Early Stages Of Product Development Research Articles

Observing tour operators’ interest in sustainability in Finland

The paper assesses how tour operators (TOs) address sustainability at the early stages of product development. TOs have potentially a large role in providing sustainable options for customers, and therefore contribute to sustainable tourism. The research took place during a TO familiarization trip (FAM) to a new destination. Participant observation was used as it allowed researchers unique access to participate in the same programme as the TOs. Altogether 14 tourism establishments were visited and they all provided information about sustainability. The TOs’ interest in sustainability was weak, which indicates that sustainability in the early stage is superseded by other significant factors, such as type of product, suitability, seasonality and quality. However, further research in examining when sustainability becomes an issue for TOs would be beneficial for local stakeholders.

Design for manufacturing and Assembly practices in early stage of product development

This paper gives an overview of research that is expanding the domain of design for manufacturing (DFM) into new and important areas. DFM and assembly is widely used in industry, especially in product design and development process. to meet customer needs, companies are struggling with competitive markets to produce low cost products with high quality and faster to market. It becomes an important concept as the best time to find cost reductions, at design stage, rather than during manufacturing. The paper concludes with some general guidelines that suggest how manufacturing firms can develop useful, effective DFM. Overall goal with the paper is to aid designers, manufacturers, process planners in the practical industries on the ground and researchers in the mentioned area of study.

Prospective Life Cycle Assessment at Early Stage of Product Development: Application to Nickel Slag Valorization Into Cement for the Construction Sector

Pyrometallurgical nickel industry in New Caledonia produces several tons of slag per year, which is stocked on site. There is no valorization today, except for a small transformation into sand. Pyrometallurgy highly consumes fossil-fuel energy and electricity for ore pre-treatment and nickel extraction inside electrical furnaces, which produces significant CO2 emissions. A new valorization approach is suggested to use these two local productions (slag and CO2) to mineralize slag and produce silico-magnesian cement for the construction sector. In order to ensure suitable environmental performances, many questions arise about the target valorized product: where and how to capture CO2 and produce cement, what constraints should be targeted for the mineralization process, can products be exported and where? Moreover, New Caledonia aims to develop renewable energies for electricity grid, which would mitigate local industries impacts in the future. A prospective Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is used to define constraints on future product development. Two hundred scenarios are defined and compared as well as electricity grid evolution, using Brightway software. Thirteen scenarios can compete with traditional Portland cement for 12 of the 16 impacts of the ILCD midpoint method. The evolution of electricity grid slightly affects the performance of the scenarios by a mean of less than+/−25%, bringing a small difference on the number of acceptable scenarios. The main constraint requires improving the mineralization process by considerably reducing electricity consumption of the attrition-leaching operation. To be in line with scenarios concerning carbon neutrality of the cement industry by 2050, a sensitivity analysis provides the maximum energy consumption target for the mineralization process that is 0.9100 kWh/kg of carbonated slag, representing a 70% reduction of the current energy measured at lab scale. Valorization of nickel slag and CO2 should turn to carbon capture and utilization technology, which allows for the production of supplementary cementitious materials, another product for the construction sector. It will be the topic of a next prospective study.

Assessing Global Needs When Identifying Potential Engineering for Global Development Projects

Abstract With limited time and resources available to carry out Engineering for Global Development (EGD) projects, it can be difficult to know where those resources should be allocated to have greater potential for meaningful impact. It is easy to assume that projects should occur in a particular location based on personal experience or where other development projects are taking place. This can be a consideration, but it may not lead to the greatest social impact. Where to work on a project and what problem to work on are key questions in the early stages of product development in the context of EGD. To aid in this process, this article presents a method for assessing global needs to ensure thoughtful use of limited EGD resources. We introduce a method for identifying locations where there is human need, gaps in technological achievement, and what the work environment is in a country. Results of the method are compared to what countries receive the most foreign aid dollars per capita. Measures were calculated using the principal component analysis on data from development agencies. These results can help practitioners in selecting where to undertake development projects with an eye toward targeting locations that may yield high levels of social impact.

A Method to Optimise Semi-Trailers with the Use of FEM Analysis and Durability Tests with a Road Simulator

This paper presents a method developed by Wielton company – a manufacturer of trailers and semi-trailers – for the optimization of semi-trailer’s construction, supported by FEM analysis and the modern road simulator – a test stand included as part of the method for optimising semi-trailers. The aim of the research was to optimize the process of developing a technical measure in terms of shortening the time of implementing new products while guaranteeing high durability and functionality of the products. As a result of the optimization of the construction with the use of FEM analysis and the road simulator, the semi-trailer as a new product for sale is delivered quickly and possible defects of construction are eliminated on early stage of new product development. The method assumes the following stages of the development process: determination of input data to the process, development of a 3D model, FEM numerical analysis (static and dynamic), development of an optimized 3D model based on numerical analyses, construction of the first prototype, prototype validation tests using the road simulator and other test stands. Important feature of the developed method to optimise construction is connected with specific data achieved from FEM analysis and used in tests with the road simulator. The effect of using presented method is the elimination of 98% errors in construction and technology. These errors concern not only the key parts of the semi-trailer, i.e. the body and the frame, but also less important components, i.e. fixing of tanks and boxes, ladder, spare wheel basket, extinguisher mounting. The method to optimise semi-trailers developed in Wielton have many advantages, such as: limiting the risk of launching breakthrough solutions on the market, faster increase in vehicle competitiveness, optimizing vehicle construction, reduction of production time and costs, and as a consequence - faster implementation of new products, reducing the number of complaints and service costs, increasing the value and prestige.

A Preliminary Cost-Utility Analysis of the Prosthetic Care Innovations: Basic Framework.

A preliminary cost-utility analysis (CUA) of prosthetic care innovations can provide timely information during the early stage of product development and clinical usage. Concepts of preliminary CUAs are emerging. However, several obstacles must be overcome before these analyses are performed routinely. Disparities of methods and high uncertainty make the outcomes of usual preliminary CUAs challenging to interpret, appraise and share. These shortcomings create opportunities for a basic framework of preliminary CUAs. First, I introduced a basic framework of a preliminary CUA built around a series of constructs and hands-on recommendations. Then, I appraised this framework considering the strengths and weaknesses, barriers and facilitators, and return on investment. The design of the basic framework was determined through the review of health economic and prosthetic-specific literature. A preliminary CUA comparing the costs and utilities between usual intervention and an innovation could be achieved through a 15-step iterative process focusing on feasibility, constructs, analysis, and interpretation of outcomes. This CUA provides sufficient evidence to identify knowledge gaps and improvement areas, educate about the design of subsequent full CUAs, and obtain fast-track approval from governing bodies. Like previous CUAs, the main limitations were inherent to the constructs (e.g., narrow perspective, plausible scenarios, mid-term time horizon, substantial assumptions, data mismatch, high uncertainty). Key facilitators potentially transferable across preliminary CUAs of prosthetic care innovations included choosing abided constructs, capitalizing on prior schedules of expenses, and benchmarking baseline or incremental utilities. This new approach with preliminary CUA can simplify the selection of methods, standardize outcomes, ease comparisons between innovations, and streamline pathways for adoption. Further collegial efforts toward validating standard preliminary CUAs will facilitate access to economic prosthetic care innovations, improving the lives of individuals suffering from limb loss worldwide.

Editorial and News

Editorial and News

Investigation of Drug-Excipient Compatibility Studies Using Validated RP-HPLC Method for Azelnidipine and Telmisartan Tablets

Aims: The Drug-Excipient compatibility testing was conducted at an early product development stage to determined that Excipients were compatible with drugs used in formulation and to distinguish as many degradation products as possible using validated gradient RP-HPLC method.
 Study Design: Drug-Excipient Compatibility study was conducted in glass vials at different stability conditions namely, at 300C + 20C/75% + 5% RH, 400C + 20C/ 75% + 5% RH for 04 weeks and another set of closed vials were stored in stability chamber at temperature 600C + 20C for 02 weeks.
 Methodology: Samples were analyzed by validated RP-HPLC method using Inertsil C-18 Column 150 × 4.6 mm ×5 µm, column oven temperature 40°C, flow rate 1.5 mL/min, Injection volume 10 µL with run time 12.0 minutes at 254 nm using Acetonitrile and buffer as mobile phase in gradient mode.
 Results: The developed method meets all system suitability parameters and found specific to determine the drug in the presence of Excipient as no interference was observed at the Retention time (Rt) of analyte.
 Conclusion: There was no physical and chemical incompatibility observed with Drug-Excipient and did not observe significant increase in the related substances.

Methodology for the Concept Design of Locally Reinforced Composites

Locally load-optimized fiber-based composites, the so-called tailored textiles (TT), offer the potential to reduce weight and cost compared to conventional fiber-reinforced plastics (FRP). However, the design of TT has a higher complexity compared to FRP. Current approaches, focusing on solving this complexity for multiple objectives (cost, weight, stiffness), require great effort and calculation time, which makes them unsuitable for serial applications. Therefore, in this paper, an approach for the efficient creation of simplified TT concept designs is presented. By combining simplified models for structural design and cost estimation, the most promising concepts, regarding the cost, weight, and stiffness of TT parts, can be identified. By performing a parameter study, the cost, weight, and stiffness optima of a sample part compared to a conventional FRP component can be determined. The cost and weight were reduced by 30% for the same stiffness. Applying this approach at an early stage of product development reduces the initial complexity of the subsequent detailed engineering design, e.g., by applying methods from the state of the art.

Influence of basket mesh size on the hydrodynamics in the USP rotating basket dissolution testing Apparatus 1

The USP Apparatus 1 (rotating basket), typically used to assess drug product reproducibility and evaluate oral solid dosage forms performance, consists of a cylindrical glass vessel with a hemispherical bottom and a wire basket rotating at constant speed. Baskets with different wire openings can be used in alternative to the standard mesh opening (40-mesh) in order to discriminate between drug formulations during early stage of drug product development. Any changes introduced by different basket geometries can potentially and significantly impact the system hydrodynamics and cause variability of results, thus affecting product quality. In this work, Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) was used to experimentally quantify the velocity distribution in the USP rotating basket Apparatus 1 using baskets of different mesh sizes (10-, 20-, and 40-mesh size) under the typical operating conditions described in dissolution testing procedures. Similar flow patterns were observed in all cases. However, the radial and axial velocities in the USP Apparatus 1 generally increased with increasingly larger openings of the basket mesh. Increasing the basket agitation speed also resulted in an overall increase in the velocities, especially below in the innermost core region below the basket, where drug fragments typically reside. More importantly, the flow entering and leaving the baskets was quantified from the velocity profiles in the immediate vicinity of the baskets. It was found that the flow increased significantly with increasingly larger mesh openings, which can, in turn, promote faster dissolution of the oral solid dosage forms, thus affecting drug dissolution profiles. Hence, the selection of the basket mesh size must be carefully considered during drug product development.

TOOLS FOR RECORDING PROTOTYPING ACTIVITIES AND QUANTIFYING CORRESPONDING DOCUMENTATION IN THE EARLY STAGES OF PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

AbstractPrototyping is an essential activity in the early stages of product development. This activity can provide insight into the learning process that takes place during the implementation of an idea. It can also help to improve the design of a product. This information and the process are useful in design education as they can be used to enhance students' ability to prototype their ideas and develop creative solutions. To observe the activity of prototype development, we conducted a study on students participating in a 7-week course: Principles of Digital Fabrication. During the course, eight teams made prototypes and shared their weekly developments via internet blog posts. The posts contained prototype pictures, descriptions of their ideas, and reflections on activities. The blog documentation of the prototypes developed by the students was done without the researchers' intervention, providing essential data or research. Based on a review of other methods of capturing the prototype development process, we compare existing documentation tools with the method used in the case study and outline the practices and tools related to the effective documentation of prototyping activity.

EXAMINING THE USER EXPERIENCE OF LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT TOOLS AND THEIR ABILITY TO CATER TO ECODESIGN IN EARLY-STAGE PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT PRACTICE

AbstractWith the topic of sustainability steadily gaining importance and public awareness, there is growing consensus about the need to incorporate environmental considerations in early stage product development (PD). This makes it imperative for PD practitioners to have access to methods and tools, including life cycle assessment (LCA), that support sustainability integration. This paper evaluates existing LCA tools on their ability to cater to the early-stage PD context, by having users apply the tools in practice and exploring their experiences. We find that the challenges to applying LCA in this context emanate primarily from the shortcomings of the tools themselves. Our evaluation metrics for tool critique are derived from a thematic analysis of user interviews we conducted, refined according to information and interaction design principles from human-computer interaction (HCI). This unique approach helps triangulate insights from users with literature, to produce design recommendations for the development of novel LCA tools tailored to the early PD context.

Improved assessment model for candidate design schemes with an interval rough integrated cloud model under uncertain group environment

Design scheme decision is a vital activity at the early stage of product development, which is usually conducted by expert assessment. Since various uncertainties inherently exist in experts’ linguistic assessments, such as vagueness, randomness, and diversity, single uncertainty manipulation methods may not be sufficient to select suitable design alternatives. However, existing methods usually only employ single models to handle experts’ assessment uncertainties. Besides, the relative weights of experts and assessment criteria are essential information in decision system which can reasonably capture the relationship of different factors. However, most current references only consider the criteria’s weight, which also influences the rationality of assessment results. Hence, this study proposes a new decision model to address the above-mentioned limitations. First, a novel linguistic manipulation model, namely interval rough integrated clouds (IRICs), is developed to handle various uncertainties by combining the interval rough number theory and cloud model theory. Second, two hybrid-weighting methods are proposed to respectively identify the overall weights of experts and assessment criteria by considering both subjective and objective aspects. Finally, a real-world case of alternative assessment is conducted to demonstrate its feasibility and reliability. Some existing known methods evaluate the proposed method’s performance, and the results illustrate that the proposed method is outperforming many existing assessment methods.

Urgensi Mobile Learning Berbasis Situs Jejak Gerilya Jenderal Soedirman di Pakisbaru Pacitan sebagai Media Pembelajaran Sejarah Generasi Z

This research was conducted to analyze the urgency of history learning media innovation. The development of the times puts history learning to have challenges to be able to adapt the learning targets faced, namely the Z Generation. This generation was born in the early 2000s. The character of this generation is very sensitive to technology and communication, meaning that they have advantages in the field of information and knowledge. Meanwhile, educators who were born in the previous era are still didn't used to it, so that educators often admit to being "gaptek" (stuttering technology). Therefore, this study describes the urgency of developing Mobile Learning media using local historical sites. The description presented covers the development stage of the first part. This section describes a preliminary study to see potential problems and analyze the needs of students in learning history. The results obtained from this study are quite significant with the percentage reaching above 80% for the category of interest in mobile learning media. In the early stages of product development, the materials and media produced from the field research process at the historical site of General Sudirman in Pacitan is also presented. In addition, it also describes the form of the media design as an initial draft with adjustments to the learning interests of the Z Generation. So, Mobile Learning is expected to facilitate the Z Generation in learning history.

From intuition to intelligence: a text mining–based approach for movies' green-lighting process

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to develop a predictive model for box office performance based on the textual information in movie scripts in the green-lighting process of movie production.Design/methodology/approachThe authors use Latent Dirichlet Allocation to determine the hidden textual structure in movie scripts by extracting topic probabilities as predictors for classification. The extracted topic probabilities are used as inputs for the predictive model for the box office performance. For the predictive model, the authors utilize a variety of classification algorithms such as logistic classification, decision trees, random forests, k-nearest neighbor algorithms, support vector machines and artificial neural networks, and compare their relative performances in predicting movies' market performance.FindingsThis approach for extracting textual information from movie scripts produces a valuable typology for movies. Moreover, our modeling approach has significant power to predict movie scripts' profitability. It provides a superior prediction performance compared to previous benchmarks, such as that of Eliashberg et al. (2007).Research limitations/implicationsThis work contributes to literature on predicting the box office performance in the green-lighting process and literature regarding suggesting models for the idea screening stage in the new product development process. Besides, this is one of the few studies that use movie script data to predict movies' financial performance by proposing an approach to integrate text mining models and machine learning algorithms with movie experts' intuition.Practical implicationsFirst, the authors’ approach can significantly reduce the financial risk associated with movie production decisions before the pre-production stage. Second, this paper proposes an approach that is applicable at a very early stage of new product development, such as the idea screening stage. The authors also introduce an online-based movie scenario database system that can help movie studios make more systematic and profitable decisions in the green-lighting process. Third, this approach can help movie studios estimate movie scripts' financial value.Originality/valueThis study is one of the few studies to forecast market performance in the green-lighting process.

Carbon footprint and embodied energy of a wind turbine blade—a case study

The main goal of this work is to evaluate the environmental impact of a 63-m blade for wind generators. The embodied energy and the carbon footprint are used as supporting tools for material selection in the initial project stages. Real industrial data regarding the most used materials for wind turbine blade construction are used. Two eco-parameters, embodied energy and carbon footprint, were calculated from each selected material together with values of manufacture, transport, use, and final disposal. The blades must be built to have a mechanical strength high enough to withstand vibrations caused by manufacturing flaws, turbulence, or irregular loading. In this sense, Young’s modulus, yield strength, and density were compared to the environmental footprint data to support the final material choice. This evaluation process of the possible materials to be used in the blade manufacture was carried out in the initial stages of the project. Composite materials such as glass fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP) and carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP), bonded together with an adhesive material, are used to build modern wind turbine blades. Those composites comprise a considerable number of different materials that can be mixed to reach adequate performance. Comparisons were made with 46 pre-selected materials, considering the mechanical behavior and environmental impacts. The final selected materials have better properties than the reference material. Finally, two materials with the desired mechanical properties and with a potential lower negative environmental impact than the reference material were selected. Replacing the reference resin—epoxy/E-glass fiber—with the epoxy resin with the lowest environmental impact—epoxy/S-glass fiber—will reduce the total value of the environmental load to 102 GJ of energy and 3.4 t of CO2. As important as the material selection in the early stages of product development is the end of life (EoL) choice. In this case, the glass fiber has an EoL potential of 370 GJ of energy and 460 t of CO2 in the remanufacturing option, against zero for the landfill. This work shows that carefully selected raw materials and EoL alternatives for WTB can significantly reduce the environmental impact of this component.

A New Approach for Testing Engagement Characteristics of Clutch

In this paper, a new method for testing the dynamic engagement characteristics of clutch is proposed. This approach is that the dynamic characteristics of clutch is simulated by finite element method. For the fluid friction characteristics, the average Reynolds equation proposed by Patir and Cheng is improved, and dimensionless parameters are adopted, which is applied to calculate the viscous torque. For the boundary friction characteristics, a surface elastic contact model is established to calculate rough contact torque. For the mixed friction characteristics, total torque consists of viscus torque and rough contact torque. The simulation and bench test are completed to verify the validity of model proposed. The model proposed can be used to guide the design of clutch in early stages of product development.

Screening the environmental sustainability of microbial production of butyric acid produced from lignocellulosic waste streams

Butyric acid is a valuable chemical that can be produced from oil or renewable feedstocks. However, due to technological advantages, it is currently synthesised at an industrial level by chemical synthesis. In view of the environmental concerns, attempts to produce butyric acid from renewable raw materials via microbial fermentation have been carried out. One possible route is the production of butyric acid from lignocellulosic feedstocks. This study aims to investigate the environmental profile of butyric acid production from wheat straw. The Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology was applied considering two product formulations: butyric acid in combination with acetic acid (BA1) and butyric acid with high purity (BA2). The functional unit (FU) considered is 1 kg of BA1 and BA2. A sensitivity analysis was performed by considering 100 % renewable energy and using sugar beet pulp and maize stover as alternative lignocellulosic raw materials. The figures show that, when it comes to identify the hotspots of the process, the production of steam, electricity and cellulase cocktail were the main processes with the highest environmental shares for both products, BA1 and BA2. The best environmental profile corresponded to BA1 due to the lower amount of energy and inputs required. The results of the sensitivity analysis reveal that the use of 100 % renewable energy in the production process would significantly reduce the environmental burdens. On the other hand, the use of beet pulp or maize stover as alternatives to wheat straw did not significantly change the global environmental results. This paper shows the importance of applying the LCA methodology to identify possible process improvement alternatives at an early stage of product development.

Experience-Based Product Inspection Planning for Industry 4.0

In this paper we describe how our Smart Virtual Product Development (SVPD) system can be used to enhance product inspection planning. The SVPD system is comprised of three main modules, these being the design knowledge management (DKM) module, the manufacturing capability and process planning (MCAPP) module, and the product inspection planning (PIP) module. Experiential knowledge relating to formal decisional events is collected, stored and used by the system in the form of set of experiences (SOEs). Here we discuss the working mechanism of the PIP module and show how experiential knowledge relating to the inspection of products that have features and functions in common can be used to enhance product inspection planning during early stages of product development. Our discussion commences with an introduction to fundamental concepts and a general system overview. We then describe the development of our SVPD system’s PIP module, and a case study we undertook for validation purposes. Results of the case study show that our system is capable of supporting product inspection planning in smart manufacturing, and thus has a vital role to play in Industry 4.0.

Implementing Concurrent Engineering and QFD Method to Achieve Realization of Sustainable Project

In this paper, we present the impact of concurrent engineering strategies, methods, and tools on product sustainability. Concurrent engineering can be used to achieve the primary goals of a product realization project: lower costs, shorter times, high quality, and increasing value. Currently, it is important that new products also meet product sustainability goals, such as economic, environmental, and social goals. The sustainability of a product can be influenced the most in the early stages of product development, so in this paper, we present a customized quality function deployment (QFD) method called the house of sustainability, which translates sustainability requirements into technical solutions for a product. A seven-step process for implementing a sustainable product realization project is also proposed, in which the house of sustainability is one of the most important tools. The proposed process is illustrated with an example of a concurrent product realization project in engineering to order production.