Cultivating Creativity in Aerospace Systems Engineering to Manage Complexity

In recent decades, complexity in aerospace programs has been increasing, leading to large budget and schedule overruns. Many of the risks of complex system development can be attributed to the inadequacy of linear methods when applied to nonlinear domains, i.e., oversimplification in a program amplifies the amount of risk produced when a system behaves unexpectedly. Effectively managing complexity involves responding to the various sources of complexity, whether it appears in the objective behavior of the system itself or in the subjective behavior of the people developing it. Thus, the engineering of complex systems requires nonlinear modeling methods of the system as well as nonlinear processes for developing the system. Much effort tends to be focused on addressing the objective sources of complexity and less is given to understanding and responding to the subjective sources of complexity. This present study examines how facilitating creativity in aerospace system development can serve as a potential strategy for managing complexity. Creativity is a kind of psychological process that integrates linear and nonlinear modes of thinking, and therefore systems engineering processes that reflect the creative process could reduce the risks of complexity. There are three primary results of this work: a novel application of creativity research to aerospace engineering processes; the most comprehensive published review of existing research on creativity in aerospace known to-date; and the proposal of two new systems engineering methods for facilitating creativity to manage complexity. These two new methods designed to improve the Waterfall methodology are as follows: the formation of a Parallel Systems Engineering group that functions analogously to how linear and nonlinear information are coordinated in creativity; and a conceptual model wherein aerospace programs are treated as a series of interdependent creative processes, which can be used to trace the propagation of complexity through various phases of system development

Wearables at work:preferences from an employee’s perspective

This exploratory study aims to obtain a first impression of the wishes and needs of employees on the use of wearables at work for health promotion. 76 employ-ees with a mean age of 40 years old (SD ±11.7) filled in a survey after trying out a wearable. Most employees see the potential of using wearable devices for workplace health promotion. However, according to employees, some negative aspects should be overcome before wearables can effectively contribute to health promotion. The most mentioned negative aspects were poor visualization and un-pleasantness of wearing. Specifically for the workplace, employees were con-cerned about the privacy of data collection

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

Design and semantics of form and movement : DeSForM 2007

A strong theme that has emerged in our previous two conferences in the importance of narrative to the process of generating, developing and communicating new modalities of interaction between people, things and environments. Our researches have identified aspects of importance in the design and have begun to establish orders of, priority of approach and representation for these aspects as components of interaction. We have begun to grapple with the growth in the complexity of the interaction design process for truly ‘animated’ functionality in products, especially where this manifests itself as apparent behavioural characteristics resident in or portrayed by products. The findings and experience of researchers is that this increase in complexity is likely to be exponential compared to the rigours relating to the resolution of static physical product configuration or even system operated product with screen based interfaces. The emerging sense is that narrative in the process is essential to bring meaning and to ‘touch’ our humanity or connect with human experience. ‘The science of the artificial in conversation with the poetics of human experience’! Through this conference we will once again engage in presentations, debate and demonstrations on these issues. In this respect we, the conference co-chairs, have sought to bring together researchers from academia, industry and professional design practice and related disciplines connected with interactive product service and system development to share our latest thinking in the field, to asses its outcomes and to identify further research questions, opportunities and territories for future investigation and exploration

Design and semantics of form and movement : DeSForM 2007

A strong theme that has emerged in our previous two conferences in the importance of narrative to the process of generating, developing and communicating new modalities of interaction between people, things and environments. Our researches have identified aspects of importance in the design and have begun to establish orders of, priority of approach and representation for these aspects as components of interaction. We have begun to grapple with the growth in the complexity of the interaction design process for truly ‘animated’ functionality in products, especially where this manifests itself as apparent behavioural characteristics resident in or portrayed by products. The findings and experience of researchers is that this increase in complexity is likely to be exponential compared to the rigours relating to the resolution of static physical product configuration or even system operated product with screen based interfaces. The emerging sense is that narrative in the process is essential to bring meaning and to ‘touch’ our humanity or connect with human experience. ‘The science of the artificial in conversation with the poetics of human experience’! Through this conference we will once again engage in presentations, debate and demonstrations on these issues. In this respect we, the conference co-chairs, have sought to bring together researchers from academia, industry and professional design practice and related disciplines connected with interactive product service and system development to share our latest thinking in the field, to asses its outcomes and to identify further research questions, opportunities and territories for future investigation and exploration