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The Given-Find-Solution (GFS) method is a widely used procedure to systematically understand "what the problem is" in engineering problems. Nevertheless, the GFS method does not provide a clear guide on how to handle uncertainty, feasibility, and preference for design problems. Addressing this issue is crucial since the designer usually requires making assumptions to be able to propose functional solutions. The Given-Find-In Order To-Subjected To (GFIS) method and roadmap are here proposed to systematically state a design problem and requirements using fuzzy desirability functions to handle uncertainty, feasibility, and preference. The GFIS method lists the parameters, variables, specifications, restrictions, and preferences to facilitate the decision-making process. A comparative study was conducted with undergraduate students from Tecnológico de Monterrey enrolled in the course Design Methodologies. The students solved a band brake design problem before and after applying the GFIS method, and their performance was compared. The results showed a significant improvement in their decision-making ability, their capability to find feasible solutions, and the time required to make a design proposal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the reliable, accurate, and timely estimate of product cost at the conceptual design stage can enhance the competitiveness of a casting part. Set‐based concurrent engineering has emerged as an efficient solution to overcome this limitation as it provides simultaneous design procedures to positively assist the designer in achieving the required customer values in a short time and low cost. Therefore, this study attempts to integrate the set‐based concurrent engineering methodology into the development of a cost modeling system for the metal casting process. The system architecture is comprised of a user interface, knowledge database, and CAD modeling system. A detailed working flow process of the developed cost modeling system has been proposed under the guidelines of set‐based concurrent engineering. Further, the proposed methodology is demonstrated and validated by employing a real‐time casting part that was manufactured using the sand casting process. The implementation of the system provided many tangible benefits to the collaborative company including a decrease in cost estimation time (∼50%) and part rejection rate (∼32.3%). Further, the developed cost modeling approach provided a cost estimate near the actual cost of the product (∼4% deviation). It truly proves the significance of the developed system for the practitioners who believe that accurate and timely estimates of product manufacturing cost at the design stage can enhance the competitiveness of a product. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Product development efforts now more than ever are in need of methodologies that can address the challenges of increased system complexities, shortening time to market, increased demands in mass customization, market instabilities, geographical barriers, improved innovation, and adaptability to emerging technologies. To address these challenges most companies will need to make key decisions early in the product development life‐cycle. In this early phase there are high levels of information uncertainty and information ambiguity. Under these circumstances many companies will converge too early to a point design (Point Based Design—PBD) which will lead to increased cost and schedule delays due to reworking the design later in the product development life cycle. To overcome these challenges many researchers have proposed the Set‐Based Design (SBD) methodology. However, there has been limited guidance on how to define, reason, and narrow sets while improving the level of abstraction of the design. To address such concerns, a literature review was conducted. The contributions of this research include: (1) aggregated literature from over 100 sources on quantitative methods (QM) that has not been considered SBD but does support set‐based thinking, (2) consolidated body of knowledge on QM to help industrial practitioners implement SBD, (3) ​defined gaps and opportunities for future research, and (4) defined strengths and limitations of QM and techniques to define, reason and narrow sets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study conducts research on lean product development (PD) methodology and presents a case study of its practical application into a specific one-of-a-kind development of large power transformers. The demonstrated framework is the result of a 5-year intensive research that led to an extensive transformation of a traditional PD environment into a highly efficient process according to lean principles. Paper explains how lean PD integrates with robust, concurrent and smart design strategies in highly individualized PD business. A generalized framework of PD and design process renovation is presented, comprising three main fields of interest: Process & Tools, People, and Knowledge. A direct consequence of implied renovation are significant savings. Case-study company cut down engineering changes by 32 % in three year test period and experienced performance improvement between 25 % and 83 % across designated process indicators.

To meet a wide range of customer needs, a variety of product concepts can be modeled employing a platform approach. Whereas frequent market changes can be accommodated by dynamically modifying product concepts in iterations, capabilities in production are seldom well incorporated as part of design iterations. In this paper, a dynamic platform modeling approach that supports concurrent product-production reconfiguration is presented. The approach builds on Set-Based Concurrent Engineering (SBCE) processes and a function modeling technique is used to represent product-production variety streams inherent in a production operation model. To demonstrate the approach, a comprehensive case from the aerospace industry is presented. Conceptual representations of a set of aero engine sub-systems and a variety of welding configurations, including their inherent constraints, are mutually modeled and assessed. The results show that a set of product-production alternatives can be dynamically controlled by integrating product-production constraints using a production operation model. Following SBCE processes, inferior alternatives can be put aside until new information becomes available and a new set of alternatives can be reconfigured. The dynamics and concurrency of the approach can potentially reduce the risk of late and costly modifications that propagate from design to production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of International Journal of Action Research is the property of Verlag Barbara Budrich GmbH and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Set-based design (SBD), sometimes referred to as set-based concurrent engineering (SBCE), has emerged as an important component of lean product development (LPD) with all researchers describing it as a core enabler of LPD. Research has explored the principles underlying LPD and SBCE, but methodologies for the practical implementation need to be better understood. A review of SBD is performed in this article in order to discover and analyse the key aspects to consider when developing a model and methodology to transition to SBCE. The publications are classified according to a new framework, which allows us to map the topology of the relevant SBD literature from two perspectives: the research paradigms and the coverage of the generic creative design process (Formulation-Synthesis-Analysis-Evaluation-Documentation-Reformulation). It is found that SBD has a relatively low theoretical development, but there is a steady increase in the diversity of contributions. The literature abounds with methods, guidelines and tools to implement SBCE, but they rarely rely on a model that is in the continuum of a design processmodel, productmodel or knowledge-basedmodelwith the aim of federating the three Ps (People-Product-Process) towards SBCE and LPD in traditional industrial contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Set-based design (SBD), sometimes referred to as set-based concurrent engineering (SBCE), has emerged as an important component of lean product development (LPD) with all researchers describing it as a core enabler of LPD. Research has explored the principles underlying LPD and SBCE, but methodologies for the practical implementation need to be better understood. A review of SBD is performed in this article in order to discover and analyse the key aspects to consider when developing a model and methodology to transition to SBCE. The publications are classified according to a new framework, which allows us to map the topology of the relevant SBD literature from two perspectives: the research paradigms and the coverage of the generic creative design process (Formulation–Synthesis–Analysis–Evaluation–Documentation–Reformulation). It is found that SBD has a relatively low theoretical development, but there is a steady increase in the diversity of contributions. The literature abounds with methods, guidelines and tools to implement SBCE, but they rarely rely on a model that is in the continuum of a design process model, product model or knowledge-based model with the aim of federating the three Ps (People–Product–Process) towards SBCE and LPD in traditional industrial contexts.

Faced with a changing about global environmental issues, there are great expectations to optimize energy saving design in home appliance products. For effective energy saving design in Refrigeration System, integrated design method is highly needed to understand detailed physical behavior of a whole product based on careful study of the interactive influence of each device (e.g., Insulator layout design, Heat exchanger, Compressor and FAN flow rate balance, etc.). Although 1D and 3D-CAE tool become a part of engineer's daily routine in recently, effective integrity interface between the Digital tool and real humanistic collaboration process is the most important key to accomplish the innovative synthesis. This paper presents a practical lean development method using set-based design method which combines digital tool with human tacit knowledge for architecture type product having hierarchical interaction between system and subsystems.

Nowadays, complex systems are dominating our contemporary as well as professional lives. These modern technical products are considered as mechatronic systems which incorporate mechanics with electronics, software, and control in various domains mainly transport, medicine, and robotics. The development of these modern technical products is thus so tough. Hence, mechatronics' critical challenges are to be not only well understood but also supported by practical models and tools in order to overcome this difficulty. Moreover, using the traditional design method which is point based is inefficient as it leads to a huge decrease in the innovation potential through limiting the design space to few solutions, an important increase in the cost of the product as well as production delay due to the great number of iterations. Some product development practices have shifted from using the "fixed-point design" approach to the "set-based design" one. Indeed, the set-based concurrent engineering widely considers a set of possible solutions and then shrinks the number of possibilities in order to converge toward a final solution. Yet, since this approach is too difficult to be put into action, a small number of industries in the field of mechatronics use the set-based concurrent engineering concept. Accordingly, this work aims to develop a novel method for the purpose of facilitating the development of a complex product based on the set-based concurrent engineering method and its implementation in an industrial setting by developing an algorithm to find the set of possible solutions to the design problem and narrow this set to merge toward the final solution. Finally, this algorithm is implemented using "Python" language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to analyze the application of Set-Based Concurrent Engineering (SBCE) principles in a two-staged R&D project selection process based on alternative technology routes for grant allocation. A case study approach is applied in the field of sustainable solutions. The SBCE process occurred in two stages. First, six proposals were selected for concept development. Results were assessed to select the two most promising concepts for detailed development. The four projects that were deprioritized consumed 19% of the grant budget. In the case study, applying SBCE principles allowed the assessment of technology routes, supporting the identification of most promising alternatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Iberoamericana de Ingeniería Mecánica is the property of Editorial UNED and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The point-based approach consists of committing a set of requirements and a single design solution from the design space. This approach is time-consuming and often leads to deadline excess when developing a new complex system such as mechatronic systems. In fact, this approach could generate iterative loops between engineers in the downstream design stage to evaluate the manufacturability and the quality of the developed system. To overcome this issue, introducing a model-based system engineering (MBSE) approach in the upstream design stage hinged on set-based concurrent engineering (SBCE) principles is a good solution to diminish the exchange loops between engineers and to enhance efficiency in the design process. This approach consists in evaluating a large set of system solutions, then gradually narrowing these solutions until converging to a limited set of optimized solutions. In this article, a novel approach entitled "Model based for reliability and manufacturability analysis (MBRMA)" and based on model-based system engineering and set-based concurrent engineering in the preliminary design phases is used to filter out weak or costly solutions over time and to assess system engineer when adopting trade-off analysis. First, customer requirements, functional and structural aspect of the system are defined using SysML diagrams. Next, the application of the algorithm allows narrowing the design space, and finally, a trade-off analysis is carried out to select the best system architecture. The first contribution of this article is the creation of novel stereotypes of composition and allocation flows in a profile diagram between functions and alternative solutions. The second contribution is the implementation of an algorithm to analyze system robustness and to converge on the final set of optimized solutions. To test this newly developed model "model based for reliability and manufacturability analysis (MBRMA)," a case study of an air conditioning electrical compressor is considered to illustrate the various stages of this concurrent engineering approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a trend toward increased customization of goods to satisfy a wide range of customers using product platforms. However, there is an erroneous notion that product platforms can only be used to provide economic viability in production thanks to the reuse of physical components among a family of products. Yet, this is a limited perception of the potential of a product platform. In this article, an object-oriented approach to support the development of product platforms is proposed to increase efficiency through reuse and flexibility of designs among a family of products. Two modes of the platform development process are addressed: platform preparation and platform execution. Platform preparation prescribes the methods needed to model platform objects, using enhanced function-means models and set-based concurrent engineering processes. During the platform execution process, sets of design alternatives can be configured concurrently throughout the conceptual, system, and detailed phases of the platform development. Three cases illustrate how the same approach may be used in different design scenarios: design space exploration and extension, supply-chain collaboration, and configure-to-order. The approach supports system architects and design engineers in making design decisions that propel the platform development work by enabling analysis in stages where designs are immature and evaluating the goodness of the alternatives early. Ultimately, product platforms can be efficiently developed for modularity and scalability to find feasible product variants and meet the needs of a multitude of customers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The trend of smart products is now changing the world and transforming the life of customers. People tend to be more tied to smart, connected products seeking to ease and improve quality of life and find new ways to make things such as daily tasks differently. In this context, the world of clothing has noticed a big advance targeting various applications: sport, gaming, and health monitoring and rehabilitation. Wearable smart products are intelligent hybrid products made of garments, sensor networks, and applications, interacting with users and the environment capable of real-time data processing and storage, with capabilities to extend functionalities by communicating with other things. The multi-functionality property of smart products needs the integration of various electronic parts. High variety of parts with different interfaces makes the development of smart products complex than generic products and requires the involvement and close collaboration of multidisciplinary team (garment designers, sensor networks designers, and application developers). A high number of alternative designs can be considered at the beginning of the design process due to this variety and high availability of parts. The smart product development team needs then to explore multiple candidate solutions before finding the best smart product design that complies with the requirements. This work proposes the set-based concurrent engineering to deal efficiently with the alternatives. Therefore, this article provides a novel approach to shift from set-based concurrent engineering theoretical principles toward a pragmatic (practical) application to wearable smart products taking advantage of product lifecycle management system capabilities for the implementation. The use of product lifecycle management system to support the set-based concurrent engineering process will contribute for a better understanding of the approach avoiding confusions, simplify the architecture of the solution in view of integration with other systems, and enable the stakeholders to focus on the level of innovation of the smart product. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge has become the most important asset of companies, especially in improving their product development processes. The set-based design approach is an efficient way of designing high quality, optimised designs. However, it requires a proven knowledge environment. Trade-off curves (ToCs) have the capability of providing the right knowledge and displaying it in a visual form. Although there are a few applications of ToCs that have recently been published in the literature, none of them demonstrates an integrated implementation of ToCs throughout the SBCE process. This paper presents the integrated use of ToCs, based on both physics-knowledge and proven knowledge, in order to compare and narrow down the design-set and to achieve an optimal design solution. These are key activities of the SBCE process model. Since an accurate, documented and visual knowledge environment is created by the use of ToCs within SBCE, the integrated approach proposed in this paper plays a vital role in eliminating the need for prototyping and testing at the early stages of product development. The integrated approach was implemented in an industrial case study for a surface jet pump. Surface jet pumps are used to increase the production rate of low-pressure oil/gas wells. It has been found that through ToCs, the conflicting relationships between the characteristics of the product can be understood and communicated effectively among the designers. This facilitated the decision-making on an optimal design solution in a remarkably short period of time. Furthermore, the surface jet pump resulting from the case study achieved an increase of the oil/gas production by nearly 60%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Set-Based Concurrent Engineering (SBCE) is the methodology that can improve the efficiencies and effectiveness of product development. It is found that the SBCE approach provided a suitable knowledge environment to support decision making throughout the development process. This paper presents the potential tangible benefits gained from the application of the SBCE in an industrial case study of a Surface Jet Pump (SJP) that is used to revive the production of oil/gas from the dead wells. The well-structured SBCE process model and the process of identifying the potential benefits proposed in this paper will clarify the gap in the development of the SBCE in the company. The potential tangible benefits are established in a few key areas such as product innovation, product performance, manufacturing cost, and project success rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The need of applying lean thinking to product development is becoming a must for the organisations to succeed in the current industry. This paper presents the development and application of a tool that helps to identify the actual status of the organisation in relation to the lean principles. Overview of the literature highlighted the need of developing a tool focused on assessing the implementation of lean principles themselves, rather than quantitative metrics. Based on the idea of the balanced scorecard, four perspectives, with their corresponding set of questions, were defined reflecting the enablers of the lean product development model proposed by the Lean Product and Process Development European project. A five-level scale was customised to reflect different readiness levels of lean implementation. The tool was used in case studies in two organisations; first in aerospace and second in automotive. Examples of measurement from two different organisations demonstrated the accuracy of the tool in assessing and defining the starting conditions for adapting lean principles and practices. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The establishment of a platform architecture is a critical task but there is no methodological support for this in the first phases of development. There are several approaches for evaluating designs and architectures when an initial design is present, however, not for the phases foregoing the embodiment of ideas into concepts. This paper fills this void by introducing a new design methodology for modelling, assessing and narrowing down the architectural design space. It allows exploration of more alternatives in the earliest phases of development, which ultimately may produce better designs. The result is a design space of a manageable and desirable size for subsequent embodiment and detailed design with traditional engineering tools. The advantage is that feasibility of the candidate platforms have been established to a high degree of certainty. The approach is illustrated with a case of redesign showing how a manufacturer of parts for a jet engine can use the methodology to model and assess platform concepts in the earliest phase of development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes a Serious Game about ‘Set-Based Concurrent Engineering’, which is one of the elements of lean practices in product design and development. Although Set-Based Concurrent Engineering is becoming popular in academia, in practice, understanding and adoption of it are low. Thus, the game presented in this article is designed to bring hands-on experience to practitioners to understand its principles and associated enablers. The game is structured in two stages, simulating the traditional approach to concept development, called ‘Point-Based Concurrent Engineering’, and the lean approach, called Set-Based Concurrent Engineering, respectively. Performance metrics are provided in the game to track teams’ performances in the two stages. Several practitioners have played the game. This article also presents the feedback obtained from a game session to illustrate the educational purposes and effectiveness of the game. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A platform is commonly used as a basis for generating a number of derivative products, after which it is replaced by a new platform. For some companies, a more viable approach is to adopt a continuous platform that is sustained and expanded over time. This applies to companies that have to provide highly customized products while not in control of interfaces, suppliers in the aerospace industry, for example. For them, the traditional part-based generation of platforms is not sufficient, and more flexibility must be built into the platform. This article proposes an approach for continuous platform development, based on an integrated artifact model and connected development processes. The processes apply set-based concurrent engineering to develop derivative products and to extend the bandwidth of the platform. The artifact model serves as a basis for development and connects products and manufacturing systems to enable informed design decisions that span across the lifecycle. The proposed approach incorporates two modes of platform use. Mode I is applied for configuring products to order within the bandwidth of the platform. This includes automatic concept evaluation using a pallet of computer-aided engineering tools and supporting tools. Mode II is applied when the bandwidth does not suffice to cover the required functionality and therefore needs to be expanded. This article exemplifies the approach through a case from a supplier in the aerospace industry. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This research, which is an expanded version of a paper presented at the XVII SIMPOI - Symposium of Production Management, Logistics and International Operations, purported to discuss the concepts of mass customization in the automotive industry and how the use of lean principles in product development enables a profitable Design and Production customization. The results of a case study performed at an automaker plant in southern Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil, proved the efficiency of the company practice to develop simultaneously multiple concepts for each mechanism or Project detail, with substantial increase in design reliability, reducing redesign, cost, and development time, although cultural barriers were found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a transformation process towards lean product development in an aerospace industry. This transformation was achieved in two main stages: the first was to integrate the principles of set-based concurrent engineering into an existing product development model of an aerospace company. This stage included defining activities and associated tools. The second stage was to implement the developed model in a research-based industrial case study, a helicopter engine in this case. Three main outcomes were realised from this work. First, it presented an industrial case of lean transformation in product development, where the leanness of an existing model was enhanced by embedding set-based concurrent engineering principles. Second, the developed model was structured into a set of well-defined activities and associated tools that were previously scattered or redundant. Finally, the developed model was trialled in an industrial project of a helicopter engine, tested to evaluate its value in enhancing the innovation level and reducing risk. The work presented in this article focused on early stage system level design, and future work will extend the implementation of set-based concurrent engineering to sub-system and component levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a cost modelling system for lean product and process development to support proactive decision making and mistake elimination at the design stage. The foundations of the system are based upon three lean product and process development enablers, namely: Set-based concurrent engineering, knowledge-based engineering, and mistake proofing (Poka-yoke). The development commenced with an industrial field study of eleven leading European industries from the aerospace, automotive, telecommunication, medical and domestic appliance sectors. Based on the requirements of industrial collaborators, the developed system comprises six modules: value identification, manufacturing process/machines selection, material selection, geometric features specification, geometric features and manufacturability assessment, and manufacturing time and cost estimation. The work involved the development of a feature-based cost estimation method for the resistance spot welding process. The developed system was finally validated using an industrial case study. The developed system has the capability to provide estimates related to product cost and associated values concurrently, facilitate decision making, eliminate mistakes during the design stage, and incorporate 'customer voice' during a critical decision making stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The approaches to support innovation in industry, including ICT tools, have experienced tremendous changes in last decades and are likely to be a subject of further evolution. Many research trends could be observed that are likely to provide new innovation approaches and effective means to support such new innovation processes. This paper provides an overview of some of the key trends in product/process innovation in industry. The emphasis is on new approaches for innovation that are already emerging and will find their wide application in industry. Special emphasis is made upon ICT as a key facilitator of the innovation process in future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Set-Based Concurrent Engineering is sometimes seen as a means to dramatic improvements in product design processes. In spite of its popularity in literature, the number of reported applications has so far been limited. This paper adds new information by describing implementations of Set-Based Concurrent Engineering in four product developing companies. The research took a case study approach, with the objective to investigate if the principles of Set-Based Concurrent Engineering can improve the efficiency and the effectiveness of the development process. The study shows that set-based projects can be driven within an existing organization, if given proper support. The participants claim that a set-based approach has a positive effects on development performance, especially on the level of innovation, product cost and performance. The improvements were achieved at the expense of slightly higher development costs and longer lead time. However, the positive effects are dominating and the companies involved intend to use Set-Based Concurrent Engineering in future projects when appropriate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

So far, there has been an extraordinary development of computer-aided tools intended to generate, present or communicate 3D models. But there has not been a comparable progress in the development of 3D-CAD systems intended to assist designers in representing and manipulating both geometric and non-geometric design information based on solid models, thus facilitating concurrent engineering (CE). Design objects continue to be produced by traditional means using the computer as little more than a drafting tool. In addition, the state-of-the-art 3D-CAD systems are incapable of encoding engineering uncertainties since only precise single-valued assignments are allowed for their modeling operations. Recently, set-based CE (SBCE) has been attracting public attention as an emerging CE paradigm. Such a set-based design (SBD) approach presents many possibilities in handling the uncertainties that are intrinsic at the early phases of design. This paper addresses a novel concept – set-based parametric design (SBPD) – which combines the SBD practice with the parametric modeling technique widely used in most 3D-CAD systems. A preference set-based design (PSD) model and a design information solid (DIS) model are proposed to incorporate the SBPD concept into the current 3D-CAD systems. Finally, a prototype system is implemented to illustrate the potential to achieve a SBPD practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work is motivated from set-based concurrent engineering (SBCE) paradigm. In contrast to the traditional design practice, SBCE considers a broader range of design possibilities (i.e., design space) from the outset, explicitly communicates and reasons about sets of design alternatives, and gradually narrows the sets to eliminate inferior alternatives until a final solution remains. Thus, the key to success of SBCE is the proper implementation of the space representation method to define the possible design region, the space mapping method to obtain the performance space achievable by the initial design space, and the space narrowing method to eliminate infeasible subspaces from the initial design space. This paper proposes a novel space-based design methodology for preliminary engineering design. The main characteristic features of our approach are to incorporate the designer’s preference structure with degrees of desirability in specifying both design space and performance space, and to find a ranged set of design solutions that satisfy changing sets of performance requirements through set-to-set space mapping from design space to performance space and space narrowing to eliminate infeasible design subspaces. Central to the proposed design methodology is the integration of meta-modeling techniques, modified fuzzy arithmetic, design of experiment (DoE), robust design techniques, and uncertainty analysis. A preliminary parametric design example of a vehicle side impact beam is demonstrated to show the effectiveness of the proposed methodology and its availability in the large-scale multi-objective design synthesis problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The early phase of design intrinsically contains multiple sources of uncertainties in describing the design, and nevertheless the decision-making process at this phase exerts a critical effect upon drawing a successful design. Recently, set-based concurrent engineering (SBCE) has been attracting public attention as an emerging CE paradigm. Representing and communicating set-valued information are useful in handling engineering uncertainties and efficient for the collaboration between designers in the CE environment. Even if we can readily know that SBCE is efficient and powerful enough for large-scale design and management, the existing literature does not give the details of methods to achieve SBCE principles. We have developed a computer-based framework, called 'preference set-based design' (PSD), for implementing SBCE principles, which consists of set representation, propagation, modification, narrowing, and aggregation methods. This article focuses on the set representation and aggregation methods that play an important role in the CE environment. This article proposes new engineering quantities that can capture the designer's preference structure on both the continuous and the discrete sets. A new aggregation method is presented to aggregate the proposed engineering quantities. A comparative analysis with the existing representation and aggregation techniques is also provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Uncertainty in product development projects creates significant challenges for managers who are under intense competitive pressures to increase product quality, while reducing development time and costs. Traditional wisdom dictates the early selection of a single design in order to freeze interfaces between product subsystems so that team members can work effectively in parallel, resulting in more productive product development efforts. Prior research, however, uncovered a paradoxical case. Toyota Motor Corporation achieves the fastest development times in its industry by intentionally delaying alternative selection, a strategy termed set-based development. The current work adapts real options concepts to product development management to partially explain this paradox. A formal simulation model is used to show that converging too quickly or too slowly degrades project value. Furthermore, the model demonstrates that the wisdom of set-based strategies can be explained by the application of a real options approach to product development management. Implications for managers and directions for future work are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]