Product Design Environment Research Articles

Design of Experiment – An Integration of Fisher, Taguchi and Shainin DOE Methodology

Design of experiment (DOE) is the focal collective of quality technique and is widely used in Research and Development (R&D) organization to optimize product design parameters. There are three main DOE approaches that commonly adopted by R&D companies, which are the classical Fisher’s DOE, Taguchi DOE and Shainin DOE. This paper explores how these three main DOE approaches could be integrated to optimize product design parameters in a Research and Development company. The paper starts with enlightenment of the common DOE steps, follows by discussion of issues faced by the Research and Development company during the implementation of the three DOE approaches in product design. The paper subsequently illustrates how the three DOE approaches could be integrated as a new methodology for optimization of product design parameters. The integrated DOE methodology presented in this paper offers an alternative and effective way to conduct DOE in a dynamic product design and development environment.

A predictive risk evaluation framework for modular product concept selection in new product design environment

The purpose of this research is to help product managers in an original equipment manufacturer at early stages of new product design (NPD) to choose the best design concept for subsequent development and commercialisation that is associated with least risk to the enterprise. The product considered in this research is modular and repairable in nature. Considerations such as the availability of different module instances for different modules and the respective mean time to repair reflect the modularity and reparability aspect of the product considered in this research. In order to develop a comprehensive risk evaluation framework, generic and high-level risk characteristics pertaining to multiple functional agencies involved in NPD are considered. These risk characteristics represent relevant technical and commercial risk parameters corresponding to the six different functional agencies, i.e. design, supply chain, manufacturing, marketing, quality assurance, and after-sales support. Bayesian network methodology is adopted to map the relationship among various risk parameters denoted by parent and root nodes. Thereafter, a new measure, i.e. Overall Enterprise Risk Index is devised that weighs all possible design concepts in terms of an aggregate risk number. The proposed methodology is illustrated using a real-life case of ROPS canopy of heavy construction machinery.

Truck Redesign Case: Simulating the Target Costing Process in a Product Design Environment

ABSTRACTThis active learning exercise simulates the target costing process and demonstrates how a management theory (goal setting theory) is relevant to a business improvement initiative (target costing). As part of the target costing simulation, student participants work in teams to address a business issue (product development) that moves across functional boundaries. The simulation begins with students learning how to assemble a model truck and calculate its product cost using activity-based costing. Students are then divided into teams and instructed to reduce the truck's cost through a redesign exercise, subject to certain customer requirements and quality constraints. Typically, the teams achieve cost reduction by eliminating unnecessary parts, by using less expensive parts, and by using less part variety. This exercise provides a unique opportunity for students to actively participate in a redesign exercise. It results in student teams creating a wide variety of truck designs with vastly different product costs. The case ends by having a discussion about target costing, goal setting theory, and the implications of the target costing simulation.This simulation contains a number of specific learning objectives. First, students learn how the greatest opportunity for cost reduction occurs during the product design stage of the product development cycle. Second, students see firsthand how design-change decisions affect a product's costs, and the role of the cost information in guiding those decisions. Third, students experience the cross-functional interaction that occurs between sales and marketing, design engineering, and accounting during product development. Finally, this exercise helps students understand the concept of target costing. The simulation is appropriate for undergraduate or graduate management accounting classes.Data Availability: For more information about this case, contact the first author at Patricia.Everaert@UGent.be.

Harmonious Design Method of Product and its Applications

There are much more disharmonious problems in the process of product design because the environment factory of the product design could not be considered fully and systematically. For example, the disharmonious problems between the product design and natural environment or society environment and among internal elements of product design. The purpose of harmonious design is to make the harmony between product and external environments and among internal elements of products. In order to satisfy the requirement mentioned above in complete design tasks process the reasonable methods should be adopted and the relationship degree analysis and harmonious degree assessment should be done. After that the products can satisfy users and country requirement and have the excellent quality, higher performance-value ratio, the short manufacturing period, good environment protection, convenient service and so on. Due to these the enterprise will get greater market portion.

A distributed collaborative product design environment based on semantic norm model and role-based access control

With the boom of Internet Technology, it becomes possible to combine designers from different disciplines into one team to support product design globally. In this paper, a distributed collaborative product design environment is presented to support top-down process oriented product design. In conceptual design stage, the artifact is managed by semantic norm model (SNM). In SNM, the designers can define virtual components at early design stage and instantiate those components at later detailed design stage. By role-based access control (RBAC), different roles with corresponding permissions could be assigned to distributed designers, and the designers could concurrently modify different components of the product relevant to his or her roles. Based on the SNM and RBAC system, a distributed collaborative product design environment is developed and the top-down oriented product design process is demonstrated.

Strategy of Green Design on Intelligent Energy-Saving Product under Eco-Design Requirements for Energy-Using Product (EuP)

With the threat of global warming nowadays in the 21st century, the European Union has set the standard “Eco-Design Requirements for Energy-using Product(EuP)” for controlling the development of consumptive electronic machinery and products. Therefore, the trend of green design sees the instruction of EuP as the main direction for energy-saving. Considering the factors, undergoing the comprehensive evaluation and development process, the industry needs to draw up the corresponding design strategy in response to the new situation. Therefore, to optimize the green design strategy, the designers can replace hardware with the intelligent system to develop more optimal energy-saving products. Following the ecological instructions of energy-saving of EuP as direction, this study combined the advantage of the intelligent system and green design in order to optimize strategy of green design on intelligent energy-saving product under eco-design requirements for energy-using product (EuP). The evaluation factors were included in the strategies of intelligent energy-saving product design by analyzing the product users’ cognition, needs, habit and etc. Furthermore, through the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP), the priority and the important factors of green design were analyzed. By examining the green design strategy on energy-using product, industry needs to think the energy-saving conditions and the key factors on deciding process. Eventually, the efficiency of product design for environment can be fulfilled successfully.

Disparate attributes algorithm for semantic assembly design rule management

To expedite a semantic product design environment, the relevant minimal set of design rules could optimally be distilled from the given disparate design rules. However, in disparate design rules, some attributes are frequently unused in other design rules. Treating all the attributes in all the rules increases reasoning complexity. In the situation of incomplete information, treating the attributes, which may be relevant to some rules and not to others, as “missing” ones is found to cause reasoning problems. In this paper, we present a new algorithm, i.e. the disparate attributes algorithm, for managing semantic assembly design rules. The proposed disparate attributes algorithm by identifying “inapplicable” information extends a rough set approach for managing semantic assembly design rules with systematic selection of various minimal sets of rules. To validate the disparate attributes algorithm, the approach is tested with multiple realistic assembly design cases.

The elaboration process – an approach for sustainable product development: a case study

Environmentally conscious product development, eco-design or design for environment is the methodology trying to introduce environmental requirements into product design. The first step of this process is the gathering of customer requirements for a structured product development procedure, such as quality function deployment (QFD). The problem is that environmental requirements are usually unspoken by the customers. This paper describes a methodology for uncovering such requirements by using environmental default questions in an elaboration process. This leads to an increased customer environmental awareness, and it generates a comprehensive list of requirements suitable for use in a subsequent QFD process. The effects of the elaboration process are demonstrated in one case study.

Development of a framework for customer co-creation in NPD through multi-issue negotiation with issue trade-offs

In complex product design environments, new product development (NPD) becomes all about trade-offs and therefore trade-off management gets an important responsibility for designers. Correspondingly, in these environments, customer co-creation in NPD requires multi-issue negotiation with issue trade-offs. However, there is no study researching customer co-creation in NPD through multi-issue negotiation with issue trade-offs according to our best knowledge. This study presents a framework for customer co-creation in NPD through a multi-issue negotiation mechanism, namely; Modified Even-Swaps, to fill this gap. This mechanism uses a modified version of Even-Swaps method, that finds differences among alternatives and utilizes the differences for assessing the value of multi-issue offers, and that includes a fuzzy-inference-system for bargaining on several issues simultaneously. In the proposed framework, customers are represented by “lead-user”. Thus, negotiation is performed between lead-user and designer. In order to show how the framework works, an illustrative example is also presented.

A Citrix XenApp and Web Based System for Product Design and Management

This paper describes a system for product design and management. The system based on Citrix XenApp and Web to take advantage of common CAD softwares own interfaces for product design as well as provide user friendly web interfaces to manage product models. The innovation of this work lies in its concept concerning integrating Citrix XenApp and Web application to produce a highly interactive product design environment while keep those merits of the Web, such as ease of use, collaboration, cross-platform capability, controlled access, etc. In this paper, we first give an overview of the system architecture and then describe the highly-interactive product design environment and product model management interfaces. And at last we talk some issues and approaches used to achieve integration of Citrix XenApp and Web application to realize the efficient design and management system.

Deposit-Refund Systems in Practice and Theory

A deposit-refund system combines a tax on product consumption with a rebate when the product or its packaging is returned for recycling. Deposit-refunds are used for beverage containers, lead-acid batteries, motor oil, tires, various hazardous materials, electronics, and more. In addition, researchers have shown that the approach can be used to address many other environmental problems beyond waste disposal. By imposing an up-front fee on consumption and subsidizing “green” inputs and mitigation activities, a deposit-refund may be able to efficiently control pollution in much the same way as a Pigovian tax. Theoretical models have shown that alternative waste disposal policies, such as virgin materials taxes, advance disposal fees, recycled content standards, and recycling subsidies are inferior to a deposit-refund. These results have been corroborated in calibrated models of U.S. waste and recycling. And in theoretical models that consider joint environmental problems and product design considerations, the deposit-refund continues to have much to recommend it as a component of an overall socially optimal set of policies. More empirical research into deposit-refund systems is needed, particularly the upstream systems used for many products. In these systems, the processors or collectors of recyclables — rather than consumers — receive the refund. Upstream systems may have lower transaction costs and better environmental outcomes than traditional downstream systems.

Research on Behavior and Connotation of Product Design

Based on studying design behavior and design thinking, a design behavior model which dealt with person, QCTS (quality, cost, time and service), process and environment in product design was set up. The key factors and connotation of product design were discussed based on the model. An expanded design environments model and a systematic design process model were set up. The results show that person, product, process and environment are key factors of product design; in design, the person is body of thinking, QCTS is goal, the process is behavior formula, and the environment is restraint; the product design is a process driven by customers’ requirements in which the knowledge is used and is materialized based on brain, and abstract or detail concepts are changed to a physical assembly or a product step by step.

Simulating the Target Costing Process in a Product Design Environment

Target costing emphasizes cost reduction at the product design stage of the product development cycle, before most product costs are committed or “locked in.” Even though the authors of numerous journal articles and textbooks promote target costing and its application to industry, few make the connection between target costing and goal setting theory. This active learning simulation demonstrates how a management theory (goal setting theory) is relevant to a business improvement initiative (target costing). As part of the target costing simulation, student participants work in teams to address a business issue that cuts across functional boundaries. In addition to the accounting function, a target costing initiative requires participation from sales, marketing, and design engineering. Therefore, students experience firsthand how diverse functional areas interact to solve a business problem. The simulation begins with the students learning how to build and develop an activity-based product cost for a model truck. The students are then divided into teams and instructed to reduce the truck’s cost through a re-design exercise, subject to certain customer requirements and quality constraints. Half of the student teams are assigned a specific cost reduction target, and the other half is instructed to reduce costs “as much as possible.” Students then strive to reduce the cost of the truck’s design by eliminating unnecessary parts, by using less expensive parts, and by using less part variety. As the student teams evaluate potential new designs, they actually use detailed activity cost information from the product costing system to guide their design decisions. We typically find that teams with a specific cost target reduce costs more than teams with “do your best” goals. We end by having a discussion about target costing, goal setting theory, and the implications of the target costing simulation.

Clarity in Defining Product Design: Inspiring Research Opportunities for the Design Process*

The author argues that given the holistic, cross‐functional, and unique nature of the process of product design, more research is needed to understand product design teams. Specifically, future research should address internal processes cultivated within the product design team, macro influences in the product design environment, and the definition of product design team membership.

Environmental conscious product design using CAD and CAE

Environmental consciousness has been regarded as an important concept for survival in the contemporary scenario. Modern design engineers are in need of approaches for creating environmentally friendlier products. In this context, this article reports a case study carried out in an Indian rotary switches manufacturing organization. The existing components of rotary switch have been modelled using computer-aided design (CAD). Then, the sustainability analysis has been carried out for determining the environmental impact. This is followed by the optimisation of the components using computer-aided engineering (CAE). The environmental impact has been measured in terms of carbon footprint, energy consumption and air/water impacts. It has been found that the optimized components possess minimal environmental impact. The sustainability improvement after the implementation of the proposed approach has been computed. It could be inferred from the results of the case study that CAD and CAE could lead to the development of environmental conscious product designs with minimal impact to the environment.

Eco-efficiency in the SMEs of Venezuela. Current status and future perspectives

This paper presents a comparison analysis of eco-efficiency in the small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) of Venezuela. The research can be divided into three parts: the first part reviews similar studies in the literature on the level of eco-efficiency exhibited by the companies of Venezuela and other countries. In the second place, the findings of a survey conducted on Venezuelan SMEs allowed the definition of 54 eco-efficiency profiles. Thirdly, six national experts in cleaner production and eco-efficiency were interviewed. The interview was based on a questionnaire similar to that used in the survey of the Venezuelan SMEs. At a second meeting, the experts were asked to discuss on the similarities and differences between their answers and those of the company's managers. The findings of the survey allow us to conclude that Venezuelan SMEs understand the legal environmental regulations that affect them but they do not perceive the influence of external driving forces like customers demand for green products or institutional incentives. The adoption of eco-efficiency practices is not perceived as an incentive to improve competitiveness so that the environmental strategies adopted generally aim at reducing costs or avoiding non-compliance sanctions and negative effects on the company image. Materials recycling and reuse, especially packaging materials, are common practices; however, other environmental tools or practices have not been implemented yet, e.g. environmental management systems (EMS), process, product and services design tools based on the product life cycle, renewable energy resources or green marketing. There are also differences among the eight industrial sectors analyzed, food and chemical industries having the higher index of eco-efficiency practices, and plastic and wood industries the lower.

An Evidential-Reasoning-Interval-Based Method for New Product Design Assessment

<para xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> A key issue in successful new product development is how to determine the best product design among a lot of feasible alternatives. In this paper, the authors present a novel rigorous assessment methodology to improve the decision-making analysis in the complex multiple-attribute environment of new product design (NPD) assessment in early product design stage, where several performance measures, like product functions and features, manufacturability and cost, quality and reliability, maintainability and serviceability, etc., must be accounted for, but no concrete and reliable data are available, in which conventional approaches cannot be applied with confidence. The developed evidential reasoning (ER) interval methodology is able to deal with uncertain and incomplete data and information in forms of both qualitative and quantitative nature, data expressed in interval and range, judgment with probability functions, judgment in a comparative basis, unknown embedded, etc. An NPD assessment model, incorporated with the ER-based methodology, is then developed and a software system is built accordingly for validation. An industrial case study of electrical appliances is used to illustrate the application of the developed ER methodology and the product design assessment system. </para>

A mixed reality environment for collaborative product design and development

This paper presents a mixed reality (MR) environment for collaborative product design and development. This MR collaborative environment is based on a client/server architecture where multiple users can create and modify product features in a 3D physical space simultaneously. A tri-layer model representation scheme is designed to facilitate product creation and visualization. Intuitive feature manipulation methods and grid-and-snap modes have been designed to support solid modelling in the MR environment. Bi-directional communication between the MR environment and the CAD system ensures any modifications made by one user are propagated to the views of other users for maintaining design data consistency.

A framework for collaborative working environments

To utilize the advantages of existing and emerging Internet techniques and to meet the demands for a new generation of collaborative working environments, a framework with an upperware–middleware architecture is proposed, which consists of four layers: resource layer, middleware layer, upperware layer and application layer. The upperware contains intelligent agents and plug/play facilities; the former coordinates and controls multiple middleware techniques such as Grid computing, Web-services and mobile agents, while the latter are used for the applications, such as semantic CAD, to plug and loose couple into the system. The method of migrating legacy software using automatic wrapper generation technique is also presented. A prototype mobile environment for collaborative product design is presented to illustrate the utilization of the CWE framework in collaborative design and manufacture.

Sports betting as a new asset class—current market organization and options for development

New asset classes are originally distributed via over the counter channels; mostly negotiated, traded, and settled on a bilateral and ad-hoc basis. Subsequently, the demand for organized market services grows alongside trading volumes, number of market participants, and distribution reach. This paper focuses on sports betting as a new asset class and uses the analogies between the development of traditional and new asset classes as a framework to extend market organization. The first section motivates sports betting as a new asset class based on its economic relevance. In Sect. 2, the European market is described by product design, distribution platforms, and regulatory environment. In Sect. 3, we discuss the dimensions of market model, technology, and regulation as prerequisites to develop organized markets. Against this background, we compare the value chain in financial and sports betting markets to identify and describe three options for development: a regulated market environment, an inter-bookmaker platform, and central counterparty clearing services.