Unpacking capabilities underlying design (thinking) process

Engineering graduates must know how to frame and solve non-routine problems. While design classes explicitly teach problem framing and solving, it is lacking throughout much of the rest of the engineering curriculum and is often relegated to capstone classes at the end of the students’ educational experience. This paper explores problem framing and solving through the lens of experiential learning theory. It captures core problem framing and solving approaches from critical, design and systems thinking and concludes with a table of learning outcomes that might be drawn upon in designing an engineering curriculum that more fully develops the problem framing and solving capabilities of its students

HUMOR IS NECESSARY FOR INTENSIFICATION LEARNING CREATIVE TECHNOLOGIES IN ENGINEERING EDUCATION

The article reveals the possibilities of using joke and cartoon as didactic tools that are adequate to the goals of "mass-education" of teaching creative technologies, where the theory of solving inventive problems (TRIZ) is a prominent representative today. These forms of humor have a range of unique properties and are therefore suitable for teaching different categories of students creative thinking procedures at all levels of training and self-education. An original method has been created, the essence of which is to gradually transform an joke and caricature in the classroom from passive (illustrative-relaxation) didactic tools into active ones, which increase the motivation and success of students ' activities by increasing their instrumental knowledge and skills to change systems of any nature (this is knowledge of the meta-level-knowledge-transformation and system knowledge). Algorithmic procedures for using these forms of humor have been tested in the University environment and the post-graduate education system (including teacher training), as well as in business education (in industrial companies, research centers and laboratories). The effectiveness and efficiency of using these non-standard didactic tools has been confirmed

Innovation in Ship Design

What is innovation in ship design? Is it a capability that is inherent in all naval architects? Is it the result of the application of a certain set of tools, or of operation within a certain organizational structure? Can innovation be taught? Innovation is a creative act that results in a new and game-changing product. The emergence of an innovative product creates an asymmetric market. The emergence of an innovative weapon creates an asymmetric battlefield. It is clearly in the economic and military interest of the United States to be able to develop and deploy innovative products, including innovative ships. But the process of ship design is usually one of incremental development and slow evolution. Engineers are taught to develop their product by paying close attention to previous developments. This approach is viewed by some people as anti-innovative. And yet the author has made a career of innovation in ship design. How has this been possible? This dissertation will answer the four questions posed above. It will show what innovation in ship design is, and where innovative naval architecture lies in the taxonomy of human creative endeavor. It will then describe those human attributes which have been found to be essential to successful innovation. It will also describe some of the many tools that innovators use. Some of those tools are used unconsciously. Some of those tools are formal products supported by research institutes and teaching academies. Finally, given the fact that innovation in ship design is a component of engineering – which is a subject taught in Universities – and that it is facilitated by the use of tools – and tool use can be taught – the author will conclude that innovation itself can be taught. Whether it can be mastered will depend upon the individual, just as with most other creative skills

Consideration of the relevance of standard quality techniques in Mass Customisation

The business philosophy of Mass Customisation (MC) implies rapid response to customer requests, high efficiency and limited cost overheads of customisation. Furthermore, it also implies the quality benefits of the mass production paradigm are guaranteed. However, traditional quality science in manufacturing is premised on volume production of uniform products rather than of differentiated products associated with MC. This creates quality challenges and raises questions over the suitability of standard quality engineering techniques. From an analysis of relevant MC and quality literature it is argued the aims of MC are aligned with contemporary thinking on quality and that quality concepts provide insights into MC. Quality issues are considered along three dimensions - product development, order fulfilment and customer interaction. The applicability and effectiveness of conventional quality engineering techniques are discussed and a framework is presented which identifies key issues with respect to quality for a spectrum of MC strategies

Student Expectations: The effect of student background and experience

CONTEXT The perspectives and previous experiences that students bring to their programs of study can affect their approaches to study and the depth of learning that they achieve Prosser & Trigwell, 1999; Ramsden, 2003). Graduate outcomes assume the attainment of welldeveloped independent learning skills which can be transferred to the work-place. PURPOSE This 5-year longitudinal study investigates factors influencing students’ approaches to learning in the fields of Engineering, Software Engineering, and Computer Science, at two higher education institutes delivering programs of various levels in Australia and New Zealand. The study aims to track the development of student approaches to learning as they progress through their program. Through increased understanding of students’ approaches, faculty will be better able to design teaching and learning strategies to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse student body. This paper reports on the first stage of the project. APPROACH In August 2017, we ran a pilot of our survey using the Revised Study Process Questionnaire(Biggs, Kember, & Leung, 2001) and including some additional questions related to student demographics and motivation for undertaking their current program of study. Data were analysed to evaluate the usefulness of data collected and to understand the demographics of the student cohort. Over the period of the research, data will be collected using the questionnaire and through focus groups and interviews. RESULTS Participants provided a representative sample, and the data collected was reasonable, allowing the questionnaire design to be confirmed. CONCLUSIONS At this preliminary stage, the study has provided insight into the student demographics at both institutes and identified aspects of students’ modes of engagement with learning. Some areas for improvement of the questionnaire have been identified, which will be implemented for the main body of the study

A framework for developing a Risk-Adaptive Innovation-based Technology Roadmap using TRIZ, Analytic Network Process, and Bayesian Network

In recent decades, companies, industries, and even governments have been motivated by technological advances to improve alignment between their strategic objectives and technology management and innovation by applying flexible and structured methods. Technology roadmapping has been a well-accepted response to this need by organizations. Technology roadmapping is an important tool widely used within industries for collaborative technology planning. It is considered a flexible technique to support strategic and long-range planning and coordination for corporations or entire industries. The technology roadmapping (TRM) approach provides companies or industry sectors with a well-structured and often visual pathway for investigating the relationship between emerging and developing markets, products, and technologies. This technique can also benefit a turbulent business environment and protect companies from potential losses. Moreover, the flexibility and benefits of this technique have led to a rapidly increasing literature for TRM, and companies and industries have been adopting this technique increasingly. Despite the deceptively simple format of technology roadmaps, there are significant challenges in their implementation and development as mainly the scope is generally broad and contains complex concepts and involves human interactions. Moreover, there is little practical support available for TRM, and the companies applying TRM typically need to re-invent the process and adapt it to their business situation. In addition, TRM does not cover the area of innovation when a required technology does not exist and needs to be developed. Therefore, they need to be equipped with technology development solutions and means to assess their risks. This research proposes an innovation-based risk-adaptive TRM process for those companies that need to develop products and services for which the required technology is not yet existing. It presents an integration of the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ) and TRM throughout the roadmapping process as well as the Analytic Network Process (ANP) for final decision making between alternative technologies. The proposed method also uses a Bayesian Network Model to investigate risk propagation in the roadmap

Analogical creative thinking and its application to engineering design and enterprise

Analogical thinking is valuable to creative design as it assists generation of new knowledge by mapping analogically from source domain to target domain. This study endeavours to enhance the value of analogical thinking in creative design by the development of Analogical Creative Process (ACP), and evaluation of its application in projects of engineering design and enterprise design. ACP is a systematic step-by-step tool to enable analogical thinking in design, and is derived from the fundamental cognitive process of key theories for analogy establishment. It analyses the given design problem as a complex of sub-systems and identifies their functions, before analogically mapping over the relations among the sub-systems between different domains. With these features, ACP is capable of providing tangible guidance on analogical thinking for designers without requirement of their existing experience in use of analogy. The effectiveness of ACP in creative ideation is examined with positive outcome observed in a real-life engineering design project compared to non-analogical approaches. The interrelations between creativity, analogy and design are identified featuring ACP and analogical thinking through a prescriptive study. As a result, a novel analogy-empowered creative design process is proposed and applied in an enterprise design project as a new field of application for analogical thinking in design. Initial evaluation supports the application success of the creative design process and analogical thinking is proven valuable in assisting enterprise design practices. The outcomes of this study include development of ACP based on the cognitive model of analogy, establishment of a new connection between creativity, analogy and design by the analogy-embedded creative design process, and a new design application of analogical thinking in enterprise. The identification of the value of analogical thinking in the context of enterprise design provides the researchers and entrepreneurs with a new tool to enhance enterprise design and business progress.Open Acces

The development of product design guidelines based on a new conceptual framework

The work described provides the development, implementation and evaluation of engineering product design guidelines suitable for engineering product designers. The motivation arises from collaborative efforts that continue to be made by the Least Economically Developed Countries (LDC) and the Most Economically Developed Countries (MDC) towards the development of the engineering design field. It is argued here that product design guidelines which are derived from existing product design methods enhance the capability of engineering designers to shorten time to market, deal adequately with product design constraints and boost supply chains. The sample for the proposed study is comprised of companies in Botswana (a least economically developed country) and the United Kingdom (a most economically developed country). The research has been conducted using a mixed qualitative research approach comprised of aspects from the framework method, cluster analysis and Kolb's model. The findings have identified five themes central to the product design process which are incorporated into the engineering product design guidelines. Case study work was conducted to validate the approach. The following claims are made for contributions to knowledge: 1. A conceptual framework which is a graphical co-ordinate system of engineering and management techniques required by nine engineering product design methods. The conceptual framework is arranged according to two orthogonal axes that describe the structure of the product design process and incorporate the need function form structure, the divergent convergent structure, the product design drivers, product realisation process and product development lifecycles. 2. The product design method notation which is a register of the expressions derived from the conceptual framework and is used to communicate and aid in the selection of a group of techniques being implemented, or intended for implementation by design teams; and 3. The configuration scheme which provides a clear link between components, subassemblies, products, projects, programmes and policies. The critical point put forward by this work is that the conceptual framework is only comprehensible today because the engineering product design methods in the public domain have imparted knowledge about the functions of physical products (described here as part of the need function form structure) at the expense of human needs and the interactive forms of human responses to physical products. The contributions of this research provide a holistic and coherent means of integrating design methodologies for the benefit of design teams in Botswana. The approach is, however, universal and may also be beneficial for design projects in the most economically developed countries