” in this study we applied the PQ attributes importance ranking (PQAIR) method, with the example of a bread toaster. We choose for evaluation three PQ attributes which can significantly influence visual quality of a product: Gap, Flush and Parallelism. We performed the experiment measuring subjective preferences over the toaster designs of two respondent's groups - “Designers” and “Customers.” We used sequentially: (i) web-survey (still images); (ii) desktop system; and (iii) fully immersive head-mounted display system (Virtual Reality).

Consequently, we conducted a post-experiment survey regarding subjective preferences, related to the PQ communication channels that have been implemented during the study. Our results indicate advantages and drawbacks for each PQ communication method that we applied in this experiment and encourage further research in the area of products' perceived quality assessment

While pen-and-paper sketches is generally considered the best tool for design ideation, there are certain areas of design where the ideas being generated do not easily lend themselves to sketching. This study reports on two cases that explores the use of game engines in combination with Virtual Reality (VR) to visualize lighting in the automotive industry. In the first case, the exterior lights of a car were visualized using Unreal Engine 4 and evaluated using research through design and expert interviews. In the second case, Unreal Engine VR Editor was used to explore ideation and concept development of interior lighting in long haulage trucks. The insights from the cases suggest that game engines and VR can be used to quickly develop and display ideas, concepts and scenarios in the early phases of the lighting design process. These strengths suggest that game engines and VR also have the potential to support design ideation for other types of design.

This contribution includes the development and validation of a Virtual Reality (VR) supported creativity technique: “Sensory Stimulus Environment Technique”. Key elements of this technique are the creativity process, a VR tool and the support of the tool (Virtual Creative Environments). The creativity process consists of phases for individual and group-based work. The VR tool “Virtual Creativity” includes functions to support the preparation of Virtual Creative Environments (VCE), the generation and evaluation of new ideas. For the generation of VCE, the tool possesses an environment configurator. Users of this function are supported by Design Rules for VCE.

For the validation of the creativity technique, it was used in a product engineering project. The project members procedure two phases of the creativity process (Preparation and Individual Idea Generation) and used “Virtual Creativity” to generate VCEs and ideas to solve their tasks. By questionnaires, functions of “Virtual Creativity” were assessed for generating VCEs and ideas.

An early evaluation of a product along with the consideration of life phase specific actor(s) and environment(s) can help greatly to gain an understanding of the product's behaviour and interactions. Virtual Reality (VR) can help designers to examine later life situations of a product by means of use case scenarios. However, preparing a VR-scene is still a time-consuming and cumbersome task. A model based approach that uses behaviour models of SysML to describe a VR-scene can reduce the preparation efforts. Such an approach is helpful if it allows the reuse of already described VR-scenes or their contents. This paper talks about the reusability of SysML behaviour models that constitute a VR-scene. This reusability can only be achieved by the generic definition of model interfaces. Therefore, a new modelling approach is presented to facilitate the reuse of SysML behaviour models to form different use cases of a product in VR. This approach also talks about the interface definitions and the management of variants of SysML models. The presented approach is elaborated by an example model that contains variants and uses instances to build different use cases.

The introduction of new digital technologies in industrial work systems and increasing implementation of Cyber Physical Systems are evoking new and unknown challenges and opportunities related to aspects of human work and organisation. To ensure human wellbeing and overall system productivity, there is a need for interdisciplinary methods and approaches for dealing with the challenges and taking advantage of the opportunities. In this paper, we present a conceptual framework for designing Industry 4.0 enabled work systems, which serves to accommodate this need. The framework combines elements and principles of Design- and Lean thinking methodologies and Human Factors and Ergonomics, thus making it a practical, systematic, and iterative, human centred approach. We use examples from a retrospective industrial case study to illustrate elements of the framework and provide several implications for practitioners.

Robotic systems need to achieve a certain level of process safety during the performance of the task and at the same time ensure compliance with safety criteria for the expected behaviour. To achieve this, the system must be aware of the risks related to the performance of the task in order to be able to take these into account accordingly. Once the safety aspects have been learned from the system, the task performance must no longer influence them. To achieve this, we present a concept for the design of a neural network that combines these characteristics. This enables the learning of safe behaviour and the fixation of it. The subsequent training of the task execution no longer influences safety and achieves targeted results in comparison to a conventional neural network.

The dawn of the fourth industrial revolution, mostly known through the German initiative “Industrie 4.0”, builds on a set of technologies emerging from software and information and communication technologies (ICT); paired with the growth of the Internet-of-Things (IoT), the so-called “smart products” are expanding on the market. These smart products integrate data collection and processing capacities. Additionally, the collected data have their own lifecycle, and can be classified as sensitive data. In that sense, companies developing hardware products may need support to step in “smart products” development. Digital transformation strategy is a possible overall support for companies. However, regarding smart product development and IoT data management, no studies to date have addressed formalized guidelines to support companies. This article proposes a set of guidelines focusing on IoT data management to support hardware companies in their transformation towards smart products. The proposed guidelines are exemplified on a fitness industry case which is using wearable devices collecting body metrics, considered as sensitive data.

Traditionally, data has been presented in textual format and the interaction with the user confined to the keyboard or touch screen to input data and the screen to deliver information. However, with the advent of a data-driven society, an opportunity for more natural and efficient ways of presenting data and interacting with it has emerged.

Although the area of Human-Computer Interaction has existed for a long time, its focus has always been on the interaction with an artefact (the computer). Today instead, we face the challenge of interacting with an intangible object: data. As a result, a key requirement emerges: How do we make legible the enormous amounts of data produced per day to ordinary people?

Designers, able to devise natural and smooth interaction experiences, should play a relevant role in this new scenario. However, they might lack the basic technical knowledge required to understand the possibilities of these new systems.

In this paper we present a brief how-to manual for an undergraduate course on data materialisation: the process of transforming an intangible object (data) in an artefact that can be interacted with in a physical way.

The status of Smart Home Appliances (SHAs) in the smart home industry has been raised as major components of a smart home. To design a good SHA, diverse stakeholders in the smart home ecosystem need to have a common understanding of smart homes and SHAs. However, the studies on what they are, especially those reflecting practitioners’ point of view, have been scarce.

In this research, we conducted systematic literature reviews and practitioner interviews using the concept mapping method to identify the attributes of SHAs depending both on academia and industry. In addition, we suggest a framework of the smart home ecosystem which describes how those attributes are revealed in the relationships among SHAs, users, and external stakeholders.

Since all of the interviewees are Korean SHA development professionals, the findings from this research could have been limited to the current status of the Korean SHA industry. Nonetheless, we expect that this research would contribute to building a consensus on what smart homes and SHAs are and provide the designers and developers of SHAs with systematic perspectives on smart homes.

Designing products with a focus on self-explanatory assembly can reduce the use of procedural instructions and the associated problems. This paper describes how different groups of students, in two different design-engineering courses designed or redesigned products in an attempt to make the assembly of the product self-explanatory. The design outcomes are discussed in relation to the design context and linked to existing theory on design for meaning.

One of the main problems in the implementation of Industry 4.0 is the assessment of the added technical and economic value of the new digital and other technological opportunities. This can already be observed during the elaboration of solution alternatives during the development of new industry 4.0 work systems. In order to support the developers of these systems in their decision-making, this contribution introduces a quantitative evaluation approach based on the combination of an extension of the CPM/PDD approach with an industry 4.0 maturity model and an identification scheme for process losses.

As Industry 4.0 will greatly challenge employee mental workload (MWL), research on objective wearable MWL-monitoring is in high demand. However, numerous research lines validating such technology might become redundant when employees eventually object to its implementation. In a pilot study, we manipulated two ways in which employees might perceive MWL-monitoring initiatives. We found that framing the technology in terms of serving intrinsic goals (e.g., improving health) together with an autonomy-supportive context (e.g., allowing discussion) yields higher user acceptability when compared to framing in terms of extrinsic goals (e.g., increasing productivity) together with a controlling context (e.g., mandating use). User acceptability still panned out neutral in case of the former, however - feeding into our own and suggested future work.

Industry 4.0 is a great opportunity and a great challenge for enterprises. Nowadays, how to adjust the strategy according to the new situation to deal with the opportunities and challenges brought by Industry 4.0 is a hot topic. The paper investigates what is Industry 4.0 and compares the different fourth industry revolution programs in various countries and takes advantage of bibliometric to investigate which technologies play an important role in Industry 4.0. What is more, the status quo, challenges and development directions faced in various fields in the industrial 4.0 era are elaborated. The paper not only combs the research direction for researchers, but also presents the status quo of practical application for enterprises. The paper contributes to showing a leading role for theory and practice of industry 4.0.

The engineering design community needs to development tools and methods now to support emerging technological and societal trends. While many forecasts exist for technological and societal changes, this paper reports on the findings of a workshop, which addressed trends in engineering design to 2040. The paper summarises the key findings from the six themes of the workshop: societal trends, ways of working, lifelong learning, technology, modelling and simulation and digitisation; and points to the challenge of understanding how these trends affect each other

With the rapid success of the digital enterprises in the 21st Century, industrial manufacturing is expected to be approaching the fourth industrial revolution, coined Industry 4.0 (I4.0). The instrumental technology that will drive this evolution is the integration of the physical and digital factory into one cyber physical system. There is consensus among academics and industry alike that there will be an integral paradigm shift in how offerings will be developed and manufactured. While there is much confidence that the future factory will have unprecedented capabilities to satisfy complex customer demands, there is little agreement on how individual organisations can utilise these trends. This paper presents a literature review identifying reoccurring themes and trends of I4.0 and their expected effect on future manufacturing. Central characteristics, challenges and opportunities are identified and discussed. The findings can provide support in developing actionable strategies for industry to direct I4.0 endeavours.

The industry is currently changing rapidly. Both customers and employees are focusing much more on their own needs. On the one hand, this requires individualized products and, on the other hand, development processes need to be aligned not only more efficiently but also more closely to the needs of employees. Agile development combines these two characteristics and the second point can be further improved through analyses for collaboration. This is not only necessary for consumer products, but also in medical technology, more and more individualized solutions are required to better help patients. This is also the case with the examination of cells using micro titer plates, which is the subject of this project. Due to the interaction of research activities both on the process and on the product side, this paper presents research results regarding agile product development and collaboration analysis of physical products on the one hand and research results regarding additive and biocompatible production of microtitration plates on the other hand.

The electricity sector is in the midst of a structural change driven by new technologies. In Brazil, the electricity sector regulation has mechanisms to foster innovation, including investments in R&D. Recently, the regulatory agency and the industry have been calling for approaches to increase the rate at which R&D departments generate solutions that end up being adopted. As a result, novel approaches to R&D project management have entered the agenda. In this context, the objective of this paper is to characterise Agile Product Development and its application in a highly regulated sector. The paper presents a systematic literature review with the debates about Agile and new product development. Then, a case study exploring an early adoption of the Agile approach in R&D project management in the Brazilian electricity sector is presented. Results include the identification of the Agile features most frequently mentioned in the literature. Moreover, the case study explores the Agile features that were more easily absorbed in early adoption, such as iterative patterns, and discusses implementation challenges in team structure, feedback loops, and communication.

Extensive work exists on value in multiple domains. However, there are different interpretations, highlighting a lack of clarity about the fundamental characteristics. To address this, we present seven value axioms resulting from inductive research. The axioms may be viewed as general rules describing value in any context, therefore conveying the fundamental characteristics of the phenomenon. They reveal that value is: (1) connected to people; (2) an output of a cognitive process; (3) in requirement of a determination process; (4) a matter of a given situation; (5) determined by the interpretations of entities; and related to (6) entities and (7) criteria. The nature of value is of particular importance to the design community, given the emphasis on value in design and product development. In this context, a lack of clarity may be perceived in terms of when value appears, appropriate metrics, and how to add value. To provide explanations, there is a need for a theory of value in design. The presented axioms may provide the basis, as they are fundamental statements on the nature of value and not limited to a specific domain. We highlight theory requirements based on the axioms.

Recent reports and predictions indicate a consistent and continuous growth in the field of Research and Development. Such growth leads to increased resource investments, which have to be managed effectively to eventually achieve value maximization. This management is cohesive with budgeting. In changing environments, said effectiveness can be difficult to attain.

Agile development is supposed to provide the necessary flexibility for uncertain situations and has recently seen a stark adoption incline. Unfortunately, budgeting and resource allocation have not yet been resolved for agile approaches: a comprehensive research including recent publications showed a lack of models and frameworks for the adoption and application of budgeting with agile development. Due to this lack of a comprehensive approach, as well as limitations and restrictions of existing research, this paper describes the design of a budgeting approach suitable for and compatible with agile product development. The developed solution, the Structured Agile Budgeting Process, provides a holistic and interdisciplinary way to allocate resources while still allowing the flexibility and benefits of agile development.

Studies of supplier involvement in product development have revealed potential benefits including faster time to market, reduced cost and increased quality. However, existing literature has mainly focused on the customer's perspective on advantages, disadvantages and factors to be considered when involving suppliers in product development. This paper addresses the supplier's perspective by answering following research question: How do challenges that originate from involvement in customer's product development affect a supplier? The question is answered through a single case study at a supplier that develops and manufacture products primary used in capital goods. Thirteen challenges are identified, classified as being internal or external, and categorised into five areas: (A) Customer requirements, (B) Information exchange between customer and supplier, (C) Product variety management, (D) Design- manufacturing integration and (E) Processes and work instructions. The findings suggest that internal challenges need as much attention as external ones that originate from the customer. Also, an indication of when the challenges affect the supplier during product development is presented.