Externalising, sharing and comparing perceptions in design

There is a need for organisations and the leaders within them to explore, recognise, build and exploit new capabilities. Some of this ‘new’ capability could be better utilisation of the resources already at their disposal. For example, highly skilled designers and engineers. This paper explores the notion of knowledge models in design with two driving motivations. Firstly, a new urgency in the light of the forth industrial revolution, from a digitisation perspective: can we integrate designer’s thoughts with AI. Secondly, a longer-standing concern, from the point of view of the inherent need to communicate and express and model clearly in achieve the objective of design. An analysis of the role of models in design is presented before a potential new approach is proposed

Expert judgement in resource forecasting : insights form the application of the Delphi method

Through application in a world-leading automotive business, this paper explores the practicalities of applying a new method for forecasting resource requirements in the absence of data. The method involves a one off effort to capture expert knowledge in a very structured fashion leading to the formation of regression equations for prediction. Creating such models creates a new conundrum: how can quantitative forecasting models, constructed through structured expert estimations, be validated and accepted in the absence of data? We employ Delphi and find that, with adaptation, it can lead to acceptance of the models generated using the new data-less method

Expert judgement in resource forecasting – the use of the Delphi method to achieve group consensus

Expert judgement is used in a novel resource forecasting method to build models that forecast resource requirements. In this study, a collaborative decision-making process is deployed to ensure user acceptance in an empirical setting with limited legacy data for model validation. The Delphi method allowed facilitating this process and to achieve group consensus during estimate collection. With action research, Delphi parameters are adjusted in three concurrent case studies involving different expert groups. This study shows that Delphi is a useful and valid approach to provide acceptable degree validation for quantitative empirical expert models if only limited legacy data is available for model validation

Expert judgement in resource forecasting : insights from the application of the Delphi method

Through application in a world-leading automotive business, this paper explores the practicalities of applying a new method for forecasting resource requirements in the absence of data. The method involves a one off effort to capture expert knowledge in a very structured fashion leading to the formation of regression equations for prediction. Creating such models creates a new conundrum: how can quantitative forecasting models, constructed through structured expert estimations, be validated and accepted in the absence of data? We employ Delphi and find that, with adaptation, it can lead to acceptance of the models generated using the new data-less method

Planning product design & development : resource-influencing factors based on experience

Time is the universal resource for Product Design and Development (PDD) projects which has a range of factors that influence its length. By sharing their perceptions on such factors, designers can provide insight to those who estimate/schedule. Understanding which factors are most influential may result in improvements in such estimations, offering improved organisational understanding of product development and a perspective to evaluate initial project briefs. This paper examines the factors that influence PDD project length found in literature, comparing them to those considered influential by design teams

Social relationships and supply chain risk information sharing

The main objective of this study is to investigate how social relationships enhance supply chain risk information sharing. A multiple-case, holistic design was adopted. Interviews targeted managers in supply chain, procurement, operations and distribution. The study findings revealed that building closeness, motivation and establishing a sense of collective consequence enhances supply chain risk information sharing. This study contributes valuable empirical insights into how social relationships can enhance risk information sharing so that firms can prepare against supply chain disruption

Innovative approach to variation mapping in craft-based textile manufacturing

This paper proposes a simple and practical method that facilitates capture of the most significant sources of variation within a craft-based textile manufacturing operation. With the aim of reducing waste in such processes and improving the consistency of the fabric finish, this research work establishes a method that helps indicate the degree to which variation sources contribute to the variability noticed in finished woven fabric. This is achieved by a methodology that is based on the combined use of process modelling theory, specifically the integrated definition for function modelling (IDEF) and process expert knowledge

A quantitative analysis of prototype use found in students' projects

Prototyping constitutes an inseparable part of engineering design academic courses and a significant topic of design education. According to relevant literature, especially physical prototypes along with the actual process of model building have been proved to be very beneficial as they boost students’ creativity and resourcefulness and assist them in evaluating their ideas better. Nevertheless, their use of prototypes has still not been explored in depth to be clearly understood and transformed into explicit instructions for informing design education. The main goal of this study is to explore how students make use of prototypes and understand the reasoning behind their prototyping activities. This is achieved by identifying instances of prototype use in projects and performing a quantitative analysis according to the explicit purpose of their prototyping activities. The results confirm students’ limited scope of prototype use during the early design stages, show their unfamiliarity with prototypes’ less explored roles and present the purposes which are mostly used during the projects. Such results could lead to the creation of a framework of guidelines which presents the prototyping process in a more structured way, aimed at engineering design students and design education practices

Physical prototyping rationale in design student projects : an analysis based on the concept of Purposeful Prototyping

Prototyping constitutes a major theme of design education and an integral part of engineering design academic courses. Physical prototypes and the model building process, in particular, have been proved to boost students' creativity and resourcefulness and assist in the better evaluation of concepts. However, students' usage of prototypes has still not been explored in depth with the aim of being transformed into educational guidelines. This paper presents an investigation of students' reasoning behind prototyping activities based on the concept of Purposeful Prototyping, developed in the authors' previous work. This is performed by identifying instances of prototype use in students' design projects and by discovering which types of prototyping purposes they apply and to what extent, as well as by studying the relationships between purposes, early design stages, academic performance and project planning. The analysis of the results shows that prototyping can support students' learning objectives by acting as a project scheduling tool and highlights the contribution of early-stage prototyping in academic performance. It is also confirmed that students' limited prototyping scope prevents them from gaining prototyping's maximum benefits and that they require strategic guidelines tailored to their needs. A new, improved list of prototyping purposes is proposed based on the study's results

The concept of prototyping purpose : towards a new kind of taxonomic classification

A prototype can be generally defined as a preliminary version of a final product and it can represent both aesthetic and functional features. Prototyping, the process of building a prototype, constitutes an indispensable part of product development processes. Many classifications of prototypes which use a different range of criteria have already been developed and are known as Prototype Taxonomies. This paper proposes an agenda towards the development of a new taxonomic classification which will be based on a prototype's attributes and its intended purpose. This work is justified from the results of an analysis of 8 existing prototype taxonomies which indicate that there is not a taxonomy that explicitly uses the prototypes’ purposes as its basic taxonomic dimension. A definition of the term ‘Prototype Purpose’ is proposed through discussing the differences and relations to the term ‘Prototype Role’. This work results in a list of 23 explicit prototype purposes which arise from 7 roles of prototyping found in relevant literature: Learning, Communication, Demonstration, Integration, Refinement, Exploration and Requirement Elicitation