Nicolas Maranzana

Avatar-mediated creativity

An important challenge today is to support creativity while enabling geographically distant people to work together. In line with the componential theory of creativity, self-perception theory and recent research on the Proteus Effect, we investigate how avatars, which are virtual representations of the self, may be a medium for stimulating creativity. For this purpose, we conducted two studies with a population of engineering students. In the first study, 114 participants responded to online surveys in order to identify what a creative avatar may look like. This enabled us to select avatars representing inventors, which were perceived as creative by engineering students, and neutral avatars. In the second study, 54 participants brainstormed in groups of 3, in 3 different conditions: in a control face-to-face situation, in a virtual environment while embodying neutral avatars and in a virtual environment with inventor avatars. The results show that inventor avatars led to higher performance in fluency and originality of ideas. Moreover, this benefit proved to endure over time since participants allocated to inventor avatars also performed better in a subsequent face-to-face brainstorming. The prospects of using avatars for enhancing creativity-relevant processes are discussed in terms of theoretical and applicative implications. Investigated the impact of virtual environment on collaborative creativity.Designed avatars corresponding to engineers representation of a creative person.Tested the influence of creative avatars on creativity processes with engineers.Creative avatars increased performance (quantity and originality of ideas).

Collaborative Design Tools: A Comparison between Free Software and PLM Solutions in Engineering Education

The shift from sequential to concurrent engineering has led to changes in the way design projects are managed. In order to assist designers, many effective tools have been developed to support collaborative engineering, whose implementation is perceived as complex. Nowadays, industrial scenarios encourage companies to adopt PLM solutions, even if, sometimes, they can’t understand the benefits. On the other hand, many free solutions with comparable functionalities are developed, which have been increasingly successful.

Biomimetics: process, tools and practice

Biomimetics applies principles and strategies abstracted from biological systems to engineering and technological design. With a huge potential for innovation, biomimetics could evolve into a key process in businesses. Yet challenges remain within the process of biomimetics, especially from the perspective of potential users. We work to clarify the understanding of the process of biomimetics. Therefore, we briefly summarize the terminology of biomimetics and bioinspiration. The implementation of biomimetics requires a stated process. Therefore, we present a model of the problem-driven process of biomimetics that can be used for problem-solving activity. The process of biomimetics can be facilitated by existing tools and creative methods. We mapped a set of tools to the biomimetic process model and set up assessment sheets to evaluate the theoretical and practical value of these tools. We analyzed the tools in interdisciplinary research workshops and present the characteristics of the tools. We also present the attempt of a utility tree which, once finalized, could be used to guide users through the process by choosing appropriate tools respective to their own expertize. The aim of this paper is to foster the dialogue and facilitate a closer collaboration within the field of biomimetics.

Early stages of apparel design: how to define collaborative needs for PLM and fashion?

Companies are faced with increasing challenges in their own environment. In several areas of the industry, but also among the suppliers, more and more competitors emerge. Companies react to this pressure by trying to implement new technologies for their products and offering more innovative products to successfully face direct competition. Overall, globalisation put pressure on companies in terms of innovation, costs and time to market. This climate of economic competition forces businesses to adapt to the expectations of their customers. To achieve this change, it becomes necessary amongst other things to reduce design time. Thus, practices in apparel design have evolved in order to be able to manage projects in new work environments. After presenting a literature review of collaborative functionalities used in product design, our paper presents an illustration of a case study for Product Lifecycle Management research in the apparel industry, focusing on the definition of needs in terms of collaborative functions to support the design of apparel products, in an industrial context.

Scientometric Study of Product Lifecycle Management International Conferences: A Decade Overview

PLM International Conference proceedings focussing on the field of Product Lifecycle Management have made a lot of advancements in the last 12 years. Since 2003, 11 conferences on PLM have taken place but a systematic analysis of the evolution in PLM literature is, however, not available at the moment. This study proposes an analysis of the growth of the scientific literature on PLM over a 10 year period using standard bibliometric techniques. A total of 565 scientific papers have been examined to find out about the growth of literature, authorship pattern, geographical & organizational distribution of papers, citation count and most frequently occurring keywords. The findings of this study give an insight into the evolution of literature on PLM by means of quantitative & qualitative analysis and provide useful information to scientists wishing to undertake work in this field.

Social identity cues to improve creativity and identification in face-to-face and virtual groups

This research draws on the social identity approach to investigate group performance in face-to-face and virtual brainstorming settings. In particular, we display Social Identity Cues (SIC) on participants or on avatars to foster group membership. We compare four conditions in a factorial design: Brainstorming in Face-to-face or Virtual setting, With or Without SIC. Seventy-two students belonging to a population with a strong social identity participated in the experiment, using their traditional clothing as SIC. The results show that the presence of SIC led to increased creative performance both in face-to-face and virtual settings. SIC also increased group identification, but only in the virtual environment. These results highlight the potential of avatars to support teamwork in a meaningful way. Traditional clothing of a specific student group acts as social identity cues.Face-to-face and avatar-mediated electronic brainstorming are compared.Impact of social identity cues is examined in face-to-face and virtual groups.Social identity cues improved performance both in real and virtual settings.

Assessment of the Biomimetic Toolset—Design Spiral Methodology Analysis

The potential of bio-inspired design has been illustrated many times over human history. Nevertheless its process is complex, as biologists and engineers have to work together without necessarily sharing the same vision or language. Methods and tools have therefore been developed in order to support these kind of approaches. Following the outlined problem-driven biomimetic process, the article seeks to provide a global view of the existing biomimetic toolset. To do so, tools are classified according to their methodological purpose. For each identified type of tools an evaluation chart has been generated. By its experiment, the article addresses more specifically the assessment of tools originating from the Design Spirals methodology. The article provides thereby an identification of advantages, high accessibility and convenience, and limitations, need to be coupled with other tools, of the assessed tools. This identification leads to the proposal of an axis of research to develop new biomimetics tools.

Deployment of Knowledge Management in a PLM Environment: A Software Integrator Case Study

The past years have seen growing investments in the area of PLM by several industries. In today’s industrial production, PLM is an essential tool to cope with the challenges of more demanding global competition and ever-shortening product lifecycles. Complex products require collaboration of large specialist networks. Knowledge Management (KM) can be apprehended in two manners: the defensive manner builds the stock of knowledge to face the departures of personnel, or, the offensive manner sees in the knowledge development an advisability to generate new products. The link between PLM and KM is interesting as it can help answering “on field” problems. In this paper we first make a state of the art of knowledge and KM in a PLM context. Then we propose a methodology to deploy KM in the particular case of a software integrator. Finally, we propose an experimental protocol that will allow us to improve a tool demonstrator in an agile way.

Towards Cloud in a PLM Context: A Proposal of Cloud Based Design and Manufacturing Methodology

Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) integrates all the phases a product goes through from inception to its disposal but generally, the entire process of the product development and manufacturing is time-consuming even with the advent of Cloud-Based Design and Manufacturing (CBDM). With enormous growth in Information Technology (IT) and extensive growth in cloud infrastructure the option of design and manufacturing within a cloud service is a viable option for future. This paper proposes a cloud based collaborative atmosphere with real-time interaction between the product development and the realization phases making the experience of design and manufacturing more efficient. A much-optimized data flow among various stages of a Product Lifecycle has also been proposed reducing the complexity of the overall cycle. A case study using Additive Manufacturing (AM) has also been demonstrated which proves the feasibility of the proposed methodology. The findings of this paper will aid the adoption of CBDM in PLM industrial activities with reduced overall cost. It also aims at providing a paradigm shift to the present design and manufacturing methodology through a real-time collaborative space.

Encouraging innovation activity: in the specific context of small- and medium-sized retailers

This paper aims at formalizing an innovation process well suited for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) specialized in retail. The design research consisted in analyzing conceptual models of innovation process from the literature and adapting it to the specific context. Indeed, the research issue deals with encouraging innovation activity in the context of small- and medium-sized retailers that have not yet integrated an intern design department. In the actual financial context, it is essential for SMEs to innovate in order to gain competitive advantage; but how to start a sized innovation activity? The undertaken research results in a plan that sets up a sized innovation activity gradually with a methodology conducting to repeated and regular new product development. Supported with international literature research, the paper contributes to the proposal of an innovation process meeting the two following requirements: a retailer lacking knowledge in innovation activity and an SME with limited financial means.From the industrial case studies that have been undertaken, an adapted process has been developed to ensure the success of innovation activity integration in this specific context.