Detailed Product Design Research Articles

How Does the Design Guidelines for Traditional Cultural Artefacts Inspire Design in a Culturally Inspired Design Process? A Comparative Study with Novice Design Students

AbstractDesign guidelines for traditional cultural artefacts play an important role in Culturally Inspired Design (CID) activities and design education. In this paper, a comparative study was performed to assess the impact of present‐day design guidelines for traditional Chinese cultural artefacts on novice designers in a CID process. In all, 42 novice designers enrolled in a cultural product design course participated in this study, under two different design conditions: an unaided condition and a guideline‐aided condition. Each condition includes three stages: identification stage, translation stage and implementation stage. In the unaided condition, each participant was asked to finish an investigative report on traditional cultural artefacts without any guidance and then carry out a detailed cultural product design. These results were then compared with those of the participants in the guideline‐aided condition, who received a design guideline for traditional cultural artefacts. The results were assessed by expert raters against six design metrics: breadth, depth, quantity, variety, novelty and quality. They revealed that the design guideline for traditional cultural artefacts in a CID process promoted the analysis of cultural features and increased the novelty and quality of design outcomes but resulted in decreased variety. We propose that the design guideline for traditional cultural artefacts may be useful as part of the design process and as a pedagogical tool in cultural creative design, but the best moment at which to introduce the design guideline should be further examined.

Integrated Production and Distribution Planning using Mathematical Model for Maximizing Profit

In three-dimensional concurrent engineering context, product, process, and supply chain designs are approached by the imperative of concurrency principle. The imperative of concurrency proposes product architecture and supply chain architecture conducted simultaneously. The detailed product design and production process design are conducted simultaneously. While manufacturing system design is conducted simultaneously with logistic system design. This study concerns on integrating production planning with distribution planning in a new plastic bags plant. Since the plant is relatively new, the number of orders is still scarce. Therefore, production planning becomes critical. Producing more products than required creates inventories while producing as many as the order required creates an intermittent production schedule. A mathematical is developed to simultaneously schedule production and distribution to maximize profit. The model provides solutions on the number of materials to be delivered, the number of products produced and delivered within its period for the planning horizon.

The Importance of Quality Product Design Aspect Based on Computer Aided Design (CAD)

Computer-Aided Design (CAD) is the essential tools to create technical documentation and product specification for designing a product. Because of this, a survey conducted to identify the needs and importance of the design aspect such as design requirement, design concept, detailed product design and design evaluation. The result of a descriptive analysis indicated that significance of the elements of designing the quality product was at a high level. Findings also state that there was a positive relationship between the design process among each aspect of the product design, and the correlation shows a moderate level. Keywords: Design Requirement; Design Concept; Detailed Product Design; Design Evaluation. eISSN: 2398-4287© 2020. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bsby e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BYNC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/ebpj.v5iSI3.2545

Relative preference-based product configurator design

Product configurators have been considered as a major enabling toolkit for product customization. Configurators interact with customers and transform customers’ specific requirements into a set of tangible product specifications. They serve as the bridge between customer needs and companies’ offering. Current product configurators often require customers to make choices based on the product design parameters. However, customers may not have enough expertise of the product which they are unfamiliar with. A semantic gap exists between customer requirements and product parameters. It increases the confusion and difficulty that customers encounter in configuration process. This paper attempts to improve the performance of product configurators by bridging the semantic gap between customer needs and detailed product design parameters. Based on historical configuration data, we build a ranking function which leverages on customers’ relative preferences towards attribute choices. Then a relative preferences-based product configurator will be developed to bridge the semantic gap by leveraging on the relationship network. When using the relative attribute-based configurator, customers don’t need to specify their desired attribute choices one by one. They just need to indicate the relative preferences towards a reference product variant and an updated product variant will be presented based on the ranking function. This shields customers from the potentially demanding and confusing configuration task.

The Conceptual Framework of Quality Product Design Based on Computer Aided Design (CAD)

Producing a sustainable product quality and innovation ecosystem is not an easy thing, especially in the product development stage. Therefore, Computer-Aided Design (CAD) software can be utilized as an important tool to develop the creative design and quality product. This paper discussed the conception of quality design for the production of product design. This study employed systematic review of producing a conceptual framework to examine the systematic development process of product design quality with the product design requirements, design product concepts, detailed product design and product design evaluation of the aspects of quality products. The result of the conceptual framework developed shows that the initial stage of idea-generating is an essential element in the design, supporting a systematic process that can produce innovative, creative and quality product design.

Transforming Multidisciplinary Customer Requirements to Product Design Specifications

With the increasing of complexity of complex mechatronic products, it is necessary to involve multidisciplinary design teams, thus, the traditional customer requirements modeling for a single discipline team becomes difficult to be applied in a multidisciplinary team and project since team members with various disciplinary backgrounds may have different interpretations of the customers’ requirements. A new synthesized multidisciplinary customer requirements modeling method is provided for obtaining and describing the common understanding of customer requirements (CRs) and more importantly transferring them into a detailed and accurate product design specifications (PDS) to interact with different team members effectively. A case study of designing a high speed train verifies the rationality and feasibility of the proposed multidisciplinary requirement modeling method for complex mechatronic product development. This proposed research offersthe instruction to realize the customer-driven personalized customization of complex mechatronic product.

Processing incomplete data for simulation-based production planning in shipbuilding

This paper presents an approach for simulation experiments at early stages of the shipbuilding process. In the early stages of the planning process, the design of the ship is not yet complete. However, an early scheduling of the production is already needed for staff employment and material ordering. Because the plan is based on incomplete input data, the uncertainty in production planning is much higher than in serial production with fully detailed product design and routings. The uncertainty reduces the accuracy of planning and, therefore, has a significant impact on its quality and robustness. The paper presents an approach to describe this uncertainty and to reduce it by generating design details from historical data.

An Industry Case Study: Investigating Early Design Decision Making in Virtual Reality

The research presented here describes an industry case study of the use of immersive virtual reality (VR) as a general design tool with a focus on the decision making process. A group of design and manufacturing engineers, who were involved in an active new product development project, were invited to participate in three design reviews in an immersive environment. Observations, interviews, and focus groups were conducted to evaluate the effect of using this interface on decision making in early product design. Because the team members were actively engaged in a current product design task, they were motivated to use the immersive technology to address specific challenges they needed to solve to move forward with detailed product design. This case study takes the approach of asking not only what can users do from a technology standpoint but also how their actions in the virtual environment influence decision making. The results clearly show that the team identified design issues and potential solutions that were not identified or verified using traditional computer tools. The design changes that were the outcome of the experience were implemented in the final product design. Another result was that software familiarity played a significant role in the comfort level and subsequent effectiveness of the team discussions. Finally, participants commented on how the immersive VR environment encouraged an increased sense of team engagement that led to better discussions and fuller participation of the team members in the decision process.

Simulation of Automotive Galvanized Steel Stamped Parts: Experimental and Numerical Approach

In the rapid new automobile development, the use of simulation technology is highly demanded due to shorter time to market and fashionable product styling that go beyond the rule-of-thumb in the manufacturing technology. In stamping simulation, the expected predictions rest with the part formability, spring back, blank optimization, and other vehicle integration works. These predictions are conducted concurrently during detailed product design, and intensive product validation is performed based on such predictions. In current work, it has established the experimental mechanical properties and flow curve data for thin galvanized sheet metal. Furthermore, the true prediction of part formability is investigated with established data and standard material database embedded in commercial simulation software. The tensile experiments were carried out on a uniaxial hydraulic tensile test machine with sheet metal specimen and in accordance to ASTM requirements. Three different sheet metal specimens were prepared from the longitudinal, transverse and 450degrees from the rolling direction. From experimental works and formulation, the mechanical properties, anisotropy and flow curve had been obtained. Further improvement in the embedded material database increases the prediction accuracy of FEM analysis for Body-in-White structure and crash performance.

Shanzhai manufacturing – an alternative innovation phenomenon in China

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore an indigenous innovation phenomenon – entitled the Shanzhai phenomenon – which has emerged in the Chinese mobile phone industry, and to understand its value creation network and operational mechanism, as well as to recognize its policy implications in regional and industrial developments.Design/methodology/approachAlthough the Shanzhai phenomenon emerged from the end of 2008, detailed understanding of its systems and operational mechanism is still very limited, partly because of its secrecy and dynamics in the value chain operations. Based on characteristics of the Shaizhai phenomenon, the paper focuses on three levels of the phenomenon – regional historical, regional industrial specific, and typical Shanzhai mobile phone project levels – to pursue a comprehensive understanding of the Shanzhai system and its emerging environments. At the regional and industrial level, the combined approaches of interview and secondary data collection is adopted. At the Shanzhai project level, a case study approach is conducted by focusing on the project and its whole value chain, from the idea creation towards detailed product design, production and integration, as well as its distribution.FindingsChinese government has called for indigenous innovation to upgrade Chinese manufacturing capability and value creation as well as appropriation. Based on the fast growth of the Chinese indigenous mobile phone industry in the last two years, the Shanzhai manufacturing system is recognized as a new positive alternative way for Chinese manufacturing companies to achieve this aim. Behind the Shanzhai phenomenon, there is a strong globally specialized and collaborated network enabling the down‐stream Chinese small‐ and medium‐sized mobile phone companies to very quickly respond to customers' demands or lead the demands. This new type of alternative innovation system is transforming unaffordable luxury goods into affordable for normal consumers. Because of its mass volume and involvement, however, government policies to harness the energy and development direction become essential.Research limitations/implicationsThis research is just a very early stage of preliminary observation. From the methodology perspective, it provides background information about Shanzhai phenomenon and an in‐depth case study about a Shanzhai project. Comprehensive understandings of the Shanzhai phenomenon in terms of its behaviours, systems constructs and patterns, trajectories in the future and implications for policies will be achieved only at a much later date.Practical implicationsShanZhai manufacturing might be one possible alternative innovative paradigm in some sectors of China.Originality/valueThis is the first academic research paper to offer relatively comprehensive and systematic observations about the emerging ShanZhai manufacturing system in the largest developing country.

Coupling product and manufacturing system design

This work examines the pathways leading from preliminary product and process development first (Stage 1) to detailed product design, with emphasis on analysis-based configuration issues (Stage 2) and then, to manufacturing system design focusing on performance prediction (Stage 3). Stage 1 starts with an enhanced QFD exercise that setting both functional and manufacturing requirements, resulting in a product configurations table. Stage 2 enables generation of systematic variations of the best main configuration using parametric CAD software and DfM/DfA assessment tools. In addition, FEA is conducted on a limited number of product variations and results are used to train a neural network meta-model which acts as an evaluator of functional performance. Stage 3 simulates manufacturing system performance based on individual manufacturing processes decided in the previous two stages considering equipment, material handling options, production rate drivers, etc. Feedback is generated mainly within stages and in exceptional circumstance between stages, too. The methodology is demonstrated using as case-study a meteorological mast.

AHP 및 Fuzzy를 이용한 제품기획단계에서의 안전성 평가

As users increasingly recognize the importance of safety and the Product Liability comes into effect, a company should take responsibility of protecting the users who use its product. In order to produce a safe product and satisfy the needs of users, it is critical for developers to evaluate the safety of the product appropriately and understand the characteristics of the product accurately. Furthermore, a safe product can be realized by considering a safety level of the product in a whole product development process. However, in general, product development projects hardly evaluate the safety of a product in the product planning step. In addition, most of safety evaluation methods which are applied in the product planning step have a tendency to be qualitative because a detailed product design can not be specified in this step. Therefore, this research aims at enhancing the performance of the safety evaluation process by applying quantitative methods such as 'AHP' and 'Fuzzy'. AHP can help analysts derive the weight of safety factors. Fuzzy is applied to evaluate the degree of safety of product elements in this paper. The proposed method will be able to improve the safety level of a product by using the quantitative methods in the product planning step.

A narrow size distribution on a high shear mixer by applying a flux number approach

High shear granulation is a common technology for particle size enlargement, but generally the product properties are badly affected by the broad size distribution generated in the process. A recently published approach by Michaels et al. [J.N. Michaels, G. Wang, L. Farber, K.P. Hapgood, J.H. Chou, S. Heidel, and G.I. Tardos, 2006, One-dimensional scale-up of high-shear granulators, Paper 243c, World Congress Particle Technology 5, Orlando (FL)] employs low binder solution spray rates and long granulation times, whilst the solids are kept in roping flow, to avoid coarse formation. The present work applies this approach to a two-component binder system with a dry powder gum and water spray as activation agent. Similarities with fluidised bed granulation and coating processes are explored. The work shows that indeed narrow size distributions of fine granules can be achieved with ease. Dimensionless numbers for spray fluxes are useful to identify operating regimes and to steer optimisation efforts. Comparison of flux numbers for different systems shows that they are not useful (yet) for detailed product and process design. Further work on material-specific quantities controlling nucleation and growth, e.g. particle wetting, is recommended.

中小企業における設計プロセスへのLCA導入

Objective. Eco-Design tools, which are widely utilized by major manufactures, have not been spread over Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs). SME does not have an incentive to implement Eco-design tools because of the following reasons: (i) Many SMEs are standing at the middle position of the products supply chains. Therefore, they receive the specifications of their products from their customers and they have small flexibility of design and production procedures. (ii) Shortage of information on the upper and the lower stages of the products supply chains make implementing Eco-design tools difficult. (iii) SMEs do not have enough capacity to install new tools due to lack of staff and budget for research and development. To overcome these obstacles, we have implemented the Eco-Design Promotion Project for SME, to diffuse Eco-Design tools, i.e, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Quality Function Deployment for Environment (QFDE). This paper introduces the results of the project, and proposes a model of design process. Results and Discussion. The number of companies participated in the project was 14 in 2006FY and 63 in 2007FY. As examples, two cases practiced in 2006FY are shown in this paper. In case of the ventilation system, the company implemented QFDE and LCA for the fan, and clarified that CO2 emission through the product life cycle is dominated by the usage stage and the designers found that redesign of the shape of blade to reduce the power consumption in the usage stage is effective to improve the environmental performance. In case of the casting products, the company applied LCA to improve its production line because the detailed product design is strictly specified by its customer. The LCA quantified that the dominant factor was the energy consumption in cupola furnace and the pig iron production. The company found that the improvement of process yield and reducing the feed amount of pig iron are effective. To implement LCA and QFDE for SME effectively, we have to consider not only the product characteristics, but also every aspect where the SME can contribute for the product, since most SMEs are standing at the middle position of the products supply chains. Furthermore, we have to take into account the variations of the status and condition of environmental data management depending on the SME. Therefore, we propose a business model for SME to implement Eco-Design. Conclusions. The paper shows that the Eco-design tools can be useful for SME to reduce environmental impact by implementing the right tools in right timing by describing practical case studies. Business process models developed by using IDEF0 function modeling method show when LCA is used and what are needed for implementation of LCA. Two business process models are proposed to implement LCA on product design process and on production line design process.

JCISE Editorial Board

JCISE Editorial Board

What are Advances in Knowledge Doing to the Large Industrial Firm in the « New Economy » ?

The dominant forms of organisation and practice in industrial firms have been, and are, strongly conditioned by the two characteristics of technology: first, the continuous increase in specialisation in production of both artefacts and knowledge: second, periodic waves of major innovations based on rapid improvements in specific technologies, the latest of which is Information & Communication Technology (ICT). As a consequence, the large, integrated and diversifying manufacturing firm - as described and analysed by Penrose and Chandler - is facing increasing disruption, and is outsourcing an increasing share of detailed product design and manufacture. Systems design and integration, including advanced applications of ICT, could replace manufacturing as the dominant industrial activity in highwage countries. pdf no longer available - this paper has now been published as a chapter in: J.F. Christensen and P. Maskell (eds) The Industrial Dynamics of the New Digital Economy; Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2003, pp. 103-120.