Design Support Tool Research Articles

User requirements for analogical design support tools: Learning from practitioners of bio-inspired design

When designers develop biologically-inspired design (BID) solutions, they are engaging in a process of analogical design. Software tools have been developed to support analogical design processes, presenting designers with information to help in the construction of useful analogies. However, the requirements for such tools have not been explicitly informed by accounts of practitioners' experiences. To address this, interviews were conducted with 14 expert practitioners in BID to understand how they find and apply cross-domain analogies. Three main themes emerged from the analysis: (1) the skill sets of individual practitioners; (2) the ways they work as part of an interdisciplinary team; and (3) their orientations to biology. These themes present opportunities and challenges for developing analogical design support tools.

Decision-making for the demolition or adaptation of buildings

This paper considers why the decision may be made either to demolish or adapt existing buildings on brownfield sites and compares real-life decisions to those produced by theoretical design-support tools. Five case studies, including three individual buildings and two master plan sites of multiple buildings, were investigated through interviews with stakeholders. Reasons for retention included heritage value, architectural quality and government incentives, while reasons for demolition included maximising land value, lack of architectural significance and poor building condition. The analysis showed that the theoretical tools were useful for their intended purpose of analysing a portfolio of assets but that they could be improved by providing higher weightings for heritage values and extending the tools to assess different end uses and forms of adaptation. By testing the tools on master plan sites, the paper also identifies urban design variables, such as land efficiency, which would need to be incorporated for this purpose.

A Qualitative Exploration of Nurses' Information-Gathering Behaviors Prior to Decision Support Tool Design.

Large and readily-available clinical datasets combined with improved computational resources have permitted the exploration of many new research and clinical questions. Predictive analytics, especially for adverse events, has surfaced as one promising application of big data, and although statistical results can be highly accurate, little is known about how nurses perceive this new information and how they might act upon it. Within the context of recognizing patients at risk for cardiopulmonary arrest, this study explored the possibility of incorporating predictive analytics into clinical workflows by identifying nurses' current information gathering activities and perceptions of probability-related terms. We used a qualitative description approach for data collection and analysis in order to understand participants' information gathering behaviors and term perceptions in their own words. We conducted one-on-one interviews and a focus group with a total of 10 direct care bedside nurses and 8 charge nurses. Participants collected information from many sources that we categorized as: Patient, Other People, and Technology. The process by which they gathered information was conducted in an inconsistent order and differed by role. Major themes comprised: (a) attempts to find information from additional sources during uncertainty, (b) always being prepared for the worst-case scenario, and (c) the desire to review more detailed predictions. Use of the words probability, risk, and uncertainty were inconsistent. In an effort to successfully incorporate predictive analytics into clinical workflows, we have described nurses' perceived work practices for gathering information related to clinical deterioration and nurses' beliefs related to probability-based information. Findings from our study could guide design and implementation efforts of predictive analytics in the clinical arena.Jeffery AD, Kennedy B, Dietrich MS, Mion LC, Novak LL. A Qualitative Exploration of Nurses' Information-Gathering Behaviors Prior to Decision Support Tool Design. Appl Clin Inform 2017; 8: 763-778 https://doi.org/10.4338/ACI-2017-02-RA-0033.

Improving the Design Process of Pleasure Yachts for CE RCD Certification via Modification to Buoyancy and Stability Assessment Method

CE RCD (Recreational Craft Directive) is a certification for the design and construction of small vessels, including pleasure yachts, which are widely used not only in the countries within the European Union, but also in Japan and Southeast Asia. Recently, South Korean leisure craft shipyards have developed interest in exporting to foreign leisure craft markets such as Europe; however, they have encountered difficulties because of the CE RCD regulations, which are relatively complex and difficult to understand. The requirements for buoyancy and stability, which are essential properties that must be understood within the early stage of ship design, are defined based on ISO 12217. However, preparing this assessment according to ship classification regulations is an exceedingly complex task, even with knowledge of naval architecture. In this research, we have developed design support tools to systematically support assessments and preemptively define design information so that buoyancy and stability assessments based on ISO 12217 can be systematically prepared. Our research results were applied to actual examples of yacht design to confirm validity. We believe that the improved yacht design process presented in this research can act as a foundational reference for enhancing the effectiveness and systematic buoyancy and stability assessments.

Morphology in conceptual building design

As the effects of damage to our environment become all the more clear, there is an ongoing social transformation towards sustainability which will affect technology development and make forecasting more difficult. This calls for a holistic integrated design approach which, already at the initial conceptual design phase, requires the involvement of various design experts from different domains to form multidisciplinary design teams. In order to support these teams, a design method based on the use of morphological charts and a morphological overview was developed in cooperation with the Dutch professional organizations of architects and consulting engineers. This tool aids architects and engineers with their new role in the conceptual design phase, as it enables effective exchange of each discipline's perspective on the design task as well as structuring available domain knowledge. The method has been applied in the Master Program project “Integral Design”, at the Faculty of the Built Environment of the Technical University Eindhoven. The design support tool is part of a multidisciplinary program in which students work together with experienced professionals. The outcome shows that the design support tool facilitates a significant increase in the number of possible solutions generated by design teams, and it demonstrates that the morphological charts and morphological overview can be used as an analysis tool for evaluating the impact of different interventions during the conceptual phase of the building design process. This paper provides both a detailed discussion of the design support tool itself, and how the tool was utilized to determine the effectiveness of individual designers. The impact of various interventions is investigated, such as that of adding an experienced professional to a student's design team and the use of C-constructs based on the Concept-Knowledge theory of Hatchel and Weil, in order to further stimulate the generation of sub-solutions.

Modelling and simulation of an harvester head mechanism

This paper presents an approach for modelling and simulating a harvester head mechanism in the delimbing process of hardwood stands. An original model of the mechanical transmission is developed which allows, in the early phases of design, sizing of actuators and structural elements but also the validation and optimization of the various stages of the logging operation. The considered type of trees is characterized by flexuous trunks and big branches. Hence, the current harvester heads are not enough efficient to process such trees. New designs of harvester head are required to overcome these problems. In order to predict the process performances associated to several novel architectures of harvester heads, in preliminary design stage, a modelling of the process is developed. It is based on parameterized tree models with realistic geometry. The global harvesting head model makes interact original sub-models representative of basics functions as feeding trunk into the head and cutting branches by knife. These models identified experimentally, allow a good prediction of the interactions between the different parts of the machine and trees. The modelling and simulation of harvester head mechanisms are implemented in a numerical multibody environment. Simulation results of the global model are in a good agreement with the observed behaviour of the real system and represent a design support tool to develop innovative concepts of harvester head.

Monitoring Environmental Performance During the Design Process of a Complex System

A large part of impacts that will be generated by a system / product during its life cycle are allocated during the earliest stages of the design process. In this paper we propose to trace the evolution of environmental impacts throughout a complex system design process through an industrial case. We follow the stages of a boat design process for maintenance of offshore wind farms. The different architectures sketched throughout the design process are evaluated in order to measure the impact of design decisions on the environmental performance of the system. The problematic of taking into account environmental constraints upstream of the design process abound methods but they often prove inadequate for complex systems whose subsystems interact in complex ways leading to conflicts in the decision of the right parameters. To meet the stakeholders’ needs, that appear (during the design project) in the iterative design process, the initial design is modified to fit the specifications. This iterative path between designers and users leads to uncertainties over the environmental impact of the system. It is then necessary to use smart design support tools allowing a negotiation in definition phase of system specifications. Thus the preliminary design is modified to incorporate changes and contributions occurred during the negotiation phase functional.

Procedure for Application-Oriented Optimisation of Marine Propellers

The use of automated optimisation in engineering applications is emerging. In particular, nature inspired algorithms are frequently used because of their variability and robust application in constraints and multi-objective optimisation problems. The purpose of this paper is the comparison of four different algorithms and several optimisation strategies on a set of seven test propellers in realistic industrial design setting. The propellers are picked from real commercial projects and the manual final designs were delivered to customers. The different approaches are evaluated and final results of the automated optimisation toolbox are compared with designs generated in a manual design process. We identify a two-stage optimisation for marine propellers, where the geometry is first modified by parametrised geometry distribution curves to gather knowledge of the test case. Here we vary the optimisation strategy in terms of applied algorithms, constraints and objectives. A second supporting optimisation aims to improve the design by locally changing the geometry, based on the results of the first optimisation. The optimisation algorithms and strategies yield propeller designs that are comparable to the manually designed propeller blade geometries, thus being suitable as robust and advanced design support tools. The supporting optimisation, with local modification of the blade geometry and the proposed cavity shape constraints, features particular good performance in modifying cavitation on the blade and is, with the AS NSGA-II (adaptive surrogate-assisted NSGA-II), superior in lead time.

Use of Information Technologies in Design and Production Activities of Instrument- Making Plants

Background: In the market economy conditions the system of the economic indices reflecting the activity of the instrument making plant may change quite often. The production activity of the instrument-making plant is always aimed at manufacturing the products to satisfy the demands with consideration of the customers’ requirements. Methods: All this dictates the necessity to use state-of-art methods and approaches at managing the economic processes of the instrument-making plant. Primarily, it means the implementation of high information technologies in management of various processes at the instrument-making plant in order to increase a labor productivity of the employees by decreasing the cost-production ratio and skills upgrading and developing professional competence of experts involved in management activity. Findings: This work presents the analysis of the existing means for practical implementation of the information technologies at the instrument-making plants which increase a competitive capacity of the plants, decrease production time and improve the quality of the products under design. It also gives a description of the information technologies and determines those with the relevant implementation in the instrument-making sector is at the current stage. A process chart for instrumentation equipment production at the plant is given and the stages (process operations) are distinguished at which the implementation of the information technologies is impossible without development of the new support tools. The authors have offered the new automated support tools for design and production processes which increase a competitive ability of the enterprise and which are the forms of a practical implementation of the information technologies. The aforementioned new automated support tools are dedicated for the instrument-making sector and are integrated into the plant information system. Improvements: The materials of the present article are of a practical value for the experts involved in solving the tasks associated with support of design, production and economic activities of instrument-making plants.

A mixed integer linear programming approach for optimal DER portfolio, sizing, and placement in multi-energy microgrids

Optimal microgrid design is a challenging problem, especially for multi-energy microgrids with electricity, heating, and cooling loads as well as sources, and multiple energy carriers. To address this problem, this paper presents an optimization model formulated as a mixed-integer linear program, which determines the optimal technology portfolio, the optimal technology placement, and the associated optimal dispatch, in a microgrid with multiple energy types. The developed model uses a multi-node modeling approach (as opposed to an aggregate single-node approach) that includes electrical power flow and heat flow equations, and hence, offers the ability to perform optimal siting considering physical and operational constraints of electrical and heating/cooling networks. The new model is founded on the existing optimization model DER-CAM, a state-of-the-art decision support tool for microgrid planning and design. The results of a case study that compares single-node vs. multi-node optimal design for an example microgrid show the importance of multi-node modeling. It has been shown that single-node approaches are not only incapable of optimal DER placement, but may also result in sub-optimal DER portfolio, as well as underestimation of investment costs.

PRM211 - Making Pragmatic Trials Work

Designers of pragmatic trials need to be aware of the consequences of their design choices for a study, as they balance implications on validity, precision, generalizability to routine practice, acceptability to stakeholders and operational feasibility. However, comprehensive tools that focus on the design of pragmatic trials and assist in this balancing exercise are lacking. Therefore, our objectives were 1) to identify the key design elements, their implications, and operational challenges in pragmatic trials 2) to develop a decision support tool for pragmatic trial design. Based on a literature review enhanced with stakeholder interviews we identified design choices, their implications and operational challenges for pragmatic trials and grouped them into key domains. Experts from academia, industry, patient groups, health care providers, regulatory bodies and HTA agencies were consulted. Findings were integrated into an decision support tool, in collaboration with a company specialized in serious gaming. We identified seven key domains influencing pragmatic trial design and conduct: site, participants, intervention/comparators, outcomes, data collection, safety and monitoring. We mapped the complex interplay between design choices, generalizability, validity & precision of trial results, as well as acceptability to stakeholders and operational feasibility of performing the study. A web based software tool was developed to visualize this interplay between design choices, implications and operational challenges and guide trial designers through the consequences of design choices for conduct and interpretation of their study. The decision support tool captures most relevant design choices, their implications and operational challenges encountered when designing a pragmatic trial and enables a more explicit and transparent trial design process. Our work hopes to provide trial designers with the insights and tools to make investments in more pragmatic trials return optimal value for companies, regulators, HTA bodies and patients.

The process of designing for learning: understanding university teachers’ design work

Interest in how to support the design work of university teachers has led to research and development initiatives that include technology-based design-support tools, online repositories, and technical specifications. Despite these initiatives, remarkably little is known about the design work that university teachers actually do. This paper presents findings from a qualitative study that investigated the design processes of 30 teachers from 16 Australian universities. The results show design as a top-down iterative process, beginning with a broad framework to which detail is added through cycles of elaboration. Design extends over the period before, while, and after a unit is taught, demonstrating the dynamic nature of design and highlighting the importance of reflection in teachers’ design practice. We present a descriptive model of the design process, which we relate to conceptualizations of higher education teaching and learning, and compare with the characteristics of general design and instructional design. We also suggest directions for future research and development.

Detection of landscape heterogeneity at multiple scales: Use of the Quadratic Entropy Index

Understanding landscape heterogeneity is essential for developing reliable landscape planning and design methods. Nevertheless, despite the many advances made in recent years regarding the analysis of landscape heterogeneity, methods that produce useful results that can be applied to design, planning and management schemes are still required. In this study, we explore the use of the Quadratic Entropy Index (Q) as a measure of landscape heterogeneity. Although the Q metric is derived from information theory, the inclusion of a dissimilarity component in the calculation enables analysis beyond the syntactic content of the information and the inclusion of semantic content. Adoption of a multiscale approach to the calculation fulfils the desirable characteristics for a heterogeneity measure, while also producing spatially-explicit results. Application of the index to three landscape areas in NW Spain with different characteristics clearly demonstrated the capacity of the index to differentiate levels of heterogeneity, and their dependence on scale, and to detect scale invariance. The close fit of Weibull II logistic regression enables prediction of pattern-scale relationships beyond the area of analysis. The findings show that Q is a potentially useful support tool for design, planning and management procedures.

Automated geometrical evaluation of a plaza (town square)

This paper presents a method for an automated geometrical evaluation (AGE) intended as a design support tool for urban design of a plaza (P). AGE is based on three normalized properties derived from a plan of P, namely: smallness, enclosure, and regularity. 19 worldwide plazas have been evaluated by 20 respondents in, what is called here, human subjective evaluation (HSE). A brief analysis of HSE including the identification of redundant categories is presented. Two P evaluation methods based on all four (S,C,E,R) and selected three (S,E,R) properties are discussed. Good agreement of AGE based on S,E, and R (NPSER) with HSE is shown. P quality rating (excellent, good, fair) based on NPSER is introduced.Exceptional cases are briefly discussed.

Investigating University Educators’ Design Thinking and the Implications for Design Support Tools

All university educators perform design work as they prepare and plan learning experiences for their students. How such design work is undertaken, conceptualised, and optimally supported is the focus of ongoing research for the authors. The purpose of this article is to present the results of a research study that sought to gain a richer understanding of university educators’ design work; investigate how the idea of Learning Design could support design work; and examine how learning designs could be made available within a Learning Management System (LMS) as a design support tool. An overview of the outcomes from the entire research project is presented. The project’s aims and outcomes and what was achieved are explained and potential future directions for this area of research are discussed.

A Decision Support Tool for Optimal Design of Integrated Biorefineries under Strategic and Operational Level Uncertainties

In this work, a decision support tool is presented to carefully design and optimize the business value of a renewable energy endeavor considering all types of uncertainties, including uncertainties at strategic and operational levels. A stochastic linear model is first developed to optimize production capacity of the plant, and then process simulation coupled with a stochastic optimization algorithm is employed to optimize the operating conditions of the plant. Market uncertainties are taken into account at the strategic planning level, and uncertainties related to parameters characterizing the processing technologies are addressed in operational level optimization. Monte Carlo-based simulation and global sensitivity analysis are utilized to identify the most critical parameters and optimize the operating conditions of the plant accordingly. Additionally, risk measurement strategies are introduced to the framework for explicit treatment of strategic and operational risks. For a demonstration of the effect...

Guide of strategies for urban regeneration: A design-support tool for the Spanish context

Recent studies reveal physical, economical, and socio-technical barriers when measuring performance of sustainable urban ration projects with existing assessment tools. This reality, enlarged in the Spanish context, has revealed the need of a friendly-user and holistic tool that can assist the agents involved in the decision-making process of urban regeneration projects.This paper presents the Guide of strategies for urban regeneration; a design-support tool developed by demand of the Government of the Valencian Community (Spain). Along this paper we describe how the Guide has been designed by integrating: in first place measures of exiting urban assessment tools, secondly lesson learned coming from the application of urban assessment tools to selected and rewarded urban best practices at European level, and thirdly the opinion of regional decision-makers and urban experts. As a result, this Guide offers strategies and recommendations on a self-questioning format that makes easy its implementation by any urban planner regardless of its expertise on the topic. It is based on an open-source philosophy with a nonprofit orientation, using transparent and easy-to-understand technical criteria. It can be applied to any kind of urban fabric and proposes equal representation of the thematic categories needed to be considered during an urban regeneration project design.

Design of Multidisciplinary Cyber Physical Systems

A cyber-physical system (CPS) is a system of collaborating computational elements that control and interact with physical entities. These systems can be found in areas such as aerospace, automotive, energy, healthcare, manufacturing, entertainment, and consumer appliances, and can also be categorized as embedded systems, mechatronics, and smart X. In embedded systems the emphasis is on the computational elements, while mechatronic systems focus on the link between the computational and physical elements in terms of mechanical, electronics, control engineering and computer science domains. The design of cyber physical systems (mechatronics, embedded systems, smart X, etc.) is quite distinctive from any other designs, because they address highly complex multidisciplinary issues related to the combination of product/system/service (Rauniyar & Tanik, 2010). The inherent complexity in the design task due to the multidisciplinary aspects of CPS put high stress on engineers’ creativity to produce more innovative solutions. These challenges are known by the Engineering Design community in mechatronics (TorrySmith et al., 2013) but are exacerbated by the added layers of the cyber communication between the different objects, as well as the several challenges of possible IT service design which are of a different engineering nature (Dargahi et al., 2012; Wang, 2012). Therefore, assisting design engineers in design tasks as well as reducing the intrinsic complexity of the modeling is of crucial importance. This can be achieved by either design support tools or new methodologies that would make the design easier and simpler. The papers in this this special issue present the state of the art and advanced techniques related to the development, modelling and simulation of complex CPS. We cover controller design using system architecture, video servoing of robotic systems as well as characterisation of an instrumented dynamic flexible structure. The first paper written by Alvarez Cabrera and Tomiyama entitled “Architecture-Level Representation and Analysis of Regulatory Controller Configuration for Complex Mechatronic Systems” provides a method for automatically extracting information that is relevant for the controller design activities from a model that represents architecture-level information and concerns, and shows how the extracted information can be analyzed for control design purposes. Control design is closely linked to several subsystems within the cyber physical system, and the authors put architecture-level models at the core of the design activities of the control systems. The main contributions of this paper are the use of an architecture model and the extraction of information relevant to control design from it, while the control analysis process is taken from existing linear structured system techniques. The authors’ work provides great insight into how to improve control design, an inherently multidisciplinary, from improvements in the communication and exchange of updated design information between stakeholders during product development of CPS. The second paper, entitled “A Comparative Study on Eye-In-Hand Image-Based Visual Servoing; Stereo vs. Mono” written by Mohebbi et al. presents an application in visual servoing robotics, where

A Decision Support Tool for Product Design for Remanufacturing

The decision to include remanufacturing as part of product life cycle should be made as early as possible, as many barriers that occur during the remanufacturing process can be mitigated through proper product design at an early stage. The main objective of this research is to develop a Design for Remanufacturing and Remanufacturability Assessment (DRRA) tool to be used at early product definition stage. The design support tool will adopt the Fuzzy TOPSIS method to facilitate product design for remanufacturing from four major design perspectives, namely material selection, material joining methods, structure design and surface coating methods. Simplified Life Cycle Analysis methods have also been incorporated into the decision support tool to justify and improve the robustness of the design decision making. The utility of this tool is demonstrated using automotive parts design.

Development of Design Support Tool for New Lean Production Systems

Application of the Lean philosophy during the design of a new production system might result in a production system which is more Lean from the beginning and needs less improvement during its lifetime.In this paper a design support tool for new Lean production systems is presented. It combines the theory on Lean and production system design. The design support tool consists of three elements with a strong interaction. The first element of the tool prescribes the steps in the design of a production system in general. The second element illustrates the flow of different types of information during the design process. The third element consists of guidelines for Lean design. Following the workflow that combines the three elements should result in a new Lean based production system.