Introducing systems engineering to industrial design engineering students with hands-on experience

The article presents an innovative educational project to introduce systems engineering to third year students in industrial design engineering at the University of Twente. In a short period the students are confronted with new technology, namely sensors and actuators. They have to apply this technology in a complex situation, the design of a home climate system or an intelligent automobile. They work in large groups without tutor. In parallel a basic course on systems engineering is given to provide the students with tools for handling this situation. The aim is that students are forced to apply the systems engineering tools in a concrete situation, thus directly experiencing the benefits. The project is implemented and the article describes the context, the goals, the setup, and the experiences of both teachers and students. The article concludes with an evaluation of the first and second year it has been executed

Applying Universal Linking of Engineering Objects in the Automotive Industry:Practical Aspects, Benefits, and Prototypes

The bi-directional communication of CAD programs with subsequent applications such as process planning remains a key challenge in design-for-the-lifecycle. While it seems sensible that individual applications use their own collection of feature types and thereby allow users to have their specific perspective of the product, it is still difficult to automatically close the gap between the variety of applications. Universal Linking of Engineering Objects (ULEO) targets this concern. It is general enough to facilitate informational integration of the applications along the process chain. This paper examines a number of scenarios for exploiting ULEO’s benefits in the field of automotive development and reports on the associated prototypical software implementations. Principle alternatives and technical aspects relevant for applying ULEO are discussed in some detail beforehand

Communication: key factor in multidisciplinary system design

System design research often looks at ways to model the system that is developing. Many modelling techniques and model representations exist. Another aspect these models can be used for is to enable, facilitate and improve communication among the developers during the process. The young System Design Group at the faculty of Engineering Technology of the University of Twente, the Netherlands, aims at focusing on this communication aspect in system design.\ud In the paper, a few finished and running projects undertaken in close cooperation with industry are described concisely. From these projects three research themes are derived. These are: creation of high-level models, combining model representations and condense information. The paper ends with plans for future research

Tools and techniques for product design

For product designers, tools and techniques are essential in driving the design cycle. Nevertheless, their employment usually is implicit, while passing over e.g. the design and project environments empowering their adequate use. This publication presents an overview of approaches in structuring and using tools/techniques, based on the effectuation of creativity and decision-making in the design environment. In elaborating on characteristics of tools/techniques and ensuing ways of selecting them, the designer's portfolio of tools/techniques is characterised. Representative problems of tool/technique usage are depicted and contextualised by illustrating their industrial application. Prospects for future developments are also reviewe

Environmental indicators & engineering: An alternative for weighting factors

Many impact assessment methods use weighing factors to agregate the different environmental effects into a single score value for the total impact caused by a product life cycle. The introduction of subjectivity in the decision process during product development, by using this kind of weighting factors, should be avoided. A more objective approach uses indicators based on laws of physics, for example the notion exergy. Construction and implementation in Simapro of an exergetic indicator is illustrated in this paper

Reducing design complexity of multidisciplinary domain integrated products: a case study

Multidisciplinary product development is well known for the complexity of its design process. It is commonly addressed by domain integration and a modular design approach. The former, often resulting in smaller products and integrated functions, is characterized by a complex non-linear design process. The latter, which may not result in such integrated functions, has a simpler —usually linear— design process, resulting in novel solutions. This paper presents a method for reducing design complexity of Multidisciplinary Domain Integrated Products by decomposing the problem into modular structures. Computational synthesis techniques are used to solve the resulting modules. Printed Circuit Board design is used as case study, as it is well known for its complexity and highly integrated product functionalities