Saeema Ahmed

A Methodology for Creating Ontologies for Engineering Design

This paper describes a methodology for developing ontologies for engineering design. The methodology combines a number of methods from social science and computer science, together with taxonomies developed in the field of engineering design. A case study is used throughout the paper focusing upon the use of an ontology for searching, indexing and retrieving of engineering knowledge. An ontology for indexing design knowledge can assist the users to formulate their queries when searching for engineering design knowledge. The root concepts of the ontology were elicited from engineering designers during an empirical research study. These formed individual taxonomies within the ontology and were validated through indexing a set of ninety-two documents. Relationships between concepts are extracted as the ontology is populated with instances. The identified root concepts were found to be complete and sufficient for the purpose of indexing. A thesaurus and an automatic classification are being developed as a result of this evaluation. The methodology employed during the test case is presented in this paper. There are six separate stages, which are presented together with the research methods employed for each stage and the evaluation of each stage. The main contribution of this research is the development of a methodology to allow researchers and industry to create ontologies for their particular purpose and to develop a thesaurus for the terms within the ontology. The methodology is based upon empirical research and hence, focuses upon understanding a user’s domain models as opposed to extracting an ontology from documentation.Copyright

DRed and Design Folders: A Way of Capturing, Storing and Passing On Knowledge Generated During Design Projects

This paper describes a software tool called DRed (the D esign R ationale ed itor), that allows engineering designers to record their design rationale (DR) at the time of its generation and deliberation. DRed is one of many proposed derivatives of the venerable IBIS concept, but by contrast with other tools of this type, practicing designers appear surprisingly willing to use it. DRed allows the issues addressed, options considered, and associated arguments for and against, to be captured graphically. The software, despite still being essentially a research prototype, is already in use on high profile design projects in an international aerospace company, including the presentation of results of design work to external customers. The paper compares DRed with other IBIS-derived software tools, to explain how it addresses problems that seem to have made them unsuitable for routine use by designers. In addition to the capture and presentation of the DR itself, the set of linked DR graphs can be used to provide a map of the contents of an electronic Design Folder, containing all the documents created by an individual or team during a design project. The structure of the knowledge model instantiated in such a Design Folder is described. By reprising a design case study published at the DTM 2003 conference, concerning the design of a Mobile Arm Support (MAS), the DRed knowledge model is compared with the previously proposed Design Data Model (DDM), to show how it addresses the shortcomings identified in the DDM. Finally the methodology and results of the preliminary evaluation of the use of DRed by aerospace designers are presented.Copyright

Identifying and supporting the knowledge needs of novice designers within the aerospace industry

A long-term research project is being undertaken to understand how to support engineering designers through the provision of appropriate knowledge during the design process. Empirical research already carried out within the aerospace industry found that novice designers were aware of their knowledge needs in only 35% of their queries. In addition, observations of experienced and novice designers identified design strategies employed by experienced designers. The aim of this research was to develop and evaluate a method of support for designers based upon these findings. This paper describes the development of the method and its preliminary evaluation within the aerospace industry. The evaluation indicated that the method was able to reduce the number of inappropriate questions asked by novice designers.

Evaluating a functional basis

One of the motivations to develop a standard language to describe the functions of a product or artifact is to facilitate the indexing, search and retrieval of design knowledge. Taxonomies describing a standard language of functions have been developed by a number of researchers. This paper describes an empirical study carried out to evaluate two such taxonomies for their suitability to indexing design knowledge. The results of eighteen interviews conducted into two separate aerospace companies in the UK are presented. Engineering designers were asked to describe the function of assemblies or components that they were familiar with. In total, 207 descriptions of functions were collected. These descriptions have been analysed and compared to the two taxonomies evaluated. This paper describes the findings from these studies and draws conclusions on the suitability of these taxonomies for indexing design knowledge.Copyright

Investigating Perceptions of Manufacturers and Retailers to Inclusive Design

This paper describes a study into industry perceptions of barriers and drivers for inclusive design. The study investigated perceptions of manufacturers and retailers of consumer products in the United Kingdom (UK) and compared their perceptions with those of companies in the United States (US) and Japan. It was found that the perceptions of major drivers for inclusive design were similar for manufacturers and retailers in the UK, but the perceptions of barriers to inclusive design differed between manufacturers and retailers. Industry attitudes towards legislation or government regulations in the UK differed from those in the US and Japan. The study concluded that ‘perception barriers form the majority of the barriers and were the most significant, followed by ‘technical barriers’ and then ‘organizational barriers. Consequently, strategies should focus on raising awareness to overcome perception barriers and providing supportive tools to overcome technical barriers.

How Engineering Designers Obtain Information

The industrial world is changing rapidly and engineering organisations need to adapt fast to remain in business. Some of the pressures faced by engineering managers include: (1) the trend towards globalisation and the reliance on IT; (2) the increasing commercial pressures which demand continual improvements in quality, shorter lead times and reduced costs; (3) the increasing complexity of both products and processes; (4) the problems of retaining and retrieving knowledge and experience; and (5) the need to move towards sustainable development.