This study explores how large language models like ChatGPT comprehend language and assess information. Through two experiments, we compare ChatGPT's performance with humans', addressing two key questions: 1) How does ChatGPT compare with human raters in evaluating judgment-based tasks like speculative technology realization? 2) How well does ChatGPT extract technical knowledge from non-technical content, such as mining speculative technologies from text, compared to humans? Results suggest ChatGPT's promise in knowledge extraction but also reveal a disparity with humans in decision-making.

Over years of practice, industrial designers have developed three steps that always lead to a design solution: inspiration, ideation, and implementation. Usually, the result is a product, but sometimes it is a demonstrator, a versatile concept, combining design, engineering, and art. However, designers usually are not aware of this notion. But if the result is different, how does it affect the design process? The analysis of the contextual inquiry study of two demonstrators shows that the transformation should happen during the ideation phase, where abstract concept becomes a story.

Proficiency in design for additive manufacturing (DfAM) requires training and a lot of trial and error. To support the development of DfAM skills, we redesigned 47 design artifacts from case studies and derived tacit knowledge from successful and unsuccessful redesigns. All knowledge about these artifacts was then collected in a design catalog. In a workshop with a total of 48 graduates and students, 45 participants deemed the design catalog supportive. After evaluating their designs, we concluded that the use of a knowledge-based design catalog can develop and improve individual DfAM skills.

This study explores challenges in decision-making for product design due to insufficient cost transparency because of product variety across the value chain. Utilizing a literature review and a case study on a company, it delves into issues such as value chain consideration, product family assessment, linking effects to specific product levels, and converting measured effects. Highlighting the critical need to address these challenges for decision-making. Future research should focus on a comprehensive costing framework, explore effect interdependencies, and expand the value chain analysis.

In this exploratory study, designers’ preferred learning media in learning to design for Additive Manufacturing was explored. Furthermore, by deploying an online survey questionnaire, factors such as years of experience, and the categories of products designed were explored to understand how they influence designers’ learning media with a response from 201 respondents. The results show that designers have learned how to design for AM through experimentation and present the first step towards developing an appropriate Design for Additive Manufacturing knowledge dissemination approach.

Decentralized E/E architectures (EEAs) are facing challenges and bottlenecks in implementing new features and technologies. The shift towards centralized EEAs has many challenges and needs to be handled pragmatically by considering concurrency with the existing EEAs. To address the challenges of architectural shift, the paper showcases the quantitative comparison of EEAs and visualizes the flow of shifting sub-function and hardware blocks using the Sankey diagram. The observations from the diagram as a result will support OEMs to analyse and take decisions on the shift while developing EEAs.

Generative AI algorithms that are able to generate creative output are progressing at tremendous speed. This paper presents a research agenda for Generative AI-based support for designers. We present examples of existing applications and thus illustrate the possible application space of Generative AI reflecting the current state of this technology. Furthermore, we provide a theoretical foundation for AI-supported design, based on a typology of design knowledge and the concept of evolutionary creativity. Both concepts are discussed in relation to the changing roles of AI and the human designer. The outlined research agenda presents 10 research opportunities for possible AI-support to augment the designer of the future. The results presented in this paper provide researchers with an introduction to and overview of Generative AI, as well as the theoretical understanding of potential implications for the future of the design discipline.

Given the Industry 4.0 trend towards smaller lot sizes and large product families, there is a need to increase the design efficiency in terms of cost and lead time. Design decisions taken in the early or conceptual design phases are shown to have the greatest impact on the final product cost, however the choices and trade-offs are often made in an ad-hoc way. This paper presents a structured methodology for formalizing early stage product design knowledge, which is key for designing and evaluating new variants in a product family in the early stages of the design process.

The use of already validated systems as references for the development of solution concepts offers the potential to increase process efficiency. It is important to understand how the use of references impacts the development of solution concepts. Therefore, the representation of solution concepts in an engineering project of two student cohorts are analyzed and compared. The first cohort is provided with few and the second cohort with extensive references. The results of the study show that the increased use of references leads to a higher share of embodiment and specific challenges.

This paper highlights a recently identified by the community perspective of design research, so far described as “inaccessible”, discusses the potential of “designerly” way of approaching it in order to let designers excavate tacit knowledge from their own finished projects. We frame demonstrators as a category of design outcomes that can be a great source of such knowledge. Skills of empathy and intuition are called crucial for researchers to position themselves inside the design system looking inwards.

High amount of changes and increasing complexity in CAD design of wiring harnesses result in a lack of time for documentation and transfer of acquired knowledge. To be able to transfer the gained knowledge efficiently during development automating the identification, analyzation and documentation of changes is necessary. This paper shows a methodology to address this challenge for CAD data of wiring harnesses. Thus, it is shown how interrelated change elements can be combined or separated from each other according to their change intention.

In order to meet an increasing internal variety, a solution can be the modularization of products. To motivate modularization projects throughout all phases of life, different effects of modular product families were collected in previous works on a literature basis. In this paper, a validation concept is presented, which will investigate these effects by using statements directly from industry representatives. In particular, the industry background is included in the evaluation to generate a more differentiated overall picture of impacts of modular product families.

This paper contributes to the reduction of conflicts arising along the construction process by improving contract management tools and contracts designing tools. We analyse the existing system of representation of relations between Owner and Contractor, the contract and the construction processes. We improve the actual representation of construction processes by creating a link with the contract. Our ambition is to create a representation that will allow organizations and project managers to represent the construction contracts and design better construction contracts.

Facing a rising competitive pressure, manufactures create advantages when they are able to offer customer-specific products to the conditions of a mass production article. Traditional configurators support the creation of personalized products from the elements of a modular product system, but are based on a pre-defined set of rules. The model based approach changes the environment of configuration from static configuration rules to the dependencies defined within the product's system model. So, by regarding target quantities of the user, the configurator identifies the optimal variant.

Knowledge-based engineering (KBE) systems allow an easy adaption of designed artefacts to new functional or design requirements and automating routine design tasks. In the following article the author wants to focus on the three main concepts of linking CAD and KBE and answer the research questions (1) in which way is integration, embedding and coupling of KBE to a standard CAD system like Autodesk Inventor available and (2) how can the single approaches be compared in terms of modelling effort, user competences and system performance.

Hierarchies of knowledge represent a popular formalism for conceptualizing beliefs, justifications, and truth statements. To capitalize on the opportunity for formulating effective maps of design knowledge, this article introduces the hierarchical context–design development–high-level (CDH) model that stratifies different bodies of design-specific knowledge into ranked levels. We compare it with existing hierarchical models of knowledge, and describe its unique uses and benefits for both design research and design practice.

The design community can contribute significantly to the success of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals in Africa. Currently, alignment of the design research community on sustainable development goals in Africa is not well understood. In this paper, we review relevant literature and identify trends in research topics studied and in patterns of collaboration between researchers. We find differences in topic representation and collaboration trends between African-based and non-African based researchers. Understanding these differences better will be important for future research.

The concept of remotely operated, unmanned, and autonomous ships is creating increasing interest in the maritime domain, promising safety, increased efficiency and sustainability. Shore control centers (SCCs) have been proposed to operate such vessels and some industry projects are initiated. This paper aims at bringing knowledge about what a SCC is envisioned to be. It identifies and explores challenges related to designing and developing SCCs through semi-structured interviews with the research community and industry. We discuss tasks, functions and interactions between human and machine.

Although well researched and praised in academic publications, function modelling (FM) does not have gained much traction in industrial application. To investigate into possible reasons for this, this publication researches literature of nine different projects where enhanced function-means modelling has been applied. The projects are analysed for their purpose of FM-use, applied benefits and discovered challenges of the FM approach. From this, the main challenges for FM application are the abstraction level of the modelling language as well as the lack of an interface to CAD modelling.

A multitude of design guidelines that are intended to support design engineers with knowledge and information during the embodiment design of physical products have been developed back in the 1980s and 1990s. However, since then, the setting in which products are developed and designed has changed and associated tasks and activities are carried out globally rather than locally. Yet, knowledge on the benefit of such design guidelines and their impact on the performance of multinational design engineers from different regions and with different levels of experience is still lacking. To address this, a mobile eye tracking study has been developed and carried out with 47 differently experienced practitioners from Germany, Eastern Europe and Asia. The results show differences in how design engineers from different regions with different levels of experience may benefit from design guidelines and how design guidelines may impact experts’ and novices’ performance, indicate beneficial ways of using them and point out the kind of information and the way of representation that attracts the most attention within a design guideline. The paper concludes that the improvement and development of design guidelines that are intended to support the embodiment design of physical products is needed and proposes to rethink current engineering design guidelines both content-wise and representation-wise.