Educating future product developers in collaborative product development : lessons learned from the european global product realization (EGPR) international course

Changes in the business environment, responses of companies to these changes and the available information and communication technologies (ICT) pose a number of challenges to present and future product developers, as well as to educational institutions. An appropriate response to these challenges is to create a solid basis for strategies to combat stronger competition, since existing educational programs have provided this only to a small extent. In our opinion, the E-GPR course carried out by 5 European universities reflects the tasks of professional product development teams and their work conditions as realistically as possible and will enable students attending the E-GPR course who will soon enter the professional world to later progress along a steeper learning curve. This paper focuses on the role of communication between members of virtual teams and presents experiences gathered during the organization, designing and performance of each year’s courses

Evaluation of a method and a computer tool for generating concept designs

The authors have developed a method/computer tool to assist (student) engineering designers in generating concept designs. The method is based on the chaining of physical laws and complementary basic schemata (BS). The tool generates chains which serve as an aid in the development of concept designs. In this paper, the authors compare concept designs generated by a control group (which used functional structure and morphological matrix) with those from an experimental group that used computer-generated chains. The experimental group was found to have generated a greater number of different solutions than the control group; the generation of different solutions indicates a high level of variety and a better chance to find potentially innovative solutions. The established difference in the number of different solutions is statistically significant and the results indicate that the BS facilitate greater variety of concept designs

Using computer-generated design aids to facilitate alternative concept embodiments

The objective of this study was to investigate whether the use of computer-generated aids facilitates a greater variety of concept embodiments compared to the classical approach. A total of 60 participants were enrolled in the Design Methodology course. They were divided into a control group using the classical approach and an experimental group in which computer-generated aids were employed. The embodiments produced by the participants from both groups were assessed for variety, independently by two experts having both academic and industrial experience in the field of product development. The experts were not informed about the groups or any of the study details. Analysis of the results of this experiment indicates that computer-generated aids play a supportive role in concept embodiment

Do basic schemata facilitate embodiment design?

There is a positive correlation between the number of generated alternative product concepts and their quality. Many different approaches/methods/tools have been developed to facilitate synthesis of alternative product concepts based on variations of physical laws, material, geometry and geometrical position. One of such tools is SoPHY (Synthesis of PHYsical laws), which is based on chaining of physical laws and complementary basic schemata. An experiment was designed, which is the first in series of experiments which are planned to asses various aspects of the use of the method/computer tool. The assumption tested in the experiment was that basic schemata generated by the computer tool (automatic phase) offered appropriate guidance for generating alternative embodiments due to more focused approach (manual phase). The presentation of the experiment and its results are the focus of the paper

Embodiment design based on basic schemata

A series of experiments to shed light on usefulness of a computer tool was started. The first experiment showed that there is statistical significance in variety of design concepts generated by the control group and the experimental group

Design education in virtual environments

This paper looks at design education in virtual environment

Education of NPD in multi-x environments

Cost competitiveness, energy price, geographic dispersion of human, knowledge and material resources are forcing companies to outsource and spread the tasks among companies and partners all around the world. All these factors as well as emerging complexity of newproducts demand extreme exibility and coordination of all participants in any innovation project. Therefore, multi-x (multi-disciplinary, -cultural, etc) teams, with team members on different geographical locations, work often on the same project. Social, cultural n professional differences ampli ed with a lack of eye-to-eye contact, demand special technical and social skills of all participants. These skills are of the same importance as professional knowledge, which is necessary for project realisation, and include the use of information and communication technologies (ICT), virtual-team work,decision making, team management, con ict management, etc. and especially their combined implementation in real projects. The latter is a skill, which should be taught and practiced on a case to achieve, and any educational institution, which is aiming to train competitive engineers, should implement this kind of work into educational process.To provide students with the knowledge and practice of multi-x team work an international course called European Global Product Realization (E-GPR) was launched in school year 2001–2002. Its main goal is to provide a stimulating learning environment for students in several disciplines (i.e. design, mechanical engineering, PLM, electronics, etc.), where they can get experience in multi-x collaboration in new product development (NPD) and develop several aspects of design competences needed for their future professional practic