Development of a design probe to reveal customer touch points in the sale of mass customised products

As mass customisation (MC) increases in both popularity and accessibility, it raises questions as to the nature and notion of the customer co-design experience; what is a ‘co-design experience’, and how can this be best designed for? This paper posits that by its very nature, a co-design experience consists of activities that relate to the co-design of the product via the product configurator (physical store, online store etc), but also that a co-design experience is broader than that, comprising both tangible and intangible elements, and encompassing the entire purchasing experience from the beginning of co-design activity through to the receipt of the customised product and beyond. Traditional research methods will often fail to capture the entirety of this experience. This paper highlights the need for empathic research methods which go beyond current research within the field of MC, and discusses the development of a design probe used to gain insight into co-design experiences

Control of Ship capsize in stern quartering seas.

A non-linear mathematical model for the roll-yaw behaviour of a ship is used to predict capsize of a small tanker which sank in the North Sea some years ago. This capsize problem was initially simulated on an analogue computer by the Danish Maritime Authorities as well as being tank tested. The problem was simulated using the digital package SIMULINK, which produced comparable results indicating instability in waves of just less than 3 m in height. Validation of the results is attempted and a discussion of possible improvements to the model is given. Simulated responses of the tanker with simple hydrodynamic fin stabilisers show that capsize could have been prevented by this means in waves up to 7 m in height. Active PID control using a simple full span elevon is used to show a factor of ten reduction in roll angle to much greater waves. This work is of use to ship designers illustrating that stability can be enhanced for a fraction of the cost of major redesign of the ship hull and can be tailored to load conditions

Product design as a vehicle to integrate arts and sciences in design education

In many parts of the world, Higher Education has often considered arts and sciences as an odd combination and many institutions have avoided this particular mix. Historically, this has been the accepted view; however, this view is changing. This paper provides a detailed account of curriculum development and strategies for enabling arts and science disciplines to blend in an effective way. It shows how strong alliances can be built in line with industry and general design practice expectations through “Live Projects”, that is projects sponsored by industry or other clients. The case studies provided in the paper are based on work conducted in the Product Design and Engineering Department at Middlesex University. The paper further demonstrates the importance of industry involvement, and how industrial collaborations can be managed to ensure that the academic provision is both relevant to the sector as well as responding to the needs of students. The paper was presented at the International Association of Societies of Design Research (IASDR07), held at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. The papers for the conference were reviewed in a double blind review process, and the conference was attended by an audience of over 400 delegates, focusing on emerging trends in design research

X-ray specs, stickers and colouring in: seeing beyond the configurator using design probes

The broad spectrum of research within the field of MC to date has done much to further knowledge relating to the practical implementation of designing and manufacturing custom, co-designed products. However, research into the customer experience remains limited. There is a need to understand both the nature of the codesign experience in MC, and how to design for it? The selection of research methods used to explore this area appears imperative in uncovering useful and relevant data and insights. This paper discusses the application of design probes as a research method for a means of exploring what the literature refers to as the 'multifaceted phenomenon' of customer experience, and introduces a research project using these tools for the construction of conceptual models

Optimising cash flows in APVIOBPCS using control theory.

This paper describes the investigation of the effects on profitability of production for an Automatic Pipeline, Variable Inventory and Order Based Production Control System (APVIOBPCS) production system using as an example electronic RAM production. The investigation includes varying the order up to inventory and WIP using PID control to illustrate the profit gain from using control analysis. The results show that greater PID gains for a controlled production system will increase profitability. The value of desired inventory level increases profitability with a defined optimum value

Comparing the personality type of design students in the UK and Taiwan.

This paper explores the use of personality type instruments, such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator in a cross-cultural analysis of UK and Taiwanese Design students. Personality typing is now widely used in the western business community for Human Resources, training, counseling and career planning, however very little information exists with regards to the Asian personality type. The results of this study have shown that the most important of the type preferences is the Sensing-iNtuitive (S-N) one, with its proven link to creativity

A Stackelberg-game approach for disaster-recovery communications utilizing cooperative D2D

In this paper, we investigate disaster-recovery com- munications utilizing two-cell cooperative D2D communications. Specifically, one cell is in a healthy area while the other is in a disaster area. A user equipment (UE) in the healthy area aims to assist a UE in the disaster area to recover wireless information transfer (WIT) via an energy harvesting (EH) relay. In the healthy area, the cellular BS shares the spectrum with the UE, however, both of them may belong to different service providers. Thus, the UE pays an amount of price as incentive to the BS as part of two processes: energy trading and interference pricing. We formulate these two processes as two Stackelberg games, where their equilibrium is derived as closed- form solutions. The results help provide a sustainable framework for disaster recovery when the involving parties juggle between energy trading, interference compromise and payment incentives in establishing communications during the recovery process

Secure wireless powered and cooperative jamming D2D communications

This paper investigates a secure wireless-powered device-to-device (D2D) communication network in the presence of multiple eavesdroppers, where a hybrid base station (BS) in a cellular network not only provides power wirelessly for the D2D transmitter to guarantee power efficiency for the D2D network, but also serves as a cooperative jammer (CJ) to interfere with the eavesdroppers. The cellular and D2D networks can belong to different service providers, which means that the D2D transmitter would need to pay for the energy service released by the hybrid BS to guarantee secure D2D communication. In order to exploit the hierarchical interaction between the BS and the D2D transmitter, we first formulate a Stackelberg game based energy trading scheme, where the quadratic energy cost model is considered. Then, a non-energy trading based Stackelberg game is investigated to study the reversed roles of the BS and the D2D users. For comparison, we also formulate and resolve the social welfare optimization problem. We derive the closed-form Stackelberg equilibriums of the formulated games and the optimal solutions for the social welfare optimization problem. Simulation results are provided to validate our proposed schemes to highlight the importance of energy trading interaction between cellular and D2D networks

Archives of thrill: the V-Armchair experience

Technology for older people is typically concerned either with health care or accessibility of existing systems. In this paper we take a more ‘entertainment-oriented’ approach to developing experiences aimed at older users. We describe here the design, development and a user study of the V-Armchair, a virtual reality and motion platform based roller coaster experience. The V-Armchair constitutes a blueprint for the digital archiving of physical ride experiences through the simultaneous capture of 360 video, sound and motion. It gives access to thrill experiences to those who may not be able to go on real thrill rides, such as older riders, and it can be considered as a class of technology that could help to support ‘active aging’ as defined by the World Health Organisation. We discuss strategies for capturing and then ‘toning down’ motion experiences to make them accessible for older users. We present a study which explores the user experience of the V-Armchair with an older group (median age 63) using a DK2 headset, and a younger group (median age 25) using a CV1 headset, via thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews and a modified version of the Game Experience Questionnaire, and discuss emergent themes such as the role of the presenter, reminiscence, presence and immersion

Development of a novel platform for greater situational awareness in the urban military terrain

The conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq and the more recent war in the Gaza Strip have emphasized the need for novel platforms which provide for greater situational awareness in the urban terrain. Without intelligent systems, which can accurately provide real-time information, collateral damage to property will result, together with unnecessary civilian deaths. This situation is exacerbated by the fact that within the next decade 75% of the world’s population will be living in urban areas. This paper outlines the current state of unmanned aerial vehicles throughout the world and presents a novel design of a multiple rotary wing platform which has great potential for both military and civilian application areas