Early system design analysis and fault removal is an important step in the iterative design process to avoid costly repairs in the later stages of system development. System complexity is increasing with increased use of software to control the physical system. There is a dearth of techniques to evaluate inconsistencies, incompatibility, and fault proneness of the system design in an integrated manner. The early design analysis technique presented in this paper aids a designer to understand the interplay between the multifaceted components and evaluate his/her design in an integrated manner. The technique allows simultaneous propagation of different types of faults from various domains and evaluates their functional impact over a period of time. The structure of the technique is explained using domain-specific conceptual metamodels, whereas the execution is based on the event sequence diagram, which is one of the established reliability and safety analysis techniques. One of the notable features of the proposed technique is the object-oriented nature of the system design representation. The technique is demonstrated with the help of a case study, and the execution results of two scenarios are evaluated to demonstrate the analysis capability of the proposed technique.

This paper reports on a computational model developed to study the effects of various modes of social learning on task coordination in teams through the mapping of distributed team competence, a significant aspect of efficient teamwork. The computational model emphasizes and operationalizes distinct modes of social learning, differentiated in terms of socialization opportunities. Simulation results demonstrate that computational models based on fundamental principles of social learning provide a robust approach to study task coordination in teams and can be used to explore ways to organize opportunities for social learning depending upon member retention, team structure, and the complexity of the design task.

How designers communicate within design teams, and with users, suppliers, and customers, differs in formality both between industries and between different situations within one project. This paper identifies three layers of structure in design communication, each of which can be more or less formal: the design process, the interaction between participants, and the representations of design information that are constructed and used. These layers can be formal across a spectrum from explicit rules to habitual conventions. The paper draws on a range of contrasting case studies in mechanical engineering and knitwear design, as well as a larger corpus of cases comparing design domains more generally, to analyze how formality affects design interaction in different situations and process contexts. Mismatches in the understanding of formality can lead to misunderstandings, in particular across expertise boundaries and between designers and their clients or customers. Formality can be modulated in the mannerism of communication, the rhetoric employed, and how representations are constructed, to make communication more effective. The effort and skill put into modulating formality is greater in domains where designers work with end users, like architecture, than it is in companies where designers interact mainly with other professionals.

In this position paper, the ambiguity of functional descriptions in engineering is considered from a methodological point of view. Four responses to this ambiguity are discussed, ranging from defining a single meaning of function and rejecting the different meanings that are currently used in engineering to accepting these meanings as coexisting in engineering and taking function as a family resemblance concept. Rejecting the different meanings is described as the straightforward response to resolving the ambiguity of functional descriptions, yet in engineering research and design methodology it rather seems to be accepted that engineers do use the coexisting meanings side by side. In this paper, explanations are given of why this practice is beneficial to engineering. Then it is explored how the particular meaning that engineers attach to function depends on the tasks for which functional descriptions are used. Finally, the methodological implications of the four responses to the ambiguity of functional descriptions are discussed.

A flow line is a conventional manufacturing system where all jobs must be processed on all machines with the same operation sequence. Line buffers allow nonpermutation flowshop scheduling and job sequences to be changed on different machines. A mixed-integer linear programming model for nonpermutation flowshop scheduling and the buffer requirement along with manufacturing implication is proposed. Ant colony optimization based heuristic is evaluated against Taillard's (1993) well-known flowshop benchmark instances, with 20 to 500 jobs to be processed on 5 to 20 machines (stages). Computation experiments show that the proposed algorithm is incumbent to the state-of-the-art ant colony optimization for flowshop with higher job to machine ratios, using the makespan as the optimization criterion.

Research on design and analysis of complex systems has led to many functional representations with several meanings of function. This work on conceptual design uses a family of representations called structure–behavior–function (SBF) models. The SBF family ranges from behavior–function models of abstract design patterns to drawing–shape–SBF models that couple SBF models with visuospatial knowledge of technological systems. Development of SBF modeling is an instance of cognitively oriented artificial intelligence research that seeks to understand human cognition and build intelligent agents for addressing complex tasks such as design. This paper first traces the development of SBF modeling as our perspective on design evolved from that of problem solving to that of memory and learning. Next, the development of SBF modeling as a case study is used to abstract some of the core principles of an artificial intelligence methodology for functional modeling. Finally, some implications of the artificial intelligence methodology for different meanings of function are examined.

Qualitative reasoning can generate ambiguous behaviors due to the lack of quantitative information. Despite many different research results focusing on ambiguities reduction, fundamentally it is impossible to totally remove ambiguities with only qualitative methods and to guarantee the consistency of results. This prevents the wide use of qualitative reasoning techniques in practical situations, particularly in conceptual design, where qualitative reasoning is considered intrinsically useful. To improve this situation, this paper initially investigates the origin of ambiguities in qualitative reasoning. Then it proposes a method based on intelligent interventions of the user who is able to detect ambiguities, to prioritize interventions on these ambiguities, and to reduce ambiguities based on the least commitment strategy. This interaction method breaks through the limit of qualitative reasoning in practical applications to conceptual design. The method was implemented as a new feature in a software tool called the Knowledge Intensive Engineering Framework in order to be tested and used for a printer design.

Traceability of information provides the basis for assessing the credibility of engineering information, better understanding it, and making judgments about the appropriateness of its use for a particular design task. The presented research attempts to answer how the proposed traceability methodology and framework could help designers to improve communication, eventually create new channels of communication, and contribute to the creation of shared understanding in collaborative design processes. The discussion of these issues is based on a literature review, empirical research, observations of industrial practice, and feedback from initial implementation. The research is focused on information objects (IOs), archetypically represented in the engineering domain as technical documents that are often complex structures constituted of textual, numerical, and graphical fragments. The presented approach is based on an abstraction of IOs' relationships organized around specific contexts that are defined by a subset of product development ontology. Each IO could be repeatedly represented in various contexts that may contain different subsets of objects and their relationships. Such a representation also acts as a container in which the ontology concept instances are associated with IOs being developed and traced during the design episode. The usage of the proposed traceability methodology is discussed with examples of implementation and possible utilization situations. The paper is focused on explaining how the developed functionalities could help to resolve manifestations of inadequate information flow, which cause communication barriers in engineering companies. In addition, the proposed traceability methodology offers the possibility to record the detailed history of actions and events associated with IOs in the usage process of the product life cycle management systems. Based on the research findings, this paper argues that such a network of the traceability links and relationships may be viewed as a novel design communication channel.

Spatial grammars are rule-based, generative systems for the specification of formal languages. Set and shape grammar formulations of spatial grammars enable the definition of spatial design languages and the creation of alternative designs. The original formalism includes labels that provide the possibility to restrict the application of rules or to incorporate additional, nongeometric information in grammar rules. Labels have been used in various ways. This paper investigates the different uses of labels in existing spatial grammars, both paper based and computational, and introduces a new concept of three-dimensional (3-D) labels for spatial grammars. The approach consolidates the different label types in one integrated concept. The main use of 3-D labels is that they can simplify the matching of the left-hand side of rules in parametric grammars. A prototype implementation is used to illustrate the approach through a mechanical engineering example of generating robot arm concepts. This approach more readily enables the use of complex solid geometry in the definition and application of parametric rules. Thus, the flexible generation of complex, meaningful design solutions for mechanical engineering applications can be achieved using parametric spatial grammars combined with 3-D labels.

Appropriate topology and coefficients have a great impact on their models' performances. This paper proposes an enhanced group method of data handling (GMDH) algorithm using a modified Levenberg–Marquardt (LM) method. In this work, evolutionary algorithm and LM techniques are deployed simultaneously for optimal design of both connectivity configuration and associated coefficients of each candidate solution in the evolving population combination. However, use of singular value decomposition technique with LM is considered as a novel method to overcome the problem of initial guess, which is presented for the first time in this research. In order to illustrate the benefits of the proposed algorithm, it has been applied in a Malaysian manufacturing company for forecasting in inventory control. Moreover, a comparison between the basic GMDH algorithm and the enhanced GMDH algorithm is made, and the results show that the accuracy of the proposed method is considerably high with reasonable reduction in processing time. Therefore, the enhanced GMDH method can be used to replace old techniques in an inventory control system to generate a structure when it is applied to a Kanban setting in the just in time system.

Functional modeling is a very significant part of many different well-known design methodologies. This paper investigates the questions of what functional modeling approaches people use in industry and how they conceptualize functions. Using interviews and the findings from an experiment where 20 individual designers were asked to generate a functional model of a product, the paper highlights the different notions designers associate with the word function. Difficulties associated with functional modeling arise from varied and inconsistent notions of functions as well as wider challenges associated with modeling and the introduction of methods in industry.

In this paper we explore the influence of the physical and social environment (the design space) son the formation of shared understanding in multidisciplinary design teams. We concentrate on the creative design meeting as a microenvironment for studying processes of design communication. Our applied research context entails the design of mixed physical–digital interactive systems supporting design meetings. Informed by theories of embodiment that have recently gained interest in cognitive science, we focus on the role of interactive “traces,” representational artifacts both created and used by participants as scaffolds for creating shared understanding. Our research through design approach resulted in two prototypes that form two concrete proposals of how the environment may scaffold shared understanding in design meetings. In several user studies we observed users working with our systems in natural contexts. Our analysis reveals how an ensemble of ongoing social as well as physical interactions, scaffolded by the interactive environment, grounds the formation of shared understanding in teams. We discuss implications for designing collaborative tools and for design communication theory in general.

Configuration of large-scale applications in an engineering context requires a modeling environment that allows the design engineer to draft the configuration problem in a natural way and efficient methods that can process the modeled setting and scale with the number of components. Existing configuration methods in artificial intelligence typically perform quite well in certain subareas but are hard to use for general-purpose modeling without mathematical or logics background (the so-called knowledge acquisition bottleneck) and/or have scalability issues. As a remedy to this important issue both in theory and in practical applications, we use a standard modeling environment like the Unified Modeling Language that has been proposed by the configuration community as a suitable object-oriented formalism for configuration problems. We provide a translation of key concepts of class diagrams to inequalities and identify relevant configuration aspects and show how they are treated as an integer linear program. Solving an integer linear program can be done efficiently, and integer linear programming scales well to large configurations consisting of several thousands components and interactions. We conduct an empirical study in the context of package management for operating systems and for the Linux kernel configuration. We evaluate our methodology by a benchmark and obtain convincing results in support for using integer linear programming for configuration applications of realistic size and complexity.

The concept of a function is of great importance in design. This paper describes from theory how designers should reason about functions when designing. This paper introduces the link model, showing how functions and properties link the product and its use, to the perceived value of the product. The important and useful distinction between functions and properties is made along with the distinction between “wirk functions,” which is what the product does when operating, and “use functions,” which is what the product is used for. The paper makes a novel contribution beyond previous literature, showing that not only is a product's behavior or mode of action designed but also the use activity of the end user. Based on the theoretical perspective unfolded, the authors offer nine mind-sets for both design practitioners and researchers to consider when reasoning about functions.

This paper relates key concepts of strategic cognition in microstrategy to design practice. It considers the potential roles of designers' output in strategic sensemaking and sensegiving. Designed artifacts play well-known roles as communication media; sketches, renderings, models, and prototypes are created to explore and test possibilities and to communicate these options within and outside the design team. This article draws on design and strategy literature to propose that designed artifacts can and do play a role as symbolic communication resources in sensemaking and sensegiving activities that impact strategic decision making and change. Extracts from interviews with three designers serve as illustrative examples. This article is a call for further empirical exploration of such a complex subject.

Generative product design systems used in the context of mass customization are required to generate diverse solutions quickly and reliably without necessitating modification or tuning during use. When such systems are employed to allow for the mass customization of product form, they must be able to handle mass production and engineering constraints that can be time-consuming to evaluate and difficult to fulfill. These issues are related to how the constraints are handled in the generative design system. This article evaluates two promising sequential constraint-handling techniques and the often used weighted sum technique with regard to convergence time, convergence rate, and diversity of the design solutions. The application used for this purpose was a design system aimed at generating a table with an advanced form: a Voronoi diagram based structure. The design problem was constrained in terms of production as well as stability, requiring a time-consuming finite element evaluation. Regarding convergence time and rate, one of the sequential constraint-handling techniques performed significantly better than the weighted sum technique. Nevertheless, the weighted sum technique presented respectable results and therefore remains a relevant technique. Regarding diversity, none of the techniques could generate diverse solutions in a single search run. In contrast, the solutions from different searches were always diverse. Solution diversity is thus gained at the cost of more runs, but no evaluation of the diversity of the solutions is needed. This result is important, because a diversity evaluation function would otherwise have to be developed for every new type of design. Efficient handling of complex constraints is an important step toward mass customization of nontrivial product forms.

The competitive market forces companies to offer tailored products to meet specific customer needs. To avoid wasting time, design efforts generally address the configuration of existing solutions, without producing substantial design modifications. Configuration tools are used to achieve customized products starting from a common platform. Many approaches have been successfully proposed in literature to configure products. However, in the mechanical field they need further investigation in order to be efficiently linked to computer-aided design technologies. Research is focused on tools and methods to automatically produce geometrical models and improve the flexibility of the continuous product updating process. In this context, this paper aims to combine product configuration approaches with design automation techniques in order to support design activities of products to fulfill specific requirements. The approach is based on entities called configurable virtual prototypes. Three different domains are managed and connected via configurable virtual prototypes: product specifications, geometrical data, and product knowledge. In particular, geometry recognition rules are used to identify the parameterization of parts and the assembly mating constraints. The approach is exemplified through an industrial case study where a tool has been developed on the basis of the described method. Advantages of the system are shown in terms of achieved product configuration efficiency.