CK, AN ENGINEERING DESIGN THEORY?: CONTRIBUTIONS, LIMITS AND PROPOSALS

International audienceThe CK theory developed by Hatchuel, Weil and Le Masson has raised interest and controversies in the academic and practitioners' communities. This paper is participating to this debate. After presenting the scope, focus, and the contributions claimed by its creators; the authors analyse the interest of considering also other concepts and models usually integrated in traditional design knowledge and practices. Indeed, it can be noticed that important concepts such as the concepts of function and structure for example seems to remain outside the perimeter of CK even if some of them are integrated in the research programs of the authors. This is not a central limitation if the real scope of the theory will be minimized, compared with the initial ambition of the CK's creators. It is nevertheless a fruitful contribution which explicitly creates a distinction between knowledge, concepts and notes the importance of expanding partition. The present contribution proposes to enrich the initial scope of CK by integrating theoretical contributions made by other authors and by considering concepts widely used and accepted in engineering design

The Engineering Design CK Theory: Contributions and Limits

http://asmedl.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?prog=normal&id=ASMECP002010044137000083000001&idtype=cvips&gifs=yes&ref=noInternational audienceThe CK theory of design created by Hatchuel and Weil has raised interest and controversies both in the academic community and among practitioners. After presenting the scope and focus of CK theory, and the contributions claimed for it by its creators, we compare it to concepts and models more commonly used in traditional design approaches. It can be noticed that important concepts are ignored by CK theory, even if some of them are integrated into the research programs of Hatchuel, Weil, and Le Masson. This initial analysis demonstrates that even in its scope, CK theory appears incomplete for engineering design and does not consider important dimensions of the validity of the research program as claimed. Then we analyze the foundations and hypotheses of CK theory from a critical viewpoint. Some suggestions for its improvement are made. Additionally, the ability of CK theory both to effectively assist and direct the creative process and, moreover, to organize the complete design and innovation processes is questioned. Finally, we draw conclusions about the ambitious program and results claimed by the creators of CK theory

Application of evolution's laws

Technical systems evolution follow trends, some laws describe the different steps of evolution of those systems. These laws are known as "laws of technical systems evolution" from the TRIZ theory. The aim of this paper is to propose an approach facilitating the use of the evolution laws, as part of a framework for innovation. To achieve our goal we start by an analysis of each definition of the three first evolution laws. It’s analysis we’ll permit to extract with precision part of the definition we’ll use to construct a model helping the use of the laws. The model we propose is composed of a short quiz that users must answer. The purpose of these questions is to guide the user as far as possible in the identification of functional elements of the system and possible developments of innovative products, as recommended by the three first laws. After that, we’ll conduct an experimentation to taste this model on two kinds of participants, some of them are software developers working in differents companies, they do not know the TRIZ theory. The other participants are students in training who learned some tools to innovate, they are not completely novices on TRIZ. To conclude, we’ll present the relevance of our approach to use systematically the first 3 evolution laws of TRIZ

INSTRUMENTATION DE L'UTILISATION D'UN OUTIL METHODOLOGIQUE : APPLICATION AUX «9 ECRANS» DE LA METHODE TRIZ.

National audienceLe présent article relate un travail de réflexion et d'instrumentation de la démarche «9 écrans» de TRIZ, qui propose de questionner l'évolution selon un axe historique (passé, présent, futur) d'un système en lien avec celles de ses sous systèmes (ou composants), et de son super système. Cette démarche est jusqu'alors peu instrumentée alors qu'un besoin existe pour assister ces phases amont d'un processus de conception. Le développement de l'outil s'appuie sur le processus ICI de développement de micro outils d'assistance à l'activité, comprenant l'observation de l'activité, sa description en termes de scénarios de référence, de la modélisation, et la réalisation de prototypes et de versions opérationnelles. L'outil proposé est organisé en onglets dont les fonctions sont respectivement de renseigner sous forme de texte libre les différents écrans, identifier des "points clés" caractéristiques de l'évolution du système, formuler les tendances d'évolution et les extrapoler pour décrire le système futur. Non coercitif dans son usage, il a été développé à partir de la théorie de l'activité et de la compréhension de la conception comme activité réflexive. Dans sa partie centrale, l'interface homme machine incite à une alternance entre une observation nécessaire au pilotage du processus, et la réalisation d'opérations capitalisant les résultats

CK, AN ENGINEERING DESIGN THEORY?: CONTRIBUTIONS, LIMITS AND PROPOSALS

International audienceThe CK theory developed by Hatchuel, Weil and Le Masson has raised interest and controversies in the academic and practitioners' communities. This paper is participating to this debate. After presenting the scope, focus, and the contributions claimed by its creators; the authors analyse the interest of considering also other concepts and models usually integrated in traditional design knowledge and practices. Indeed, it can be noticed that important concepts such as the concepts of function and structure for example seems to remain outside the perimeter of CK even if some of them are integrated in the research programs of the authors. This is not a central limitation if the real scope of the theory will be minimized, compared with the initial ambition of the CK's creators. It is nevertheless a fruitful contribution which explicitly creates a distinction between knowledge, concepts and notes the importance of expanding partition. The present contribution proposes to enrich the initial scope of CK by integrating theoretical contributions made by other authors and by considering concepts widely used and accepted in engineering design

Clustering engineering design research: a methodological framework

9 pagesInternational audienceFor a long time considered as taking place in designers' mind and being of their own ability, engineering design is an activity still badly known and understood. Since the 1990s, a lot of engineering design studies have been carried out, giving many examples of industrial practices and many models of design processes. But studies were carried out in particular industrial environments and proposed models rather difficult to generalise without description of the research approaches. So in this paper, after having characterised engineering design process and analysing Design Research Methodology proposed by Blessing, we propose a research framework which objective is to cluster engineering design researches and to make results comparable

How to evaluate creative and innovative concepts during the contest of the 24h of innovation ?

In this paper we present the "24h of innovation®" event based on the challenge to explore a design proposition and generate with engineering and management expertise a virtual or physical prototype in only 24 hours. Indeed, students and design practitioners form teams of around 10 members and select projects which are proposed by industrial companies. Just after the 24 hours period the obtained results (new concepts or solutions, sketches, CAD and virtual product models, prototype, storyboard, website...) are then presented by the teams in 3 minutes before a board of examiners. This contest "The 24h of innovation®" had been organized by the ESTIA engineering institute since 2007 and had gathered annually around 250 participants from students and professionals design community. First this article aims to present both on pedagogical and industrial dimensions how this experience stimulates open collaborative design activities of innovative products and services as part of the formation program for future engineers and managers. Second the question of the complexity of the evaluation of innovative design product proposition is also addressed here by the analysis of the data collected during this experience. And finally, the paper is concluded by presenting how innovation measurement could be efficient in selecting the best innovative projects in the scope of "the 24h of innovation®" challenge

Application of Evolution Laws

AbstractTechnical systems evolution follow trends, some laws describe the different steps of evolution of those systems. These laws are known as “laws of technical systems evolution” from the TRIZ theory. The aim of this paper is to propose an approach facilitating the use of the evolution laws, as part of a framework for innovation. To achieve our goal we start by an analysis of each definition of the three first evolution laws. It's analysis we’ll permit to extract with precision part of the definition we’ll use to construct a model helping the use of the laws. The model we propose is composed of a short quiz that users must answer. The purpose of these questions is to guide the user as far as possible in the identification of functional elements of the system and possible developments of innovative products, as recommended by the three first laws. After that, we’ll conduct an experimentation to taste this model on two kinds of participants, some of them are software developers working in different companies, they do not know the TRIZ theory. The other participants are students in training who learned some tools to innovate, they are not completely novices on TRIZ. To conclude, we’ll present the relevance of our approach to use systematically the first 3 evolution laws of TRIZ

Application of evolution's laws

Technical systems evolution follow trends, some laws describe the different steps of evolution of those systems. These laws are known as "laws of technical systems evolution" from the TRIZ theory. The aim of this paper is to propose an approach facilitating the use of the evolution laws, as part of a framework for innovation. To achieve our goal we start by an analysis of each definition of the three first evolution laws. It’s analysis we’ll permit to extract with precision part of the definition we’ll use to construct a model helping the use of the laws. The model we propose is composed of a short quiz that users must answer. The purpose of these questions is to guide the user as far as possible in the identification of functional elements of the system and possible developments of innovative products, as recommended by the three first laws. After that, we’ll conduct an experimentation to taste this model on two kinds of participants, some of them are software developers working in differents companies, they do not know the TRIZ theory. The other participants are students in training who learned some tools to innovate, they are not completely novices on TRIZ.To conclude, we’ll present the relevance of our approach to use systematically the first 3 evolution laws of TRIZ

Comparative study and interrelation analysis of the concepts of Creativity, Design and Innovation

International audienc