Roman Žavbi

Skills for effective communication and work in global product development teams

This paper presents a systematic discussion of the specifics of communication and work within a virtual development team, which is of crucial importance for competitiveness in the course of globalization. With advances in technology, work within virtual teams is gaining ever-greater importance. However, in this process, special knowledge and skills of virtual team members are a greater obstacle than technical equipment. Work within a virtual product development team requires intense communication, which is possible via videoconferencing. The contribution of this paper consists of a set of recommendations on how to develop necessary skills for effective communication and work in virtual development teams. The recommendations can be applied in both university and industrial environments. The paper is based on experiences from the international course on European Global Product Realisation that provided students with initial experiences in working within a global team. The authors believe that skills and technical equipment will need to be constantly supplemented and upgraded so that they will become practically independent of personal meetings (i.e. the distance between team members).

Conceptual design of technical systems using functions and physical laws

Since the operation of technical systems can be explained using physical laws, why then might we not use them explicitly in designing these systems? The characteristic initial binding variable, with which appropriate physical laws are sought, first needs to be extracted from the function of the future technical system. If there are several appropriate physical laws (i.e., operators), we evaluate them using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method. The most suitable is then selected with regard to the chosen criteria based on design requirements. When one physical law is not sufficient for the design of a technical system, several laws are linked together using binding variables to form a conceptual chain (i.e., macro-operator). Such a chain does not only contain supporting physical laws; physical laws indirectly introduce basic models of shape, their basic topology, geometry, and basic material properties into the chain. A prototype computer-aided design system is based on the prescriptive conceptual design model presented below.

Preparing undergraduate students for work in virtual product development teams

The development of innovative and competitive products and mastery of IT&T technologies are crucial for a companys long-term success in the global market. The main flag bearers for development are product developers, but it is questionable whether the existing systems are appropriate for the education of such professionals. For example, one study found large deficiencies concerning their skills in group interaction and ability to translate thoughts into action. Based on these and similar findings, a decision was made to organize an international course that would help students become competent members of product development teams. Integrated product development is a demanding and complex activity as it is, and its level of difficulty is additionally increased by the ever-changing business environment, primarily by functional associating of geographically disperse human resources. The paper describes the E-GPR (European Global Product Realization) course program, the used IT&T technologies, the way international teams were formed and the experiences and findings of the students, company representatives and lecturers who participated in this course. The authors believe that realism is the main strength of the course. Based on positive responses of all participants, the organizers decided to continue and further improve the E-GPR course.

Conceptual design chains with basic schematics based on an algorithm of conceptual design

On the basis of the premise that technical systems are designed by chaining physical laws, the LECAD laboratory has developed a conceptual design algorithm and also based on it a computer program with 139 physical laws (we began with only 30). This paper presents the algorithm and its later supplements, the principle of performing the chaining, an example of the conceptual design of a simple technical system and an analysis of the results obtained using the computer program. The purpose of this analysis was primarily to show the effects of the supplemented algorithm on the generation of conceptual design chains, and the fact that a combinatorial explosion does not occur.

The Analytic Hierarchy Process and Functional Appropriateness of Components of Technical Systems

SUMMARY The model of designing enables a partial recording of a conceptual design phase, but decisions and substantiation of the selection of individual components (of different complexity) are also required for a more complete recording. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method, which corresponds to the selection of components in the phase of conceptual design, when there are no quantitative measures of functional appropriateness of components and the detailed shapes and dimensions have no priority connotation, was used to supplement the model of designing. The advantage of this method is above all in the establishment of the relative importance of criteria (i. e. design constraints) following their mutual comparison, and in a mutual comparison of alternatives (i.e. components) according to an individual criterion. The method itself can also serve to record expert knowledge about the influential criteria and functional appropriateness of alternatives according to individual criteria, while the users n...

Expert Systems in Mechanical Engineering Design

The paper presents an engineering design model for innovative design (i.e. variation of working principles), which represents a deep knowledge of an expert system for configuring technical systems (i.e. from simple to complex assemblies). A knowledge base contains functional descriptions of building blocks (i.e. components of different level of complexity). An expert system can also synthesize functional structures which are used then as shallow knowledge to configure technical systems with equivalent models of shape. Also a flexible functional structure is used to manage models of shape properly.

Development of an automatic marketplace using virtual collaboration

Original scientific paper New product development is vital for the development of business enterprises and the society where the enterprise operates. The paper presents a case example of an automated marketplace development, which took place in the P-ino d.o.o. company. Developing such a complex product required the participation of experts from different areas, and it included also students, who definitely contributed to greater creativity and openness of the development team. More than 85 % of all the communication within the development team took place in virtual form. Testing of the finished prototype was also more or less virtual. Virtual communication in the development of such a complex product as an automated marketplace proved to be a very suitable method of interpersonal communication within the development team in all development phases of the product. It was particularly efficient because the members of the development team had different skills and were coming from different institutions and companies.