James Moultrie

Flexible Electronics: The Next Ubiquitous Platform

Thin-film electronics in its myriad forms has underpinned much of the technological innovation in the fields of displays, sensors, and energy conversion over the past four decades. This technology also forms the basis of flexible electronics. Here we review the current status of flexible electronics and attempt to predict the future promise of these pervading technologies in healthcare, environmental monitoring, displays and human-machine interactivity, energy conversion, management and storage, and communication and wireless networks.

The use of maturity models/grids as a tool in assessing product development capability

The concepts of process or capability maturity are increasingly being applied to many aspects of product development, both as a means of assessment and as part of a framework for improvement. This paper traces the origins of the maturity grid and reviews methods of construction and application.

Assessing Organizational Capabilities: Reviewing and Guiding the Development of Maturity Grids

Managing and improving organizational capabilities is a significant and complex issue for many companies. To support management and enable improvement, performance assessments are commonly used. One way of assessing organizational capabilities is by means of maturity grids. While maturity grids may share a common structure, their content differs and very often they are developed anew. This paper presents both a reference point and guidance for developing maturity grids. This is achieved by reviewing 24 existing maturity grids and by suggesting a roadmap for their development. The review places particular emphasis on embedded assumptions about organizational change in the formulation of the maturity ratings. The suggested roadmap encompasses four phases: planning, development, evaluation, and maintenance. Each phase discusses a number of decision points for development, such as the selection of process areas, maturity levels, and the delivery mechanism. An example demonstrating the roadmaps utility in industrial practice is provided. The roadmap can also be used to evaluate existing approaches. In concluding the paper, implications for management practice and research are presented.

Exploratory Study of Organizational Creativity in Creative Organizations

The creative industries represent an important and growing sector of the UK economy. This paper explores organizational creativity in firms within the creative industries. A questionnaire based on both Amabiles ‘Organizational Creativity’ model and Ekvalls ‘Creative Climate’ model was completed in ten firms in different sectors of the creative industries. Follow-up interviews with five firms were also conducted, to compare the outputs from each model as well as the variation in responses from firms in different sectors. The results indicate that both models of organizational creativity are complementary, although not necessarily fully applicable in the creative industries. Specific differences between firms in the graphic design/branding sector and firms in product design were also observed.

A tool to evaluate design performance in SMEs

Purpose – The creation of well‐designed products is widely acknowledged as an important contributor to company success. In principle, an effective design process, as part of the wider new product development (NPD) process, should result in well‐designed products. This paper aims to present a tool to enable a design team to evaluate their design process in a workshop setting, with a view to targeting improvements.Design/methodology/approach – This tool is based on literature and has been iteratively developed using a mixed research approach, including detailed exploratory cases and application in action research mode.Findings – The resulting tool comprises two main components. A “process audit” based on process maturity principles, which targets the design‐related activities in NPD. The process audit enables a company team to identify improvement opportunities in the design process. A product audit enables perceptions towards product characteristics to be assessed. The audit tool does not seek to be a benc...

Aligning Strategy and Design Perspectives: A Framework of Design’s Strategic Contributions

ABSTRACT Many aspects of strategic importance can be influenced through effective use of design. An integrated, holistic application of skilled design resources can make important contributions to competitive advantage. Identifying such contributions elicits a framework useful for clarifying the concept of ‘strategic design’ in general terms, and for describing designs use in specific organizations. This paper presents such a framework and descriptions of two contrasting firms, based on interviews with designers and others in design-related roles in each. These demonstrate differing approaches to the use of design as a strategic resource, and how such a framework helps identify and describe them.

Development of a product audit tool

Abstract The creation of new products that satisfy both the needs of customers and of the company is widely acknowledged as an important contributor to a firms ongoing success. In principle, the design process, as part of the wider new product development (NPD) process, should result in products that are ‘well designed’, but what does a well-designed product look like? This paper presents a tool to enable a design team to evaluate their products against a range of criteria, with a view to targeting design improvements. This ‘product audit’ tool is based on literature and has been iteratively developed using a mixed research approach, including detailed exploratory cases and application in action research mode. Previous assessment tools have tackled a narrow set of product issues, such as usability. This tool addresses the ‘whole product’ and captures aspects of product design in a concise and usable form. The product audit does not seek to be a benchmarking tool. Aspects such as novelty, desirability, usability, and producibility are expanded as simple checklists, to enable perceptions towards product characteristics to be assessed. This novel assessment tool encourages greater consideration of design issues within the wider context of NPD. By focusing attention on the tangible output of the design process ’ the product ’ practitioners are better able to understand the way in which design decisions influence product usability, desirability, and producibility. Case evidence confirms both the value and originality of this tool.

A simplified approach to design for assembly

The basic principles of design for assembly (DfA) are well established. This paper presents a short review of the development of DfA approaches before presenting a new tool in which these principles are packaged for use in teams, both in an industrial and an educational context. The fundamental consideration in the design of this tool is to encourage wide team participation from across an organisation and is thus physical rather than software-based. This tool builds on the process developed by Appleton whilst at the University of Cambridge. In addition to the traditional analysis of component fitting, feeding and fixing, this process also encourages the team to explore how this relates to the overall assembly flow and specifically the achievement of throughput targets. The novel approach is an improvement to established methods and encompasses an original assessment tool and its delivery process that includes custom designed post-it notes and simple check lists for scoring. The process is demonstrated in a single case study in an Indian firm.

Towards a framework for holistic contextual design for low-resource settings

Healthcare inequality is ubiquitous globally, but the effects are most striking in low-resource settings. In these settings, current methods for the design of medical devices are failing to address specific needs. The associated publications rarely describe how the context was studied at the front-end of design. There is a latent need for a holistic contextual framework for guiding the design decision-making process for devices in these complex contexts. We present results from a systematic literature review and expert interviews that informed the development of a framework for contextualized design for low-resource settings. The contextual factors identified are described and compared for different types of medical devices. This taxonomical framework aims to guide designers towards gaining a better understanding of the context of use when designing products for global challenges in low-resource settings.

Investigation of design for additive manufacturing in professional design practice

ABSTRACT Additive Manufacturing (AM) technologies are widely adopted in design practice for prototyping. However, the extent to which practitioners are knowledgeable and experienced in designing components for series production using AM remains poorly understood. This study presents the results of an online survey aimed at uncovering this emerging design activity, with additional evidence provided by semi-structured interviews with 18 designers. One hundred ten practising designers responded. The majority of the respondents remain sceptical about the potential for AM as a process for series production, citing cost and technical capabilities as key barriers. Only 23 reported experience in designing components for series production using AM, with the majority of these designing parts to be produced from plastic. The survey revealed that these designers have developed their own ‘design rules’ based primarily on personal experience. These rules, however, tended to focus on ensuring ‘printability’ and did not provide support for taking advantage of the unique capabilities of AM processes. The designers tended to treat AM processes as a uniform set of production processes, and so the design rules they used were generic and not directed to the capabilities of specific AM processes.