Productivity studies in the AEC industry has gained significant attention in the past decade, however the impact from actual industry application has not kept up. This could be attributed to the focus on construction productivity instead of engineering productivity. This paper presents a systematic literature review on engineering design productivity in AEC industry focusing on design research method applications.

The strive for design principles, qualitative and quantitative design tools, and product development methodologies that enable and support the design of robust products, that is products which are insensitive to noise and variation, is an ongoing challenge for both practitioners and academics. This paper reviews and classifies recent research efforts dedicated to robust design originating from the design society and carves out important challenges and potentials for future research. The main novelty of the paper can be found in the structured analysis and classification of recent robust design efforts as well as in the systematic elaboration of future research challenges, which seeks to stimulate a discussion on future tasks and challenges in robust design research.

The paper investigates to what extent the knowledge accumulated in the field of Bio-Inspired Design might benefit the process of biologicalisation in manufacturing. According to visions making inroads in the manufacturing field, the latter will not be limited to the consideration and the analysis of biological principles as a source of inspiration for solving technical and organizational problems. In fact, the process of biologicalisation in manufacturing foresees the development of bio-integrated and bio-intelligent systems. In light of these expected developments, Bio-Inspired Design’s might fail to support the whole transition to take place in the manufacturing field. Methodological limitations still to overcome represent an important barrier in this perspective too. While a transfer of knowledge from the design to the manufacturing domain seems unlikely, the authors individuate aspects that encourage cross-fertilization between Bio-Inspired Design and biologicalisation in manufacturing. These include the need to include biologists in engineering teams, the objective of sustainable development, and a shared attention to the evolution of (Design for) Additive Manufacturing.

Additive Manufacturing technologies are based on a layer-by-layer build-up. This offers the possibility to design complex geometries or to integrate functionalities in the part. Nevertheless, limitations given by the manufacturing process apply to the geometric design freedom. These limitations are often unknown due to a lack of knowledge of the cause-effect relationships of the process. Currently, this leads to many iterations until the final part fulfils its functionality. Particularly for small batch sizes, producing the part at the first attempt is very important. In this study, a structured approach to reduce the design iterations is presented. Therefore, the cause-effect relationships are systematically established and analysed in detail. Based on this knowledge, design guidelines can be derived. These guidelines consider process limitations and help to reduce the iterations for the final part production. In order to illustrate the approach, the spare parts production via laser powder bed fusion is used as an example.

Taking on the challenge of motivating users to drink water regularly, we designed a smart water bottle that can track water intake behavior and inform users about this behavior through ambient feedback. We then conducted two studies to explore the bottle's feedback design from the perspective of users and designers. First, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 10 prospective users and found that they would like to receive personalized, precise, gamified and reminding feedback. Second, we conducted a design workshop with 13 professional designers to explore the range of visualizations that can be used to give feedback. Analyzing these visualizations, we identified three reminder types (augmenting, restoring and balancing) and six visualization styles grouped according to three dimensions of ambient displays (representation fidelity, notification level, aesthetic emphasis). In this paper, we first explain our water bottle concept along with existing solutions. Then, we report the results of these studies. Finally, we discuss the potential implications of the results for our own work as well as for designing ambient displays aimed at supporting users' water intake tracking practices.

This study user-tested different data visualizations for highly uncertain life cycle assessments (LCAs) to determine what best supported decision-making. Precise LCAs can only be performed once designs are finalized, due to the information necessary to complete them, but design changes in such late stages are costly. If designers could have environmental impact data earlier in the process, sustainable design choices could instead be built into the initial designs. We compiled LCAs for various product categories, finding the best means of visualizing the data for online and printable dissemination. Because this LCA data varied widely within each product category, it was necessary to display uncertainty and require users to acknowledge the uncertainty. Here, four different data visualizations were tested with engineering, design, and STEM students and professionals; both quantitative and qualitative analysis determined what visualizations were most favored and forced users to consider uncertainty. We hope that this research helps LCA data be more accessible to designers and engineers in the early phases of design, allowing those without the resources or ability to perform LCA to benefit from it and design more sustainably.

This paper asked participants to assess four selected expert-rated Taiwan International Student Design Competition (TISDC) products using four methods: Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT), Creative Product Semantic Scale (CPSS), Product Creativity Measurement Instrument (PCMI), and revised Creative Solution Diagnosis Scale (rCSDS). The results revealed that, between experts and non-experts, the ranking results by the CAT and CPSS were the same, while the ranking results of the rCSDS were different. The CAT, CPSS, and TISDC methods provided the same results indicating that raters may return the same results on creativity assessment, and the results are not affected by the selected methods.

If it is necessary to use non-experts to assess creativity and the creativity results are expected to be the same with that of experts, asking non-expert raters to use CPSS to assess creativity and then ranking the creativity score is more reliable. The study offers a contribution to the creativity domain on deciding which methods may be more reliable from a comparison perspective.

Integrated Natural Resource Conservation and Development (INRCD) Projects are efforts at worldwide locations to promote economic development of local communities consistent with conservation of natural resources. This umbrella term includes Integration Conservation and Development Projects (ICDPs) introduced by the World Wide Fund to combine social development and conservation s through the use of socio-economic investments, and the Integrated Natural Resource Management (INRM) research and development efforts that have employed a systems approach for quantitative modeling and optimization. In the spirit of the INRCD framework, we describe the development of a system-level agriculture and energy model comprising engineering and economic models for crop, irrigation, and energy subsystem designs for a community in Central Uganda. The model architecture is modular allowing modifications for different system configurations and project locations. We include some initial results and discuss next steps for system optimization, refining model assumptions, and modeling community social benefits as drivers of such projects.

The increased availability of affordable virtual reality hardware in the last years boosted research and development of such systems for many fields of application. While extended reality systems are well established for visualization of product data, immersive authoring tools that can create and modify that data are yet to see widespread productive use. Making use of building blocks, we see the possibility that such tools allow quick expression of spatial concepts, even for non-expert users. Optical hand-tracking technology allows the implementation of this immersive modeling using natural user interfaces. Here the users manipulated the virtual objects with their bare hands. In this work, we present a systematic collection of natural interactions suited for immersive building-block-based modeling systems. The interactions are conceptually described and categorized by the task they fulfil.

The objective of this paper is to present a mathematically grounded description of the two topological spaces for the design problem and the design solution. These spaces are derived in a generalized form such that they can be applied by researchers studying engineering design and developing new methods or engineers seeking to understand the influence that changes in the problem space have on the solution space. In addition to the formal definitions of the spaces, including assumptions and limitations, three types of supported reasoning are presented to demonstrate the potential uses. These include similarity analysis to compare spaces, an approach to sensitivity analysis of the solution space to changes in the problem space, and finally a distance measure to determine how far a current proposal is to the feasible solution space. This paper is presented to establish a common vocabulary for researchers when discussing, studying, and supporting the dyadic nature of engineering design (problem-solution co-evolution).

Therapy in early childhood is facilitated through toys and play. While mainstream toys are designed for children, therapeutic toys need to satisfy requirements from clinicians, caregivers, and children. The study presented in this paper investigated the challenges that 22 international toy designers encounter during the design process and whether support is required when developing products for speech and language therapy, through a mixed-method approach. Results show that considerable challenges are encountered during the early design stages. Nonetheless, the toy design process remains unsupported, while no support is available for designers to consider therapeutic needs. Based on the feedback received, eleven requirements were identified upon which a user-centred design support framework was proposed to assist toy designers during the task clarification stage, taking into account the affordances that therapeutic toys should have without inhibiting the creative process.

One of the fundamental requirements for dual purpose casks, which are used for the transport and interim storage of spent fuel assemblies, is the safe removal of the resulting decay heat. To ensure this the temperature fields are determined using numerical methods. However, their modelling is complex and the computation time-consuming.

In order to accelerate this thermal assessment, we have developed z88ENSI, an independent simulation tool based on finite element analysis. With regard to the modelling, various parameters can be varied quickly with our newly designed mesh manipulation procedure. Concerning the computation time, we developed and implemented an approach for calculating three-dimensional temperature fields, based on an already existing two-dimensional method which lacked precision. We accelerate the calculation by using extended thermal gap constraints, which depict the thermal behaviour of the non-meshed, gas-filled gaps inside the cask. We validate the results of our calculation tool by comparing them with those generated with Ansys. The results of the comparison temperatures differ between −0.8% and 3.7%. The speedup of z88ENSI for the specific validation setting is between 6.9 and 15.0.

New technologies have always been disruptive for established systems and processes. Additive Manufacturing (AM) is proving to be one such process which has the potential to disrupt handicraft and its manufacturing processes. AM is customisable, adopt multiple materials and is not restricted by the manufacturing process. Our research discusses this global phenomenon with case studies to highlights the growth of a new kind of professionals known as ‘Digital Artisans’. These artisans will assimilate the latest technologies with the cultural practices of the societies to create a new genre of products. The evolution of such artisans will be majorly led by people who have an equal inclination towards art and science and can act as the bridge between the handicrafts and technology. The development of such artisans will be supported by academics that will serve as a cradle and expose them to AM, design and handicraft. Its will also help in paving the growth of contemporary artisans who will utilise the strength of algorithms, artificial intelligence, CAD software and traditional aesthetics to create handicrafts of the future.

Additive manufacturing offers several potentials such as the freedom of design, part consolidation, function integration, or time and cost-savings. These potentials make AM interesting for industries such as aerospace, automotive and medical implants, and are also seen as enables for the creation of entirely new business models. Additive manufacturing has the potential to change the current manufacturing landscape substantially and has attracted much attention of industry and academia over the last decades.

However, these developments require improvements concerning the technology itself and its successful implementation into the value creation chain. Driven by the promising market opportunities and upcoming technological developments, many research activities started.

This paper presents a literature review of publications from the last 20 years. Based on this analysis, the evolution of the AM research landscape is portrayed. The research landscape is organised into four areas: machine and process, material, digital process chain and methodology. The paper summarises developments in each of these areas and concludes by presenting current and discussing future research topics.

In the event of damage to additively manufactured components whose shape cannot be produced by machining, an additive repair can potentially be not only ecologically but also ecologically more favorable than the production of a new component. In addition, a number of hurdles that otherwise often impede the use of additive repair, e.g. the availability of the material of the damaged component for the additive process, are eliminated. As far as the authors are aware, this publication is the first to present a process for the additive refurbishment of additively manufactured components using the example of a wheel carrier. In this context, the possibility of increasing the fatigue strength of a structural component in refurbishment is discussed for the first time. To increase the fatigue strength of the wheel carrier, the chosen approach is to integrate the effect of particle damping into the component. Particularly in the case of components subjected to bending stresses, the effect of particle damping can be integrated into the component's interior without having to accept a significant loss of strength.

The growing tendency for end users to get involved in the design and manufacturing phase of their own products has led to the proliferation of makers and prosumers. The tools available for this have been adapted to be used by non-specialized users who seek to meet their own needs and wants. Modular design offers a series of advantages directly related to the needs of current users, but which has hardly been used to benefit them. Instead, its development has geared towards aspects that are hidden to the consumer, such as flexible production.

This work presents a survey, part of a wider research, whose objective is to develop a methodological model for the prosumer to benefit from modular design. The survey was open for several months and was only aimed at makers, prosumers and designers. A dissemination plan was drawn up where the current communication channels of these users were taken into account. The results show what the current prosumer is like, what their needs are and how they relate to modular design. Finally, the conclusions provide information on how to develop a model proposal to ensure its correct usability and acceptance.

In our modern, interconnected and globalized world, design is in motion, to adapt to new situations. But successful Design in Motion must be based on Processes in Motion. For a target-oriented adaptation of the processes to the new, challenging conditions, the as-is procedures must be captured and analysed. For this analysis, established capturing procedures from production or administration cannot be used due to some special features of design processes and workflows, which will be discussed in this contribution. To compensate for the weaknesses of existing methods, we propose an adapted method for holistic design process capturing. With the procedure, we want to enable an economic process analysis, which is crucial for small and medium-size companies in particular. To give an insight into the practical application of the method, we exemplarily analyse the process of a shaft construction and FEM-evaluation by two different employees. Based on this analysis and to verify the relevance of the presented approach, an evaluation with respect to the requirements is done.

Cloud computing has had an increasing influence on engineering and design. A hallmark of sites such as Github is the promise of rapid iteration and real-time collaboration. Recently, cloud collaborative software has migrated into the realm of physical product design, with computer-aided design (CAD) software platforms such as PTC's Onshape. In this research, we suppose that the effect of cloud collaborative software is multi-faceted; that this type of tool affords a number of new capabilities and behaviours for design individuals and teams. We develop a framework on how to contextualize the changes to design tasks afforded by the unique attributes of these cloud-based, collaborative design tools. We find evidence in our research of design engineers leveraging many aspects of the framework, particularly in learning and engagement with their team, and with resources available from communities of users. However, we find that real-world design engineers are not yet utilizing the full capability of synchronous cloud-platforms with respect to real-time synchronous design iteration within teams or communities.

Mechatronic products are widely spread today, but their development still is a challenge. In addition, with the trend of individualisation, not only one solution must be designed but multiple configurations are needed to fulfil customer-specific requirements. To reduce cost and development time, usually existing products are adapted for this purpose. Even though a lot of knowledge is already available through the previous product version, because of multiple disciplines that must be considered in mechatronic systems, even redesign processes are complex. To support the adaption of mechatronic products to changed requirements, an approach to systematically reuse the knowledge available from previous product versions is proposed in this contribution. Through multidisciplinary behaviour optimisation, the solution space is reduced to build an adapted product meeting the new requirements. The approach is explained in detail and illustrated with the example of an electric window regulator and the results are discussed thoroughly.

Universal design facilitates all user, a convenient interaction with the environment, product and services without the need for any adaptation and specialized designs. Recent studies have shown that designers and manufacturers are focusing only on a limited group of users during product development. Current design process or methodology cannot cater to all set of users i.e. Fully Abled People (FAP), Specially Abled People (SAP), and Differently Abled People (DAP) due to complexity in need interpretation. Identification and extraction of needs of diverse user set is a complex problem. Generally, information gathered from the users is linguistic in nature and comprises of uncertainties and ambiguities, which hamper conversion of users’ requirements into product attributes to deliver universal solutions. The aim of this work is to eliminate these uncertainties and extract the actual needs of all users. This work proposes the integration of Universal Product Design model with generic design process to improve universal product design practice. Linguistic preferences of the users are captured and converted into vague numbers to identify the important product attributes and provides a systematic framework of need prioritization.