A three-stage methodology for design evaluation in product development

In order to remain competitive in today's technologically driven world, the faster and more efficient development of innovative products has become the focus for manufacturing companies. In tandem with this, design evaluation plays.a critical role in the early phases of product development, because it has significant impact on the downstream development processes as well as on the success of the product being developed. Owing to the pressure of primary factors, such as customer expectations, technical specifications and cost and time constraints, designers have to adopt various techniques for evaluating design alternatives in order to make the right decisions as early as possible. In this work, a novel three-stage methodology for design evaluation has been developed. The preliminary stage screens all the criteria from different viewpoints using House of Quality (HoQ). The second stage uses a Fuzzy-Analytical Hierarchy Process (Fuzzy-AHP) to obtain the alternatives weighting and the final stage verifies the ranking of the alternatives by a Rough-Grey Analysis. This method will enable designers to make better-informed decisions before finalising their choice. Case examples from industry are presented to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed methodology. The result of the examples shows that the integration of Fuzzy-AHP with H0Q and Rough-Grey Analysis provides a novel alternative to existing methods of design evaluation

Framework of Systematic Sustainability Assessment Strategy (FSSAS) for Hydroelectric Power Industry in Malaysia

Hydroelectric power is an alternative power resource in Malaysia and always associated with negative impact on environmental, social and economy of the surrounding site. The dispute over environmental, societal and economic issues can be minimised if compliance to sustainability development requirement is included in the project as part of the project premises during planning phase. This paper suggests a framework targeted for decision-makers in charge of implementing the projects to produce hydropower the sustainable way in Malaysian context which can mitigate the risks in social, environment and economy. The framework is strategic in nature and based on project management methodology with objective to provide a 'common language' by having a project value as measureable for stakeholders to state their mutual agreement of what a sustainable hydropower project in the context of Malaysia and in line with the United Nations (UN) 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The paper discusses how the proposed systematic sustainability assessment strategy (FSSAS) framework support the call for Malaysia to promote meaningful public participation in ensuring land and natural resource decisions and to address citizens' interests which is the core idea of Environmental Democracy Index established in 2014. The paper argues that, even though it is at present impossible to define precision status of sustainability development with respect to the nature of the multi stakeholders and the lack of systematic assessment the proposed FSSAS framework can be a valuable tool because it tracks the project value as a quantitative deliverable to determine the status of the journey in sustainable development towards accomplishing the SDG under a consensus in hydropower industry of any scale over time

A three-stage methodology for design evaluation in product development

In order to remain competitive in today’s technologically driven world, the faster and more efficient development of innovative products has become the focus for manufacturing companies. In tandem with this, design evaluation plays a critical role in the early phases of product development, because it has significant impact on the downstream development processes as well as on the success of the product being developed. Owing to the pressure of primary factors, such as customer expectations, technical specifications and cost and time constraints, designers have to adopt various techniques for evaluating design alternatives in order to make the right decisions as early as possible. In this work, a novel three-stage methodology for design evaluation has been developed. The preliminary stage screens all the criteria from different viewpoints using House of Quality (HoQ). The second stage uses a Fuzzy-Analytical Hierarchy Process (Fuzzy-AHP) to obtain the alternatives weighting and the final stage verifies the ranking of the alternatives by a Rough-Grey Analysis. This method will enable designers to make better-informed decisions before finalising their choice. Case examples from industry are presented to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed methodology. The result of the examples shows that the integration of Fuzzy-AHP with HoQ and Rough-Grey Analysis provides a novel alternative to existing methods of design evaluation

Need for Reliability Assessment of Parent Product before Redesigning a New Product

As companies increasingly invest on the development of new products, and in the redesigning of existing ones in order to meet the ever emerging and rapidly changing customer demands, they continue to face an extremely competitive and cost-cutting war. Since today’s product design works are mainly focused on the redesigning of existing products, most especially for complex products and systems, their properties are expected to be of higher technical content, reliability requirements as well as design characteristics

Framework of Sustainability Assessment (FSA) method for manufacturing industry in Malaysia

In recent years, our planet faced massive social, environmental and economic challenges. Moreover, Environmental Democracy Index (EDI) published that Malaysia has been ranked as the second worst environmental democracy among 70 countries in May 2015. This is due to lack of participation in sustainability compliance and less awareness on sustainability by Malaysia's business partners. By combating and achieving these, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) defines global priorities and inspirations through Agenda 2030 that recognize by United Nation. This paper attempts to propose Framework Sustainability Assessment (FSA) to assess sustainability for the various sector in Malaysia. This framework will give an overview to reduce the noise from wide data collection to a single element. Lastly, it will integrate the current performance with the linkage of the SDGs and the sustainability elements by dividing into three phase which is baselining, clustering and correlation. Now it is time for business to take action especially every sector or industry in Malaysia and it will improve the awareness and enhance Environmental Democracy Index to a better rank in future

Reliability information to support decision making for e-Government projects

E-government implementations in developing countries still face difficulties, leading to a large failure ratio. This paper proposed an exponential-related function adopted in an intuitionistic Fuzzy TOPSIS model for improving the understanding of failure and for building appropriate reliability knowledge to support decision making for e-government projects. The new method which is simple and straightforward have been successfully applied by virtue of numerical case studies for detecting failures, which in turn has provided information for building reliability knowledge to support decision making process. The method has been compared successfully with some similar computational approach in literature

Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Model using Intuitionistic Fuzzy Entropy and Variable Weight Theory

The aim of this research is to develop a new multi-criteria decision-making method that integrates an intuitionistic fuzzy entropy measure and variable weight theory to be implemented in different fields to provide a solution for MCDM problems when the available information is incomplete. A limited number of studies have considered determining decision maker’s weights by performing objective techniques, and almost all of these researches detected a constant weights for the decision makers. In addition, most of the MCDM studies were not formulated to perform sensitivity analysis. The new method is based on the TOPSIS model with an intuitionistic fuzzy entropy measure in the exponential-related function form and the engagement of the variable weight theory to determine weights for the decision-makers that vary as per attibutes. Lastly, a mathematical model was developed in this research to be as an input for developing the mobile-aplication based method in future for virtual use of the new MCDM method

Application of House of Quality, Fuzzy-Analytical Hierarchy Process and Rough-Grey Analysis in Design Concept Evaluation – A Case Study

Design concept evaluation plays a critical role in the early phases of product development as it has a significant impact on the downstream development processes, as well as on the success of the product developed. In this work, a novel three-stage methodology has been developed. The preliminary stage screens all the criteria from different viewpoints using House of Quality (HoQ). The second stage uses a FuzzyAnalytical Hierarchy Process (Fuzzy-AHP) to obtain the alternatives weighting, and the final stage verifies the ranking of the alternatives by a Rough-Grey Analysis. This method will enable designers to make better informed decisions before finalizing their choice. A case example from industry is presented to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed methodology. The prospective benefit of this new method is that it can help designers to reduce the risk of late design changes or corrections. The result of the example shows that the HoQ, Fuzzy-AHP and Rough-Grey Analysis approach provided a novel alternative to existing methods of performing design concept evaluation. The proposed framework has successfully helped the designers to reduce the product development time

Integrated Assessment of MIG Welding Parameters on Carbon Steel using RSM Optimisation

This study explores the effects of parameter optimisation in MIG welding on material properties, weld quality, and bead geometry using an experimental design. The goal is to minimise weld defects and enhance material strength in welded parts. A quadratic second-order regression model predicts optimal process parameters for JIS G3131 hot-rolled carbon steel in MIG buttwelding. Tests include a 3-by-3 orthogonal array for welding current, arc voltage, and welding speed, measuring responses like bead height, bead width, penetration, and flexural strength. NDT X-ray radiography identifies flaws, and durability is assessed through a three-point bending test. The study utilises an experimental design, ANOVA, and regression analysis, predicting flexural strength with a 0.66% error. Additionally, the errors for weld penetration, bead width, and bead height are 1.29%, 2.32%, and 2.45%, respectively. The results highlight improved weld geometry and flexural strength through optimised process parameters, offering valuable insights for metal fabrication

A conceptual model for the implementation of lean product development

Companies are faced with the need to address their product development challenges innovatively in order to stay competitive in today's market. One way of doing that is the integration of lean thinking in their product development process. However, due to the lack of clear understanding of the lean thinking performance measurements, the near absent of a holistic and unifying measuring method and the near or non-existence of an evaluating conceptual model to allow for the evaluation of the performance of the lean product development processes, many companies are unable to fully implement the lean thinking principle in their Product development process. In dealing with these issues, this article has therefore proposed a conceptual model which is based on some core critical success factors for the examination of lean performance in the product development process