Recovery From Design

Through research, inquiry, and an evaluation of Recovery By Design, a ‘design therapy’ program that serves people with mental illness, substance use disorders, and developmental disabilities, it is my assertion that the practice of design has therapeutic potential and can aid in the process of recovery. To the novice, the practices of conception, shaping form, and praxis have empowering benefit especially when guided by Conditional and Transformation Design methods together with an emphasis on materiality and vernacular form

An interdisciplinary model of international technology transfer

Central to this thesis is the issue of how to account for the effects of micro-level organisational factors such as culture and social norms on the technology transfer process. The expansion of multinational firms has created a need for increased international technology transfer into nations with distinctly different cultures, social norms and · methods of organisation. The dilemma of how to deal with the transfer of technology into different countries is a continuing problem for academics in the innovation adoption field and corporate managers alike. A synthesis of the literature revealed a lack of understanding associated with the influence of managerial interventions, social, cultural and other organisational processes on the adoption decision. In an international context, it was found that there was an increased need to understand cross-national differences in the determinants of technology adoption. Further, the bulk of conceptual technology transfer models were found to be difficuit to operationalise and overwhelmingly unidimensional. This precipitated a need to develop a pragmatic interactive and dynamic interdisciplinary model that could be used to quantitatively predict transfer difficulty and develop implementation strategy. Longitudinal research methods were used to investigate the implementation of a knowledge management system within a multinational automotive manufacturing organisation. Focusing on two distinct cultures - Australia and India, observations showed that innovation perceptions have a comparatively minor influence on the adoption decision and advocated a need for frameworks capable of explaining adoption and diffusion from a cultural and social basis. These findings were subsequently reinforced through an investigative case study of technology transfer within the automotive manufacturing organisation at a global (or corporate) level. Both research studies supported the conceptualisation of the transfer process as a game between two players (management and the workforce) each weighing perceived advantages and disadvantages associated with adoption relative to their internal schemata. The extent and seriousness of the game is in the first instance determined by the technology itself and later moderated by the cultural, organisational and social norms that dictate play. This game-play notion was the platform upon which specifications for the international technology transfer model were developed. An integration of the literature review and research case studies, produced a top-level requirements model based on various inputs, desired outputs and operating conditions. A variety of interdisciplinary concepts including: technology classification, social capital, the social discount rate, investment appraisal (utilising cost-benefit analysis) and game theory, were used to construct a threestage model of technology transfer. An innovative hypothesis is put forward, enabling the derivation of the social discount rate (based on the social time preference rate) from estimates of a culture's social capital (principally based on measures of trust). Verification and validation of the model showed significant explanatory power in a retrospective context. It also highlighted the model's ability to differentiate between cultures and its potential ability as a predictive tool. It is thought that the greatest application for the model lies in its potential use as a pre-transfer assessment tool aiding corporate managers in the formulation of implementation strategy

EXPERT SYSTEM BASED APPROACH FOR MATERIAL SELECTION OF AUTOMOBILE BODY-IN-WHITE STRUCTURAL PANELS USING NUMERICAL RANKING AND SUSTAINABILITY INDICES

The goal of this work is to establish a set of quantifiable measures for design for sustainability (DFS) that can be applied to automotive applications in terms of environmental, social, economic and technical aspects. In this study, a comprehensive analysis was made in order to develop a methodology that can evaluate different body-in-white designs in terms of major sustainability aspects. Besides the complete life cycle analysis, environmental impacts and cost factors will be analyzed over vehicle\u27s entire life-cycle (fuel extraction and refining, Pre-manufacturing, Manufacturing, Use, and Post-use stages). The considered material options include: conventional steel, high strength steel, aluminum, magnesium, titanium and composites that are currently used in body-in-white (BIW) structures and exterior body panels. Sustainability scoring method was developed and used to decide on how using lighter materials in auto body applications is beneficial or not. The proposed major sustainable factors are categorized into four major groups: environmental, economical, social and technical groups. Also, each group has corresponding factors which were chosen by extensive search and screening, so only important sustainability aspects for auto body design have been selected in this study. Then the dissertation proceeds to show some sustainability scoring methods in order to get better understanding as well as relative ranking for different materials from sustainability point of view. Moreover, this work discusses the role and application of some multi-criteria decision making methods in materials selection, namely quality function deployment (QFD) and analytic hierarchy process (AHP). However, multi-criteria decision making methods are efficient tools to choose alternative from large set of alternatives, especially when two or more conflicting goals are present. Besides that, knowledge based system (KBS) was established for eco-material selection for auto-body structural panels. The goal behind using KBS is to help designers in material selection process which usually needs experience, time and effort

Reference Architecture for Collaborative Design

Issues and themes of Collaborative Design (CD) addressed by research done so far are so extensive that when running a project of collaborative design, people may lack directions or guidelines to support the whole picture. Hence, developing reference architecture for CD is important and necessary in the academic and the empirical fields. Reference architecture provides the systematic, elementary skeleton and can be extended and adapted to diverse, changing environments. It also provides a comprehensive framework and enables practices implemented more thoroughly and easily. The reference architecture developed in this re-search is formed along three dimensions: decision aspect, design stage, and collaboration scope. There are five elements in the dimension of decision aspect: (1) participant, (2) product, (3) process, (4) organization, and (5) information. The dimension of design stage includes three stages: (1) planning and concepting, (2) system-level design and detail design, and (3) testing and prototyping. The dimension of collaboration scope includes three types of collaboration: (1) cross-functional, (2) cross-company, and (3) cross-industry. Because of the three reference dimensions, a cubic architecture is developed. The cubic reference architecture helps decision-makers in dealing with implementing a CD project or activity. It also serves as a guideline for CD system developers or people involved in the design collaboration to figure out their own responsibility functions and their relations with other members. Demonstration of how to use the reference architecture in developing design collaboration activities and specifying the details for cross-company CD is also provided in this research

Small-medium engineering enterprises and e-business: executive summary

A preferred methodology for handling increasing customer demands and the resulting complexity is to design common modules or subsystems. The design of all the modules required by a complex system, such as a car, aeroplane or computer, is increasingly a task beyond the organisational resources of the OEMs and their close suppliers. Therefore, a larger burden is transferred down the supply chain. As a consequence, lower tier suppliers are required to play a more proactive role and demonstrate an appropriate breadth of skills and resources in order to provide complete sub-systems. This research focuses on collaboration and e-business for a solution which will enable engineering SMEs to respond to such challenges and undertake higher value projects. In particular, the aim of this engineering doctorate is to develop and implement a mechanism that puts together combinations of SMEs with the required capability, within an e-business environment. Accounting for 99.3% of all manufacturing companies and 50.8% of the total employment, SME prosperity and `well-being' has significant impact on the national economy. Analyses, such as these provided by KPMG and PriceWaterhouseCoopers, indicate that the demand for common components could substantially reduce the number of small manufacturers and subcontractors. Statistics published by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) confirm the decline of the sector, a reduction of over 22% in overall sector turnover has been reported in the past two years. Although, improved communication links through collaboration and `e' enablement could permit SMEs to move towards a more enriched business model, there is evidence that ebusiness take-up and success in Europe among engineering businesses is low. For instance, focusing on on-line sales, the eEurope 2004 benchmarking report admits that only 14% of SMEs make on-line sales and in only 7% of SMEs do on-line sales constitute more than 5% of their overall sales. The vast majority of companies still continue to rely on old trusted methods of doing business even though outsourcing to lower cost regions and countries is a major threat to many engineering SMEs in Europe. Access to specific competences drives organisations to collaborate with each other. Focusing on the organisational competence, a notion which expresses the key skills and capabilities of an organisation, an ICT based methodology has been developed and tested in this research. The `Competence Profiling Methodology' facilitates collaborative business processes. The methodology enables the discovery of appropriate collaborators for the development and manufacture of complex systems by matching complimentary competences and softer factors. These ideas were developed and tested within two SME projects in the West Midlands, Autocle@r and Autolean 3, as well as with the DTI funded Manufacturing Advisory Service - West Midlands, a one-stop shop to assist manufacturing SMEs. The results from these projects were used to develop a practical portal architecture, to help e-enable engineering SMEs. The resulting West Midlands Collaborative Commerce Marketplace, has over 2000 SME members, has had over 40,000 tenders through the system and over 100 companies are using collaborative spaces to coordinate resources. A key conclusion of this research is that traditional e-business is poorly suited to engineering SMEs being very standard product orientated. Skills and capabilities are far more generic than end products and focusing on them can support more effective eenablement of engineering companies. Results from the WMCCM (www.wmccm.co.uk) project confirm this

A CMC-Based Design Communication for Collaborative Design Projects

[[abstract]]"Design processes in a traditional design project mainly rely on the designer’s personal skills such as drawing, presentation and prototyping capability. However, in a collaborative design project the focus is transferred from personal skills to design communication and knowledge management. Current advanced information and communication technology (ICT) dramatically changes the design process in terms of communication, information sharing and knowledge accumulation. This kind of design process deals with a huge amount of information and involves much more complicated interpersonal communication. Conceptual divergence among design team members usually starts from the initial design vision and mission. This paper presents a framework for managing communication-based collaborative design projects that rely on close coordination. Through an interactive communication mechanism, designers perform creative thinking dependent on a variety of abilities and disciplines. A software interface design project is used as a case study to describe the proposed framework. In this case study the design team informs the customer of the design requirements and concepts via face-to-face communication (FTF) and computer-mediated communication (CMC). The management of information flow and creative generation flow are integrated and design knowledge is accumulated during the design project. A communication-based collaborative design process is performed in the case study.

A CMC-Based Design Communication for Collaborative Design Projects

[[abstract]]Design processes in a traditional design project mainly rely on the designer’s personal skills such as drawing, presentation and prototyping capability. However, in a collaborative design project the focus is transferred from personal skills to design communication and knowledge management. Current advanced information and communication technology (ICT) dramatically changes the design process in terms of communication, information sharing and knowledge accumulation. This kind of design process deals with a huge amount of information and involves much more complicated interpersonal communication. Conceptual divergence among design team members usually starts from the initial design vision and mission. This paper presents a framework for managing communication-based collaborative design projects that rely on close coordination. Through an interactive communication mechanism, designers perform creative thinking dependent on a variety of abilities and disciplines. A software interface design project is used as a case study to describe the proposed framework. In this case study the design team informs the customer of the design requirements and concepts via face-to-face communication (FTF) and computer-mediated communication (CMC). The management of information flow and creative generation flow are integrated and design knowledge is accumulated during the design project. A communication-based collaborative design process is performed in the case study

Green Technologies for Production Processes

This book focuses on original research works about Green Technologies for Production Processes, including discrete production processes and process production processes, from various aspects that tackle product, process, and system issues in production. The aim is to report the state-of-the-art on relevant research topics and highlight the barriers, challenges, and opportunities we are facing. This book includes 22 research papers and involves energy-saving and waste reduction in production processes, design and manufacturing of green products, low carbon manufacturing and remanufacturing, management and policy for sustainable production, technologies of mitigating CO2 emissions, and other green technologies

Mobile collaborative working environment of product design

In response to the arrival of new Web/Internet environments, one of the most attractive challenges in current research is to exploit wireless computing technologies in collaborative product design, and hence to build a ubiquitous mobile information system to enable the collaborative product design within a mobile environment. However, the literature review reveals that although the progress of mobile technologies on wireless networks has largely changed the way people access the Internet; little has been achieved in mobile computing for collaborative product design. The reason is that, due to the distinct features of mobile devices and wireless networks (such as small display screen, limited bandwidth, unreliability of wireless networks, etc.), the methodologies and technologies used in stationary networks are not always applicable to mobile systems. The aim of this research is to establish a Wireless Internet-based Collaborative Working Environment for product design through the combination of multiple technologies, by including: Web services, Parametric Design, the Semantic Web, Agent and Flex Technologies. In order to create, deploy, and manage the distributed resources, Web service is used to implement design resource integration in a platform-independent manner. In addition, Semantic Web Technology is used to create a general knowledge base. This approach includes two components: (1) ontology is used to represent abstract views of product data and (2) added semantic rules are also used to represent relationships among product data. Therefore, an ontology-based description model is thus proposed to facilitate expression and organisation of product information in order to manage and deploy the distributed design resources

Stamping History: Stories of Social Change in Ghana's Adinkra Cloth

Adinkra is one of the best-known textiles of Africa. This dissertation examines how adinkra cloth has evolved from royal dress among Akans in Ghana during the early nineteenth century to its expanding roles today as a global icon of Africa. Akans wear adinkra cloth to communicate messages through the cloth’s distinct graphic symbols that evoke proverbs, moral beliefs, and cultural values. These messages are not fixed. They change. Joining visual and verbal arts, Ghanaians have transformed the symbols to represent personal meanings as well as narratives about Ghanaian history and African identity. “Stamping History” traces the “biography” of adinkra, bringing together diverse voices that have reinterpreted the cloth across time and space. This approach places field and archival research in conversation with interdisciplinary theoretical issues of object biography, fashion, and social memory. By reframing adinkra cloth as fashion rather than “traditional” – a label that evokes unchanging practices – the dissertation argues that Akans have given multiple, changing meanings to adinkra that revitalize the past in contemporary life. Through research in Ghana, England, and the Netherlands, the dissertation reveals the dynamics of adinkra cloth that have contributed to how Ghanaians have expressed identity and navigated relationships for over two hundred years. “Stamping History” contributes to fields of African social and cultural history, including Ghana and Akan society. The dissertation intervenes in critical debates on the complex relationship between history and memory to advance scholarship on how historical artistic practices have become markers of cultural and national identity.PHDHistory of ArtUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/144188/1/allimart_1.pd