The paper addresses a critical challenge in System-of-Systems (SoS) simulations arising from the different granularity levels in SoS simulations, integrating non-coupled Discrete Element Method results into SoS-level Discrete Event Simulations using surrogate modeling. Illustrated with a wheel loader bucket use-case in mining, it enhances early design decision-making and lays the groundwork for improving SoS simulations in construction equipment design. This paves the way for broader research and application across diverse engineering design domains.

Increasing adoption of additive manufacturing (AM) makes software support for design for additive manufacturing (DfAM) more relevant. This paper presents a novel, knowledge-driven design support tool for AM that leverages a central knowledge base to provide extensible and powerful DfAM support early in the development process. The approach was implemented using Python for the knowledge base and as a plugin for Siemens NX. It offers automated design checks, optimizations, and further information through an integrated Wiki. Evaluation confirms the feasibility and benefits of the approach.

The environment for powertrain production system engineers is changing radically. This initial prescriptive study proposes a systems engineering framework based on two previous case studies which are under review for publication concerning design of battery plants. The framework was developed based on ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288 standard using Concept of Operations and Model-Based Systems Engineering in a workshop setting, with a focus on visualisation to understand the practical and emotional needs of the humans in the system. The framework was validated by twelve senior project members.

Stakeholders consider aesthetics and sustainability as important aspects of over-the-counter pharmaceutical (OTCP) packaging, and studies show that their interests should be represented more. To address this, a framework which supports designers to develop aesthetically pleasing sustainable OTCP packaging was generated, keeping at its core the stakeholders. The requirements were identified, leading to the architecture development and implementation in a prototype tool. Results provide a degree of evidence that the framework contributes to a user-centred design approach for OTCP packaging.

Additive Manufacturing (AM) enables innovative product designs. One promising research field is AM of integrated electrically structures, e.g. heating panels using Joule effect. A mayor challenge in designing heating panels using AM is the dependency of its resultant resistivity from material, process and geometry parameters. The goal-oriented design of heating panels with individual surface temperatures the interactions between these parameters need to be understand. Therefore, a data-driven design approach is developed that facilitates a design of heating panels with specific properties.

The comprehensive implementation of digital technologies in product manufacturing leads to changes in engineering processes and requires new approaches to data management. An important role belongs to the processes of organizing the collection, storage and reuse of research data obtained and used in the process of product, system or technology development, taking into account the FAIR data principles. This article describes a Research Data Management System for the organization of documentation and measurement requests in the research and development of new oxygen-free production technologies.

Early integration of sustainability considerations into decision making is seen as a key enabler for companies to understand the potential implications of their decisions on the triple bottom line aspects. Lack of the tools to support decisions when trade-off between sustainability aspects occur, however, may lead to uninformed decision-making and undesired outcomes. By consolidating the learnings from empirical work together with literature recommendations, we propose key criteria to be considered when developing decision support tools to manage sustainability-related trade-off situations.

To enhance the success of innovations, various methods for foresight have been developed. Automatization yields the potential of shifting effort away from the process to the actual in-depth analysis of resulting scenarios in scenario-technique. Within this paper, an approach based on a user-specific classification of input factors (consistency values) is presented. Generic consistency patterns used for a semi-automatized consistency assessment based on artificial neural networks are identified using a case study approach. Hereby, the effort for scenario-technique can be reduced significantly.

The digitalisation of the industry offers new opportunities to discuss design activities and support tools. Advancement in AI allows thinking about new Designer-AI tools interaction in the design process. The paper aims to initiate a characterisation of tools issued from researches in the application of AI in Design to rethink the division of work between Designer-AI tools. The paper is based on the literature on the concept of Levels of Automation in cognitive engineering, manufacturing and robotics, and proposes a grid of characterisation of the Level of Automation for the design process.

As time-to-market is getting shorter, customer needs have to be identified as early as possible in product development. Correctly applied, corporate foresight can give a glimpse into the future to anticipate such needs and thus gain a competitive advantage. A support tool to choose the appropriate method of foresight is not available yet. Thus, a literature study on foresight methods in industry is performed and a novel decision support tool is proposed which avoids high entrepreneurial risks. Based on the findings, potentials for future work are identified for different types of methods.

Heavy equipment manufacturers recognise an opportunity to realise customer value gains through offering new Product-Service Systems. Such transition implies a radical shift in how new systems are designed. Based on a set of interviews the paper investigates how radical PSS innovation can be enabled by the use of physical prototypes as boundary object to navigate early PSS design ambiguity. On such basis, suggestions for augmenting existing support tools are made in relation to the existing literature.

Having no fundamental difficulties with Woodbury and Burrow's article, I explore some implications of their work based on my experience, and that of PhD students advised by me, with developing design support systems. I suggest that such systems need a distinct task layer on top of the computational layer, where the power of a system rests. I also express unease with some details of the article under review, in the hope of contributing to a wider discussion.

Nous présentons dans cet article quelques réflexions sur l'utilisation de la Réalité Virtuelle et des techniques adjacentes en conception de produits. La Réalité Virtuelle est présentée comme un outil d'aide à la décision en milieu industriel, mais aussi comme un facteur nécessaire auprès des futurs utilisateurs de produits. Cet article s'appuie sur une bibliographie qui consiste à positionner la Réalité Virtuelle dans un processus de conception. Il positionne aussi un ensemble d'articles récents, développés au cours de la conférence Virtual Concept 2002.