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Requirements Identification and Characterization in Innovation Processes
Niccolò Becattini
Type:
Year:
2013
Author:
Supervisor:
Gaetano Cascini
Institution:
Politecnico di Milano
Page(s):
200
Website:
Description:
The thesis presents research aimed at identifying new instruments capable to support the engineering design processes by pointing out objectives and requirements to be satisfied by a design proposal, which has to address the emergence of needs from both the industry and the market. This issue is of greater importance in all the circumstances where industries have to face the challenge of competition by innovating their products, processes or services. In this perspective, systematic design methods have emerged as the best alternative to steer the design process with effectiveness and efficiency, thus stopping to miss opportunities that, without the appropriate definition of objectives, will not be taken nor even recognized. Such methods reduce the risks due to wrong choices dramatically impacting on investments and revenues and compromising competitiveness.
Knowledge plays a paramount role in the definition of such objectives: means to externalize it from the individual sphere (tacit) to the external world, where it has to be discussed and used and also shared for future reuse (explicit), have a strategic relevance in supporting the design processes. Existing tools to support the definition of objectives and requirements during the engineering design process are effective in a wide range of cases. However, they are characterized by an apparent contradiction: the ones that support the definition of a wide number of requirements are mostly suited for specific fields of technology (e.g.: standards and checklists) and they show lacks in terms of their flexible use in different industrial contexts. On the other hand, methods capable to answer to the exigencies of different domains of the technique are mostly tailored to address the satisfaction of an overall objective at a time (e.g.: Design for X guidelines).
The research activity, therefore, has been carried out with the objective of overcoming such a dichotomous situation. The author has developed a new set of criteria, having a higher level of abstraction, for the definition of requirements and objectives (Figure 1). They can be contextualized according to diverse situations, thus addressing multiple objectives in a wide range of different applications.
The criteria are organized according to the main drivers suggested by the TRIZ (Russian acronym for Theory of Inventive Problem Solving) theory about the evolution of technical systems: improvement of performances, reduction of side effects and resources consumptions.
The effectiveness and the validity of these criteria have been tested on several test cases concerning both products and industrial processes through experiments tailored to verify specific objectives both in a qualitative and quantitative way. In more details, fourteen different manufacturing technologies have been examined within three different process applications with industrial partners in the field of household appliances and fluid-bed technologies. The investigation has been also carried out on the definition of requirements for products of different complexity, demonstrating that the criteria dramatically shift the capabilities of individuals in producing more accurate and complete design specifications. Moreover, a further investigation qualitatively explored the capability of the criteria to describe also the needs of customers, through an ex-post characterization of a set of newly appeared product/service requirements as mentioned in scientific and business literature.
The new proposal of criteria for supporting the definition and the characterization of requirements to populate the design specification achieves the objective to be flexibly used in different contexts concerning the development and the innovation of both products and processes.
The criteria achieve the objective of producing a design specification capable of exploring the range of potential alternatives at the maximum extent (completeness), without neglecting relevant aspects and noting useless ones (conciseness). They support considering the collected requirements just once, without introducing ambiguities that could be misleading for driving the design process (non-redundancy). Moreover, their use makes it possible to build a design specification according to which the different design proposal can be depicted with reference to their capability to generate satisfaction or dissatisfaction according to the objectives (validity). Moreover, the criteria satisfy the goal of producing the above results with good repeatability, thus releasing from the individual capabilities in externalizing the owned knowledge. Potential improvements concern the ease of use, in terms of releasing from the need of carrying out analysis with a facilitator.
At last, for achieving the purpose of easing the use of the criteria, an algorithm to be embedded into a dialogue-based computer interface for supporting the analysis of inventive problems has been developed. It aims at depicting the design space and pointing out non-mutually compatible requirements from which starting the conceptual stages of design. Such an algorithm has been developed in the diverse paths through which the analysis can be carried out, according to the concepts highlighted by the criteria. Tests for validation aim at pointing out the capability of the developed algorithm in supporting the identification of conflicting requirements, as well as in defining the design space so as to support the retrieval of information and knowledge from explicit sources, such as patents, books and whatever codified and retrievable through the world wide web.
The first step of development has defined the overall structure of the algorithm (7 logical blocks and about 150 questioning nodes), also in terms of variables to be investigated and elicited from experts’ knowledge, opportunities for their reuse as well as connections among nodes and concepts. The tests produced satisfactory results in terms of support to the problem analysis, even if presenting some lacks in terms of adequate exploration of the design space. The second release of the algorithm (8 logical blocks and more than 200 questioning nodes), addresses the limitations emerged within the first testing session. It includes a new block aimed at widening the boundaries of exploration and providing shortcuts for the investigation of trivial solutions that were not immediately evident at the beginning of the analysis. Satisfactory results have been obtained with both the versions of the algorithm, showing room for extending this kind of computer-aided support also to the synthesis of solution concepts.
Such research has an impact in both the structuring of more robust design methods and in extending the support of computer-aided systems to the first phases of the development cycles in innovation contexts.
Knowledge plays a paramount role in the definition of such objectives: means to externalize it from the individual sphere (tacit) to the external world, where it has to be discussed and used and also shared for future reuse (explicit), have a strategic relevance in supporting the design processes. Existing tools to support the definition of objectives and requirements during the engineering design process are effective in a wide range of cases. However, they are characterized by an apparent contradiction: the ones that support the definition of a wide number of requirements are mostly suited for specific fields of technology (e.g.: standards and checklists) and they show lacks in terms of their flexible use in different industrial contexts. On the other hand, methods capable to answer to the exigencies of different domains of the technique are mostly tailored to address the satisfaction of an overall objective at a time (e.g.: Design for X guidelines).
The research activity, therefore, has been carried out with the objective of overcoming such a dichotomous situation. The author has developed a new set of criteria, having a higher level of abstraction, for the definition of requirements and objectives (Figure 1). They can be contextualized according to diverse situations, thus addressing multiple objectives in a wide range of different applications.
The criteria are organized according to the main drivers suggested by the TRIZ (Russian acronym for Theory of Inventive Problem Solving) theory about the evolution of technical systems: improvement of performances, reduction of side effects and resources consumptions.
The effectiveness and the validity of these criteria have been tested on several test cases concerning both products and industrial processes through experiments tailored to verify specific objectives both in a qualitative and quantitative way. In more details, fourteen different manufacturing technologies have been examined within three different process applications with industrial partners in the field of household appliances and fluid-bed technologies. The investigation has been also carried out on the definition of requirements for products of different complexity, demonstrating that the criteria dramatically shift the capabilities of individuals in producing more accurate and complete design specifications. Moreover, a further investigation qualitatively explored the capability of the criteria to describe also the needs of customers, through an ex-post characterization of a set of newly appeared product/service requirements as mentioned in scientific and business literature.
The new proposal of criteria for supporting the definition and the characterization of requirements to populate the design specification achieves the objective to be flexibly used in different contexts concerning the development and the innovation of both products and processes.
The criteria achieve the objective of producing a design specification capable of exploring the range of potential alternatives at the maximum extent (completeness), without neglecting relevant aspects and noting useless ones (conciseness). They support considering the collected requirements just once, without introducing ambiguities that could be misleading for driving the design process (non-redundancy). Moreover, their use makes it possible to build a design specification according to which the different design proposal can be depicted with reference to their capability to generate satisfaction or dissatisfaction according to the objectives (validity). Moreover, the criteria satisfy the goal of producing the above results with good repeatability, thus releasing from the individual capabilities in externalizing the owned knowledge. Potential improvements concern the ease of use, in terms of releasing from the need of carrying out analysis with a facilitator.
At last, for achieving the purpose of easing the use of the criteria, an algorithm to be embedded into a dialogue-based computer interface for supporting the analysis of inventive problems has been developed. It aims at depicting the design space and pointing out non-mutually compatible requirements from which starting the conceptual stages of design. Such an algorithm has been developed in the diverse paths through which the analysis can be carried out, according to the concepts highlighted by the criteria. Tests for validation aim at pointing out the capability of the developed algorithm in supporting the identification of conflicting requirements, as well as in defining the design space so as to support the retrieval of information and knowledge from explicit sources, such as patents, books and whatever codified and retrievable through the world wide web.
The first step of development has defined the overall structure of the algorithm (7 logical blocks and about 150 questioning nodes), also in terms of variables to be investigated and elicited from experts’ knowledge, opportunities for their reuse as well as connections among nodes and concepts. The tests produced satisfactory results in terms of support to the problem analysis, even if presenting some lacks in terms of adequate exploration of the design space. The second release of the algorithm (8 logical blocks and more than 200 questioning nodes), addresses the limitations emerged within the first testing session. It includes a new block aimed at widening the boundaries of exploration and providing shortcuts for the investigation of trivial solutions that were not immediately evident at the beginning of the analysis. Satisfactory results have been obtained with both the versions of the algorithm, showing room for extending this kind of computer-aided support also to the synthesis of solution concepts.
Such research has an impact in both the structuring of more robust design methods and in extending the support of computer-aided systems to the first phases of the development cycles in innovation contexts.
Keywords:
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