Among additive manufacturing processes, wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) is one of the most promising methods for manufacturing complex near-net-shape parts, as it allows the layer-by-layer deposition of welded material at a high deposition rate. However, this technology is highly dependent on deposition conditions and thermomechanical phenomena during the process. Therefore, process simulation could be used to analyse the effects of different deposition parameters on the thermomechanical results to optimise the process. However, as the computing time required for this study may become prohibitive, a dedicated strategy is needed to reduce it while maintaining a good level of accuracy. In this study, only the thermal analysis of the process is investigated. An efficient metamodel based on B-spline entities is developed to emulate the thermal response of the WAAM process when building a mild steel four-layer wall structure. Thanks to B-spline entities, the temperature profile at different locations is approximated as a function of a subset of deposition parameters of WAAM process, and the results are compared with the simulated temperature profile resulting from a validation dataset.

Design process descriptions in the literature in general and those using C-K theory in particular lack some useful cognitive information that may affect the credibility of the process. Notions from abduction research are presented and proposed for enhancing such descriptions. Specifically, it is important to distinguish between design activities that are intuitive and those that result from deliberation; a topic that has long been discussed by philosophers of science and design scholars. The focus of the paper is on the ubiquitous design moves of proposing an idea and selecting among ideas, and on their execution by expert and novice designers.

Generative Design (GD) is a design approach that uses algorithms to generate designs. This paper investigates the role of optimisation algorithms in GD process. We study how Pareto Fronts – a classical optimization algorithm output – help designers to browse the variety associated with a design problem. Thanks to the “splitting condition” from design theory, we show that valuable Pareto Fronts for designers are those that allow the exploration of a variety of design parameters without modifying substantially the performance of the designed solution. We call “Splitting Pareto Front” the Pareto Fronts that display this property and investigate how to generate them. We compare, on an electrical battery design problem, two optimization algorithms – NSGA-II and MAP-Elites – based on the design parameters variety they generate. Our results show that MAP-Elites generates Pareto Fronts that are more splitting than those generated by NSGA-II. We then discuss this result in term of the design process: which algorithm is best suited for which design task? We conclude with the importance for future research on Generative Design Algorithms (GDA) to study jointly the functioning of GDA and their expected contribution to the design process.

Life cycle assessment (LCA) has been established as a benchmark for design for sustainability practices. LCA provides detailed technical documents regarding a product's environmental impact, but its use is often limited to trained experts who share the knowledge with designers. Life cycle experts are highly specialized, and the typical designer faces technical barriers and time constraints in extracting information from LCA documents. This work uses knowledge transfer principles to replicate expert practices in LCA information retrieval to support designers. Life-cycle experts (n = 4) were interviewed to understand practices and challenges in information retrieval for LCA documents. Interview findings were used to create a set of guidelines for effectively navigating LCA documents and then tested in a follow-up task where designers (n = 16) annotated an electric toothbrush LCA using the identified guidelines. Results find designers can effectively extract information from LCA documents given provided guidelines, but need detailed support interpreting complex visual entities like charts and figures. This work is the first step toward enabling knowledge transfer from LCA documents and building a structured sustainability knowledge base.

Nowadays, Western rigid inflatable boat (RIB) manufacturers are facing increased competition from Asian and Middle East producers and the need to push the modularization of their product architecture. Many modularization techniques have been developed to support this effort, being the Modular Function Deployment a well-established multi-stage modularization technique with applications in several industries. Despite the reported literature, the challenges and learnings from the application of modularization techniques have focused on large organizations and complex product systems. In this paper, a case study is presented with the objective of analysing the MFD process implementation in the context of an SME manufacturer of RIB. A learning framework focused on the project and process perspectives is used to facilitate the systematic extraction of lessons from the experience of the MFD implementation. This paper contributes to the modularization techniques literature by observing a modularization method as a learning process and makes it evident the call for more investigation on the implementation process of modularization methods.

As part of the digital transformation towards Industry 4.0, the tasks of staff on the shop floor are changing. Despite increasing automation, complex assembly steps still have to be carried out by humans, especially when it comes to complex products rich in variants, whose assembly cannpt be fully automated for various reasons. Due to increasing individualization and the steadily growing complexity of products, providing the right information at the right time and in the right place is becoming more important. In this context, the visualization of information via novel technologies such as augmented reality plays a crucial role towards an efficient and error-free production process. This paper compiles existing challenges when using augmented reality as a visualization form for an assistance system. On the one hand, the challenges found originate from a systematic literature review and are organized according to predefined categories. On the other hand, these challenges are complemented and compared through findings gained from expert interviews, which are conducted with employees of two European commercial vehicle manufacturers in the field of production. The analysis of the two methods highlights the need for further research.

The think-aloud protocol provides researchers an insight into the designer's mental state, but little is understood about how thinking aloud influences design. The study presented in this paper sets out to measure the cognitive and neurocognitive changes in designers when thinking aloud. Engineering students (n=50) were randomly assigned to the think-aloud or control group. Students were outfitted with a functional near-infrared spectroscopy band. Students were asked to design a personal entertainment system. The think-aloud group spent significantly less time designing. Their design sketches included significantly fewer words. The think-aloud group also required significantly more resources in the left and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). The left DLPFC is often recruited for language processing, and the right DLPFC is involved in visual representation and problem-solving. The faster depletion of neurocognitive resources may have contributed to less time designing. Thinking aloud influences design cognition and neurocognition, but these effects are only now becoming apparent. More research and the adoption of neuroscience techniques can help shed light on these differences.

This study is aimed to understand the relationship between resonance and interpersonal phonetic communication during co-creation from the following points of view: linguistic functional factors and paralinguistic factors. The novice designers were assigned a concept generation task in pairs from the two nouns, “weather” and “stationery”. Linguistic function tags were contracted into five tag groups, Stuckness, Question, Seriousness, Proposition and Positiveness. The results suggest that phonetic communication in resonance showed significantly lower Stuckness and higher Positiveness towards the counterpart's utterances; Silence-based conversation was significantly observed when both were in creative states but had not reached resonance; Resonance was significantly more likely to occur with communication where one mainly spoke and the other also responded with utterances, neither one spoke in dominant amounts, or both spoke in equal amounts.

This study will contribute to understanding and facilitating resonance, which is an essential phenomenon in individual/interpersonal/group creativity, with practical implications, especially for co-creative concept generation and sustainable creative flow in collaborative design.

Chronobiology is the science that studies the role of time in biology. The study of time in human bodies revealed the presence of internal rhythms related to the time of day. Considering divergent thinking as one of the essential cognitive activities of conceptual design, this paper presents the results of investigating the effect of time of day on designers’ brain activity while performing divergent thinking tasks. An experiment was run with a revised Alternative Uses Task, measuring brain activity with an electroencephalogram (EEG) device. Students with different educational backgrounds were recruited for this experiment, including engineering and industrial design students, to determine if the time of day affected them differently. The brain waves and related power results show significant differences with respect to the time of day and educational background. The differences are particularly evident considering the interaction of these factors. Further studies are required to understand the relationship between the differences detected and the designers’ behavioural performance and to identify which time of day is most effective for idea-generation activities for designers.

Circular ecosystem is a growing research field that is gaining attention due to representing a more robust alignment structure than a single firm. However, prior research lacks empirical evidence on how circular ecosystems are structured and how orchestrators coordinate a set of actors towards a coherent circular value proposition. By studying nine organizations related to the carton packaging recycling ecosystem, we reveal the complexity of recovering and co-creating value in a systemic network with actors competing and collaborating simultaneously. Based on that, we propose a framework for orchestrating circular ecosystems. Our results indicate that orchestrators should integrate strategic actors, invest in infrastructure, and innovate in product design. We also discuss ecosystem resilience during and after the covid 19 pandemic, showing how the orchestrator was fundamental to the sustainability of the ecosystem. Overall, this paper contributes to increasing the understanding of inter-organizational relationships towards the circularity of resources.

Product-service systems (PSS) are one of the business models that can promote circular economy and sustainability; however, to design this kind of solution, holistic approaches must be used, integrating different areas of knowledge. Thus, this study proposes a conceptual solution based on the PSS business model to the problem of reverse logistics of coffee capsules, through the application of the Requirements Engineering method for Sustainable PSS design, with a focus on the initial phase. With an emphasis on the business model and value proposition, a conceptual solution was developed to promote the circularity of the capsule chain based on the analysis of the main stakeholders' needs. The value proposition of the PSS solution for the issue of coffee capsules was described as the “cocreation of sustainable value to stakeholders to foster the circularity of the chain”, considering consumer involvement through education and rewards in product disposal processes. The results reinforce the need to integrate critical stakeholders to add the desired value in creating a sustainable PSS solution and the need to pivot the business model during the solution development process.

While innovation in waste treatment processes continue to advance, plastics are still often put aside in comparison to other materials. It is especially the case for WEEE-plastics: as they are included in complex equipment, their recovery is disregarded, in aid of critical metals and rare earths. The recycling of plastics is hindered by the low re-integration rate of these materials, due to concerns around their quality and their availability. Ecodesign of EEE thus seems to be a robust solution. This paper details two approaches to assess product design, by respectively evaluating the product recyclability and the implementation of predefined ecodesign guidelines. Based on these methods, the construction of a quality standard for recycled plastics in France is presented. The definition of the quality includes mechanical properties, but chemical, logistics, and regulatory aspects are also at stake. Eventually, ecodesign indexes and indicators are selected, and a method for their formal construction is proposed. The goal of this study is to provide ways to assess the overall quality and usability of recycled plastics, along with design for circularity methods to integrate them in new manufactured products.

Global resource consumption is steadily rising. One option for stopping this upward trend is to reduce material consumption in general. With economics built for growth, this is not a practical path to pursue. Another recently explored alternative is the paradigm shift from a linear economy to a circular economy. The most common concept among practitioners and academics comprises the 6R's: Reuse, Repair, Refurbish, Remanufacture, Repurpose, and Recycle. In addition to business cases and supply chains that have been adapted to the circular economy, the products themselves must be circular. Developers face the challenge of developing novel products without appropriate experience from previous tasks.

This paper takes up the challenge of gathering relevant methods in the context of circular product development. A classification with regard to the required input data and use case shall help users effectively and efficiently find development methods suitable for their given development task. With the categorization via a product development framework it is pointed out in which phase existing methods support users and where a lack of support occurs.

Automating modelling activities in computer-aided design (CAD) systems is no exception within design automation, one of the current research endeavours aiming to use and transform design-related data in design decision-making processes and the generation and evaluation facilitation of new design solutions. The paper explores the differences between CAD models based on their feature-based CAD modelling sequences that lead to the final models' design. The dataset collected and structured for the study contains more than 1400 CAD models clustered on two levels by using an unsupervised K-means clustering algorithm. The algorithm is performed on the number (total and unique) and the first-order Markov model transition matrices of the CAD modelling operations and their sequential order, respectively. Therefore, three and ten groups (clusters) of CAD models are obtained regarding the level of clustering. The results show that most of the obtained groups are specified by the dominant transition between particular modelling operations. In addition, the study also provides insight into the potential of using feature-based CAD modelling operations' sequences as a first step toward automating the user interaction with the CAD system.

The purpose of the study is to understand the design considerations for creating a provocative financial planning toolkit with services to help facilitate more constructive and meaningful conversations to build trust and empathy between financial advisors and senior people. We conducted four rounds of 60-minute co-creation workshops with eight invited participants from various design disciplines to work in pairs to generate four preliminary concepts suggesting design considerations. We used ATLAS.ti to do qualitative research analysis under an NCT (notice, collecting, thinking) model to identify 22 codes synthesized from verbal and behavioral data. The study concluded with three design principles: 1) the concept of financial planning is about people's expectation management, 2) a financial planning toolkit is designed under service systems, and 3) the tailor-made and modular design features can give financial advisors more flexibility to engage with senior people and enable them to share more about their life stories and needs to recommend financial planning packages precisely according to personal preference, health conditions, and financial status.

Futures Literacy is the capability to imagine and understand potential futures to prepare ourselves to act and innovate in the present. This pilot study aims to understand how artistic methodologies and speculative design can support the collaborative exploration of futures in the context of work and contribute to developing peoples’ capability of futures literacy. Our premise is that technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and the Internet of things can augment people and support their needs at work. To illustrate this process, we have presented a collaborative method that integrates an artistic intervention with speculative design activities. We tested the method in a full-day workshop with seventeen (17) participants from a Swedish academy responsible for enabling learning and competence development at work in the healthcare sector. The results indicate that the artistic intervention, combined with the speculative design activities, can challenge current participants’ perspectives and offer them new ways of seeing futures with technologies. These new ways of seeing reveal underlying premises crucial in developing the capability of futures literacy.

Digital fabrication laboratories play a role as an educational environment in which different learning activities incorporate advanced technological developments. Digital fabrication design education often involves exploratory and scaffolded processes of materialising ideas into products. However, FabLabs poses multiple challenges for pedagogy and design learning. Based on a large-scale digital fabrication course in a higher education institution, we examine whether teamwork carried out in a digital fabrication environment improves creativity. Furthermore, we analyse if teamwork affects self-assessment of learning activities involving building tangible artefacts. Finally, we examine whether the type of produced prototype affects the team's overall performance. The results allow for digital fabrication design education recommendations, including interventions intended for improving the creativity of the outcomes, team performance, and learning of different digital fabrication issues.

This viewpoint paper uses two established classifications – March's distinction between exploration and exploitation and Andreasen's Domain Theory – to develop a classification matrix to map industrial challenges and design research topics. Exploration/exploitation and the organ, part and activity domains of Domain Theory are respectively the two dimensions of this classification matrix. Examples are given of the fit of design research and industrial innovation topics into each cell of this matrix, and the need for change in industrial emphasis towards exploration across the range of domains to meet current challenges is discussed. We show how design research covers all categories in the matrix, and argue that using a simple classification may assist the research community in explaining its activities to a wider world, and in organising and directing these activities. We conclude by making suggestions for topics for debate in the design research community.

The transmission of information between requirements modelling and function modelling in the product development process often appears challenging because of multiple used models and different terminology of specific disciplines. The integrated function modelling (IFM) framework is used for functional analysis of technical moderate complex systems and supports cross-disciplinary modelling and communication in the design team. To improve the applicability of this method and its supporting purpose in the modelling process, the authors combined requirements as an additional entity with the existing entities of this method. Furthermore, the extended framework has been used to visualise the procedure with this approach as an example. The outlook provides the potential for further development of the method.

In the design studio, academic (professor) and practitioner tutors provide individual mentoring to students as they progress in their design projects. Prior studies suggest that design practitioners may follow a different design process compared to academics, but little is known about how this difference relates to their design tutoring. This study explores the similarities and differences in tutoring by academics and practitioners. We use a question-asking lens to characterize the tutoring styles of four tutors - two academics and two practitioners - over a five-week design project in an engineering design studio. We find that academic tutors ask questions at a significantly higher rate than practitioner tutors, suggesting a more question-centred tutoring style. We also find that proportionally more of practitioner tutors’ questions are generative in nature, while the academic tutors employ more convergent thinking in their questioning. This may be an indicator of the practitioners' own design thinking, which might be more solution-focused than that of academics. These preliminary findings motivate future investigations of the relationship between differences in tutoring and impact on student design learning.