Towards a constitutive foundation for the creation of a scientific formalism for product realization

Motte, Damien

2003

Document Version: Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Link to publication

Citation for published version (APA): Motte, D. (2003). Towards a constitutive foundation for the creation of a scientific formalism for product realization. Unpublished.

Total number of authors: 1

General rights Unless other specific re-use rights are stated the following general rights apply: Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal

Read more about Creative commons licenses: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim.

LUND UNIVERSITY

PO Box 117 221 00 Lund +46 46-222 00 00 A SCIENTIFIC FORMALISM FOR PRODUCT REALIZATION IN A GLOBAL MANUFACTURING ENTERPRISE: AN OPPORTUNITY FOR GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS

TOWARDS A CONSTITUTIVE FOUNDATION FOR THE CREATION OF A SCIENTIFIC FORMALISM FOR PRODUCT REALIZATION

Damien Motte*

*Division of Machine Design at the Department of Design Lund Institute of Technology at Lund University Box 118 SE-221 00 LUND, Sweden Tel: +46 (0) 46 2228513 Email: [email protected]

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS: product realization, scientific History shows that companies that survive formalism of design, problem solving proc- in a severe competitive climate are those ess, cognitive psychology, change manage- that are highly adaptable to market and ment, product specifications. technological changes. Product development is one of the key activities that assure com- pany survival by renewal of its offer to its 1. INTRODUCTION customers. A scientific formalism has to be “[I]f history is a guide, no more than a third created to fulfill two purposes: 1) to ensure of today's major corporations will survive in that the design and development of a prod- an economically important way over the uct is successful (the final product must ful- next twenty-five years.” With this warning, fill all the needs with the constraints of Foster & Kaplan (2001:14) show that com- costs, delays and resources), and 2) to inte- panies have to adapt and integrate social and grate market and technological changes that technological changes to survive. will permit the company to survive. These changes concern new market ori- In this paper, eight important issues con- entations, acceptation of new technologies, cerning a scientific formalism of product re-organizations, etc. Product realization is realization are presented. Concerning the one of the most important vectors of change: basic design operations: research must ex- indeed, this process transforms new needs plore more deeply the cognitive aspects of into reality, carries out the company strategy designing, especially at the level of em- and integrates technological advances. It has bodiment and detail design, as well as col- thus to be organized and supported very laborative design. There is a need of formal- carefully. The actual state-of-art is a patch- ization and interplay between the different work of “best practices”, resulting in pre- product parameters (customer needs, prod- scriptive procedures, and scientific, rigorous uct specifications, product subsystem pa- but specific and isolated methods. What will rameters). The classic project manage- be needed to ensure a successful product ment—control of the project and co- realization is a scientific formalism that will ordination between project members—has structure the product development activities to be rethought for product development and so that 1) the product will be as desired and design. Finally, this formalism must permit 2) to integrate market and technological creativity in design, which is the warrant of changes that will permit the company to the evolution of the products and in this survive. way, the company. The realization of this formalism ad- dresses numerous research issues. They are

1 Conceptual Design Embodiment Design Detail Design

Knowledge Prescriptive methods (design Bounded rationality methods, PSP) *1 Designer 2 * 3 Beijing Chicago * Team

Project activities

PS 6 0 * Product 4 models 7 PSf * 5 * PSn Management * Major issue 8 Influence * *

Figure 1 Representation of the major issues towards the creation of a formalism for product realization developed in this paper considering the de- In the second category a lack of inter- scription presented in Figure 1. Eight major play between the different product parame- issues have been developed among the fol- ters customer needs (product specifications, lowing dimensions: product models, project product subsystem parameters) is noticed. activities, teams, designers and their knowl- This leads to a lack of control, a difficulty of edge. They have been allocated into three communication between the different actors categories: basic design operations, product and difficulty in taking into account the parameters, and management. changes, internal and external, that occur Basic design operations, the first cate- during product realization. gory, are at the core of product realization. The third category of product manage- They are usually modeled as problem solv- ment needs to be redefined. The classical ing processes (Hubka 1976/19821, Pahl & project organization structure, with a project Beitz 1996, Olsson 1976). After having de- leader responsible for co-ordination and veloped models of design activities over the control is becoming highly complex in last 40 years rational, the next challenge is global projects where product development to integrate the cognitive limitations of the members are scattered all over the world. IT human being. When designing is collabora- technologies will be needed to execute low- tive, the problem will address group design valued tasks that are mostly co-ordination support and group decision-making. This is problems to let the manager focus on the presented in the first part of this paper. tasks of controls and major decisions. Finally, as an extension to the issues concerning a scientific formalism, creativity

1 The second date of two separated by a slash mark indicates has its importance for a global manufactur- the reference where English translation is available.

2 ing company. Creativity has to be kept alive tive sciences, from psychology to artificial and novel ideas exploited. Indeed, formal- intelligence, the designer’s way of reasoning ism helps to rationalize the product realiza- has attracted increasing attention during tion, that is, to ensure that a need will be recent decades. There is a consensus that the fulfilled by the right solution. But rationali- of design processes is based on a zation can hinder pioneering findings. The problem-solving activity: activities of un- last part will deal with this problem. derstanding the task, generating solutions, evaluating and selecting them.

2. BASIC DESIGN OPERATIONS In the conceptual design phase, where We can distinguish two cases: the design problems are ill-defined, a lot of works have activities made by a single designer (*1, see been done during the last 15 years. Here are Figure 1) and design activities made by a the main findings: Atman et al. (1999) and group of designers (*2). In the first case, Adams & Atman (1999) confirm the validity rational methods and principles to guide the of prescriptive methods in the design proc- designer have been developed over the last ess. The students who considered more al- 120 years (since Reuleaux 1875), but the ternatives had a better result quality. Other cognitive limitations of the designers have studies however temper the results. Design- only been studied for the past 15 years. The ers observing the prescribed methodologies integration of human “bounded rationality” will be on average more successful than to the prescriptive design activities is one of those who do not (Pahl et al. 1999), but pre- the biggest efforts of the next 20 years. scriptive models “are in conflict with natural When designers are working together on the cognitive models” according to Condoor et same subject, group supports has to be con- al. (1992: 277). These authors list human sidered, and when they are working sepa- behaviors and characteristics that contradict rately, it is the harmonization of their results rigid procedures: Early appearance and per- that becomes complex. sistence of a core idea; Lack of generation of alternatives; Design fixation; Lack of 2.1. Cognitive perspective on the design flexibility; Subjective judgment; Reluctance process to change after a design is made; “satis- As summarized in Pahl et al. (1999b), ficing”. Ball et al. (1998:213) complete the when design stopped being con- picture: failure to search for alternative solu- sidered as “an artistic activity”, design tions, marked inclination to stick with early methodologies could be developed. Special “satisficing” solutions, only superficial efforts have since been striving towards modeling and assessment of competing al- normative design procedures, aiming to ra- ternatives when such options are actually tionalize and optimize the development of considered. The claim is that these human technical artifacts. Methods have been de- specificities should be integrated in method- veloped for the conceptual as well for the ologies. Fricke (1999) noticed that good embodiment and detailed design phases; designers did not suppress their first solu- requirements for education, experience, tion ideas, but did not exploit them until the knowledge, reasoning and problem solving clarification of the task was complete. His ability of the designer have been stated (e.g. conclusion is that this should be practiced in Hubka 1976, Pahl & Beitz 1977/1996). This teaching. has resulted in substantial improvements in Simon (1996:119) defined the term “sat- terms of costs, shorter lead-times and higher isficing” to refer to procedures that search product quality. However, systematically or “good or satisfactory solutions instead of based on best practices, present methods optimal ones”. This concept explains why a have focused on the product technologies, designer can stop searching, having only the thus neglecting the importance of and im- “feeling” that he has reached a sufficient pacts by human factors—the designer. Initi- solution or set of solutions (Pahl et al. ated by the increased importance of cogni- 1999a: 484). Sometimes, solution search

3 stops even without a satisficing one; another While detailing is sometimes considered phenomenon may be behind this. Ball as a second-order activity in some design (1998) uses the hypothesis that an inhibitory process models—because of the “automa- memory process can arise subsequent to the tism” of certain tasks (e.g. Matousek recognition-based emergence of a familiar 1963:5, French 1998:13), this phase is rather design solution. Pahl et al. (1999a) report like an extension of embodiment design, that research showed that various ap- with the same complexity level. For Hubka proaches lead to good solutions; that sub- (1976:11), detail design overlaps the em- problem-oriented (opportunistic) procedures bodiment design tasks of form-giving, mate- are also successful depending on the prob- rial choice, and manufacturing methods. lem; that methodology is useful but never The questions that arise concerning em- rigorously followed; the need for more bodiment design and detail design concern flexibility in methodology, but not in an the designer himself: what he or she per- individual and situation-oriented manner. forms during an effective embodying activ- Eisentraut (1999) confirms this view. The ity, if he or she especially applies the basic way humans solve problems is not really rules, seeks some support from the guide- flexible, whatever the problem may be. lines and has in mind the principles during The general conclusion from these find- effective embodying and detailing. Has the ings is that biases introduced by human designer the capabilities – as a human being cognition have to be taught, so that the stu- – to accomplish that? What can be offered to dents will be aware of them, and that proce- support the embodying and detailing design dures should be employed in a less rigorous processes? How are the differences between way. novices and experts expressed? What char- acterizes an expert in embodiment and detail On the other hand, in embodiment de- design? sign and detail design, almost no research work has been executed. Accumulated ex- Understanding the cognitive activity of perience and practice have led to the appli- the designer is preliminary to a support to cation of some basic rules for embodiment design tasks. Computer-based systems for design like: simplicity, clarity and safety. the support of the embodiment design rules, Numerous rules can be found in the litera- guidelines and principles have been devel- ture, but still nowadays clarity, simplicity oped in recent years, mostly based on artifi- and safety are fundamental to all of them cial intelligence, expert systems (e.g. Dym (Pahl & Beitz 1997/1996). These basic rules 1994, Thornton & Johnson 1996). There is are supported by guidelines based on the still a long way until all principles and constraints of the design, defined during guidelines are integrated into a computer- conceptual design. They cover the ranges of based design support system. The agenda “design for X” as well as ways of dealing for the coming years should be: Start and with some physical and natural effects like develop research on cognitive activity for corrosion, wear and thermal expansions. embodiment design and detail design, while Finally, rules and guidelines are completed continuing to study conceptual design; Inte- by principles, kinds of laws that have been grate them into artificial intelligent tools that verified by practice and that facilitate the will support the design activity; Elaborate a design (Matousek 1963, Leyer 1964, French strategy to make these tools work with one 1998, Pahl & Beitz 1977/1996). If, for ex- another. ample, “a force or moment is to be transmit- ted form one location to another, with the 2.2. Design Groups minimum possible deformation, then the The problems identified concern both shortest and most direct force transmission collaborative and non-collaborative design. path is the best” (Leyer 1964, Pahl & Beitz In the first case, much work has been 1997). carried out in the conceptual design, which originated the concept of group decision

4 support system (GDSS) for which some transform into metrics. A possibility can be computer-supported tools now exist. This is the use of fuzzy , as in the SPEC less true for embodiment design or detail method (Yannou & Limayem 2000). design. The problems are not exactly the The second problem is to transform same: the problems in embodiment design these specifications into a technical system or detail design are relatively well-known (*5). Here again, some methods exists, as (we have already the product concept, some described in Pahl & Beitz (1996) or Ulrich basis, and we know the inputs and outputs & Eppinger (2000), but these are still heuris- of the parts we have to design). The ques- tics. They are powerful, but just help guide tion is how to make people work together on the way to possible solutions: failures are the same product subsystem, and prelimi- always possible. nary questions can be: How efficient can it Moreover, there is a need to transfer ef- be? Are some parts of design work devoted ficiently customer needs to product parame- more to a single person and others to a ters at every subsystem level. Indeed, needs group? are changing under product development. It In the case where people are working should be possible to pass on these changes alone on different problems concerning one to the inputs and outputs of any subsystem subsystem in which the results are interde- of the product. On the other hands, once a pendent, the interfaces between (or the func- subsystem has been partially designed, if its tions linking) the sub-problems are of great temporary inputs and outputs differ from importance, because they make the integra- what was planned, it should be possible to tion of the solutions to these sub-problems, look at the impact it could have on the satis- possible. faction of the customer needs. (*8) Finally, the subsystems themselves once designed (at a conceptual or embodiment 3. THE IMPORTANCE OF PRODUCT design level) can influence the functioning PARAMETERS of other subsystems—by release of heat, for The product parameters are fundamental example. Secondary effects cannot always for product development and design because be planned from the beginning and are not they are the basic data on which the product represented in the product system. These is built, on which calculations are made, and changes and new constraints must thus be on which solutions are compared and evalu- dynamically transferred to other subsystems, ated. so that other designer teams can integrate Customer needs are usually written, in a these changes or reject them (thus forcing more or less standard way, in form of re-design of the problematic subsystem); phrases (functions) where the product to be The project manager can evaluate the impact designed is the subject, followed by an ac- of this unexpected event in term of delays, tion verb and some complements that refine costs and resources. (*7) and limit the action (this grammar is even There is thus a need for formalization standardized in Europe, see EN 1325 and and management of the diverse product pa- EN 12973). To these functions correspond rameters, prior to a scientific formalism of one or more metrics defining quantitatively product realization: customer needs, product what the product has to do (the set of these specifications, inputs and outputs of product metrics defining the product specifications). subsystems. This will serve as a support for One of the first problems concerns this design and for management. transformation of customer needs into these product specifications: there is no clear way 4. RE-DEFINING PRODUCT DEVEL- to define without ambiguity the needs and OPMENT MANAGEMENT the metrics (*4). The tool of Quality Func- Concurrent engineering shows the im- tion Deployment helps to make them corre- portance of regrouping the necessary com- spond to each other, but not to create them. petences around the same project. This gives Qualitative needs are particularly difficult to two aspects of the same problem: 1) know-

5 ing where these competences are (within straints of sustainable development at all the and outside the company), 2) co-ordinate levels. actions from people who have different We imagine that a global manufacturing backgrounds, cultures, are located at differ- company will have these tools at its disposal ent physical places but have to co-operate in 2020. The principal work of co-ordination and take decisions on the same subjects. from the management point of view will be Competence management systems al- the creation of the team, introduction of ma- ready exist, like KeFax Competence Man- jor strategic changes, and resolution of in- ager. The results of prior product develop- ternal conflicts. ment projects can be integrated into the de- signers’ profile and soon should be more or The control part—control if the tasks re- less automated. There are however other alized corresponds to the “realization” of the skills that will be harder to obtain and that need; decision in case of delays, costs and have ethical problems. Face-to-face inter- risks—will be left to the manager. The issue views may still be needed before taking at this level concerns the inadequacy be- people into a project. Surveys are made out- tween the management of the project activi- side the company to find out new resources ties, based on the control of costs, delays (from universities or concurrent companies) and resources, and the core of the project: and the content of these databases and use the product (*6). Project activities and prod- can only improve with time. However, pa- uct subsystems do not correspond to each rameters are to be defined and developed to other because project management tools are ensure you will have “the right man in the dedicated to administrative purposes. The right place”. This must be one of the charac- actual tools of project management are not teristics of a global manufacturing company adapted to product development. in order to efficiently use a scientific for- malism for design. In the next 10-20 years, half of the engi- 5. THE IMPORTANCE OF CREATIV- neers graduating from colleges (2-3 mil- ITY lions) will be from China. The cost and time Creativity is a core value for a potential that are needed to gather everybody will be global manufacturing company at two lev- so prohibitive that physical meetings will els. First, creativity is to be integrated into have to be avoided. The bringing together of production realization methods, because the product development team will need to design is the creation of something new, that be totally virtual—the so-called virtual en- is, a creative process. At another level, crea- terprise (*3). That requires two technologi- tivity is also what allows a company to pio- cal efforts. First, the persons must be as neer new fields, to break product develop- close as if they were in the same room, so as ment continuity in order to adapt itself to they can be as creative, cooperative and new needs or new markets. Indeed the prob- talkative as possible. People must be able to lem of a scientific formalism is that it per- see, speak, and laugh together. Technologies mits the rigorous and successful resolution already exist that can help but are still rela- of problems within this formalism, but can tively constrained and need more develop- reduce the possibilities of finding out real ment, so that the sensations are the same as novel products. in real life. The second and more compli- Creativity is one of the domains of cog- cated effort will involve the product itself. nitive psychology that have shown the least Product life-cycle management tools (PLM) progress: the model of creativity is still that are being developed, as those from IBM and described by Wallas in 1926: 1) Preparation: Dassault Systems, but they are still incom- formulating the problem and making initial plete: logistics, packaging (as a part of inte- attempts to solve it; 2) Incubation: leaving grated product development), virtual prod- the problem while considering other things; uct testing (Wang et al. 2003) are being im- 3) Illumination: achieving insights to the plemented; they need to integrate the con- problem; 4) Verification. Even if creative

6 problem-solving methods like brainstorming in three categories: basic design operations, can enhance creativity, the incubation and product parameters, and management. illumination phases cannot be controlled. The first issue concerns the actual in- Poincaré (1914) came up with the fuchsian adequacy between prescriptive models and functions during a tourist excursion. New the human bounded rationality. More re- ideas can concern not only the actual project search studies are needed to conciliate both. but also possible future projects. Ideas have Group design operations still have to be to be caught, filtered, sorted, evaluated and developed: it concerns collaborative design retrieved for further use. This is the tricky as well as non-collaborative design. part because it can be difficult to evaluate a The realization of the product specifica- novel idea. There can be a problem of intel- tions from customers needs have to be more lectual . There must be interplay rigorously formalized. and openness between management and The transformation from product speci- designers, but this consideration is funda- fications into a product system suffers the mental for the future evolution of the com- same lack of methods. pany. The parameters of the product subsys- However, an alternative way of control- tems have to be dynamically modified, ling creativity can be found: by buying along the whole product development. technologies, licenses from others or even It must be possible to evaluate the im- buying small, creative companies. Indeed pact of need changes on each product sub- the more innovative companies are the small system and execute necessary modifications. or medium-sized companies and the very Inversely, changes in product subsystem large ones, which create innovative results must be evaluated in the light of their impact by careful development but especially by the on customer needs. purchase of successful small companies Co-ordination between the different (Andreasen & Hein (1987) after a Booz Al- teams and designers must be rethought. New len and Hamilton Inc. study from 1982). needs in a global company appear that cur- rent management can hardly fulfil. Management project tools are concerned 6. CONCLUSION with delays, costs and resources but are still “By 2020, more than three-quarters of not dedicated to the core of the project, the the S&P 500 will consist of companies we product. There is a need to make correspon- don't know today—new companies drawn dences between the product system and the into the maelstrom of economic activity project management. from the periphery, springing from insights Finally, a place must be made for crea- unrecognized today,” (Foster & Kaplan tivity: if a scientific formalism ensures suc- 2001:14). cessful product realizations, creative ideas A global manufacturing company that will permit a company to discover and take wants to preserve its status for the year 2020 new pioneering roads. must be adapted to changes. One of the core aspects of adaptation is product develop- ment that re-orients the company to new markets and new development. In order to REFERENCES ensure that the designing and development Adams R.S., Atman C.J. (1999). “Cognitive of a product is successful, and to integrate processes in iterative design behavior”. th changes during and between different prod- 29 ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education uct development projects, a scientific for- Conference. 11A6:11-18. malism for product realization is needed. Andreasen M.M., Hein L. (1987), Integrated In this paper, eight major issues con- Product Development. London: IFS Pub- cerning the creation of this formalism have lication. been developed. They have been regrouped Atman C.J., Chimka J.R., Bursic K.M., Nachtmann H.L. (1999). “A comparison

7 of freshman and senior engineering de- Pahl G., Badke-Schaub P., Frankenberger E. sign processes”. Design Studies (1999a). “Resume of 12 years interdisci- 20(2):131-152. plinary empirical studies of engineering Ball L.J., Maskill L., Ormerod T.C. (1998). design in Germany”. Design Studies “Satisficing in engineering design: causes, 20(5): 481-494. consequences and implications for design Pahl G., Frankenberger E., Badke-Schaub P. support”. Automation in Construction (1999b). “Historical background and aims 7(2-3):213-227. of interdisciplinary research between Booz Allen & Hamilton Inc. (1982), New Bamberg, Darmstadt and Munich.” De- Products Management for the 1980s. sign Studies 20(5): 401-406. New York: Booz Allen & Hamilton Inc. Pahl G., Beitz W. (1977-1986-1993-1997). Condoor S.S., Shankar S.R., Brock H.R., Konstruktionslehre – Methoden und An- Burger C.P., Jansson D.G. (1992). “A wendung. Berlin: Springer. cognitive framework for the design proc- Pahl G., Beitz W. (1996). Engineering De- ess”. ASME-Design Theory and Method- sign – A systematic approach (2nd Rev. ology Proceedings DTM’92, 42:277-281. Ed.). London: Springer. Dym C.L. (1994), Engineering design : a Poincaré H. (1914), and method synthesis of views. Cambridge: Cam- (Translated from the French Science et bridge University Press. méthode (1908)). Bristol: Thoemmes. Eisentraut R. (1999). “Styles of problem Reuleaux F. (1976), Kinematics of Machin- solving and their influence on the design ery: Outlines of a Theory of Machines process”. Design Studies 20(5): 431-437. (Translated from the German Lehrbuch Foster R.N., Kaplan S. (2001), Creative der Kinematik. Theoretische Kinematik : Destruction: Why Companies That Are Grundzüge einer Theorie des Maschi- Built to Last Underperform the Market— nenwesens (1875)). Dover. and How to Successfully Transform Simon H.A. (1996). The sciences of the Ar- Them. New York: Currency/Doubleday. tificial (3rd Ed.). Cambridge, MA: The French M.J. (1998). Conceptual design for MIT Press. engineers (3rd Ed.). London: Springer. Thornton A.C., Johnson A.L. (1996), “CA- Fricke G. (1999). “Successful approaches in DET: a Software Support Tool for Con- dealing with differently precise design straint Processes in Embodiment Design”. problems”. Design Studies 20(5):417-429. Research in Engineering Design Hubka V. (1976). Theorie der Konstruktion- 8(1):1-13. sprozesse (Theory of Design Processes). Ulrich K.T., Eppinger S.D. (2000). Product Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer. Design and Development (2nd Ed.). Lon- Hubka V., Eder W. E. (1982). Principles of don: McGraw-Hill. Engineering Design. London: Butter- Wallas G. (1926). The art of thought. New worths. York: Harcourt Brace & Co Leyer A. (1964). Maschinenkonstruktion- Wang P., Bjärnemo R, Motte D. (2003), slehre. Häfte 2: Allgemeine Gestal- “Development of a Web-based Customer- tungslehre. Technica-Reihe Nr. 2. oriented Interactive Virtual Environment Basel/Stuttgart: Birkhäuser. for Mobile Phone Design”, ASME- Com- Matousek R. (1963). Engineering Design – puters and Information in Engineering A Systematic approach. Glasgow: Black Conference CIE’03 (Accepted). & Son. English translation by Burton Yannou B., Limayem, F. (2000), “La méth- A.H. of (1957) Konstruktionslehre des ode SPEC : Suivi de Performances en allgemeinen Maschinenbaues. Berlin: cours de Conception”. In IDMME2000: Springer. Third International Conference on Inte- Olsson F.K.G. (1976), Systematic Design (in grated Design and Manufacturing in Me- Swedish). Dissertation. Lund: Lund Insti- chanical Engineering. tute of Technology, Machine Design. Montréal.

8