A prevalent and pervasive view of designing is that it can be modeled using variables and decisions made about what values should be taken by these variables. The activity of designing is carried out with the expectation that the designed artifact will operate in the natural world and the social world. These worlds impose constraints on the variables and their values; so, design could be described as a goal-oriented, constrained, decision- making activity. However, design distinguish- es itself from other similarly described activities not only by its domain but also by additional necessary features. Designing involves exploration, exploring what variables might be appropriate. The process of explo- ration involves both goal variables and deci- sion variables. In addition, designing involves learning: Part of the exploration activity is learning about emerging features as a design proceeds. Finally, design activity occurs within two contexts: the context within which the designer operates and the context produced by the developing design itself. The designer’s perception of what the context is affects the implication of the context on the design. The context shifts as the designer’s perceptions change. Design activity can be now characterized as a goal-oriented, con- strained, decision-making, exploration, and learning activity that operates within a con- text that depends on the designer’s percep- tion of the context.

Design Prototypes: A Knowledge Representation Schema for Design

A fog computing-based framework for process monitoring and prognosis in cyber-manufacturing

Development capabilities for smart products

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to aim at identifying the relationships between Industry 4.0 (I4.0) technologies and Lean Manufacturing (LM) practices.


Design/methodology/approach
A systematic literature review was conducted, in which 93 studies were analyzed according to their content and contextualization level.


Findings
In total, 9 I4.0 technologies and 14 LM practices were identified and categorized according to different levels of both value stream application and synergy. From the 126 pairwise relationships, 24 were classified as being of high synergy (e.g. relationship between Cyber-Physical Systems and value stream mapping), revealing the existence of a positive interaction between LPs and I4.0 technologies toward the achievement of a higher operational performance. Further, three future research opportunities were suggested: to validate the proposed synergies among LPs and I4.0 technologies; to distinguish the effects of relationships on all levels of flow; and to examine the effect of such relationships on operational performance.


Originality/value
With the emergence of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the specificities on the relationship between LM and I4.0 still need further investigation. This paper provides a better understanding of existing literature related to I4.0, LM, and their relationship, as well as pointing out research gaps to encourage future works.

Industry 4.0 and Lean Manufacturing: A systematic literature review and future research directions

Designers often have difficulty in fulfilling creative conceptual designs of multi-disciplinary systems due to the lack of sufficient multi-disciplinary knowledge. Therefore, this paper proposes a knowledge-based framework for the creative conceptual design of multi-disciplinary systems through reusing and synthesizing known principle solutions in various disciplines together. It comprises a formal constraints-based approach for representing the desired functions, a domain-independent approach for modeling functional knowledge of known principle solutions, and a heterogeneous-object-state-search-based approach for synthesizing known principle solutions together for achieving the desired functions. A design case illustrates that the proposed framework can successfully achieve creative conceptual design of multi-disciplinary systems. A prototype system, called the Intelligent Creative Conceptual Design Platform, is implemented based on this framework.

Technical note: A knowledge-based framework for creative conceptual design of multi-disciplinary systems

A new model of conceptual design based on Scientific Ontology and intentionality theory. Part II: The process model

A new model of conceptual design based on Scientific Ontology and intentionality theory. Part I: The conceptual foundation

Large, complex, expensive, and long-lived equipment often operate in harsh environments, which leads to the requirements of lifecycle maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO). To support the continuous improvement of productivity and to reduce the cost of MRO, this paper developed a cloud-based framework for lean MRO of the equipment with the aforementioned characteristics. A concept and a model of lean MRO are proposed. Taking advantage of cloud-based design and manufacturing (CBDM) into account, an architectural framework of cloud-based MRO is proposed. A case of a lean MRO for continuous casting equipment demonstrates that the proposed cloud-based framework can achieve the goal of lean MRO of complex equipment.

A Cloud-Based Framework for Lean Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul of Complex Equipment

In engineering design, capturing customers’ requirements exactly and transforming them into design specifications are vital to designing a quality product. However, the expressions of customer requirements are normally imprecise and ambiguous due to their linguistic origins. There is still a lack of a systematic approach for elaborating these requirements and transforming them from informal to formal. Therefore, this article provides a scenario-based, systematic approach for requirements management in engineering design. The requirements management process is conceptualized as a three-phase model, and scenarios are integrated into this model for elaborating and formally representing the requirements. A case study of a soy milk maker design is also provided to demonstrate the proposed approach.

Yong Chen

Papers

Technical note: A knowledge-based framework for creative conceptual design of multi-disciplinary systems

A new model of conceptual design based on Scientific Ontology and intentionality theory. Part II: The process model

A new model of conceptual design based on Scientific Ontology and intentionality theory. Part I: The conceptual foundation

A Cloud-Based Framework for Lean Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul of Complex Equipment

A scenario-based approach for requirements management in engineering design