Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T22:58:39.506Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Variations in functional decomposition for an existing product: Experimental results

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 April 2012

Claudia Eckert ,
Anne Ruckpaul ,
Thomas Alink  and
Albert Albers
Claudia Eckert*
Affiliation:
Design Group, Department of Design, Development, Environment and Materials, The Open University, Milton Keynes, United Kingdom
Anne Ruckpaul
Affiliation:
Institut für Produktentwicklung, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany
Thomas Alink
Affiliation:
Institut für Produktentwicklung, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany
Albert Albers
Affiliation:
Institut für Produktentwicklung, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany
*
Reprint requests to: Claudia Eckert, Design Group, Department of Design, Development, Environment and Materials, Room N2056, Venables Building, The Open University, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, UK. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper describes the findings of an experiment on how different engineers understand notions of function and functional breakdown in the context of design by modification. The experiment was conducted with a homogenous group of 20 design engineers, who had all received the same education. The subjects were asked to analyze how a hydraulic pump works and summarize their understanding in a function tree. The subjects were given either the hydraulic pump itself (with part of its casing removed) or a maintenance drawing that showed a section cut of the pump. This paper shows typical outputs of the designers. It discusses the different notions of function that the subjects had and the differences in the function trees they generated. The paper focuses an eight detailed analyses to show the range of approaches the subjects took.

Keywords

Function AnalysisIndividual DifferencesProtocol Analysis
Type
Special Issue Articles
Information
AI EDAM , Volume 26 , Issue 2: Design Computing and Cognition (DCC'10) , May 2012 , pp. 107 - 128
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Albers, A., Alink, T., & Deigendesch, T. (2008). Support of design engineering activity—The contact and channel model (C&CM) in the context of problem solving and the role of modeling. Proc. Int. Design Conf. 2008, Dubrovnik, Croatia.Google Scholar
Albers, A., Alink, T., Thau, S., & Matthiesen, S. (2008). Support of system analyses and improvement in industrial design trough the contact & channel model. Proc. TMCE 2008, Izmir, Turkey.Google Scholar
Alink, T. (2010). Meaning and Notation of Function for Solving Design Problems With the C&C-Approach (IPEK Research Report 48). Karlsruhe: Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.Google Scholar
Alink, T., Eckert, C.M., Ruckpaul, A., & Albers, A. (2010). Different function breakdowns for one existing product: experimental results. In Proc. Design Computing and Cognition (DCC'10) (Gero, J.S., Ed.), pp. 405–424. Berlin: Springer.Google Scholar
Andreasen, M.M., & Hein, L. (1987). Integrated Product Development. London: IFS Publications Ltd/Springer–Verlag.Google Scholar
Arias, E., Eden, H., Fischer, G., Gorman, A., & Scharff, E. (2000). Transcending the individual human mind-creating shared understanding through collaborative design. ACM Transactions on Computer–Human Interaction 7(1).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Asimov, M. (1962). Introduction to Design. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice–Hall.Google Scholar
Bucciarelli, L.L. (1996). Designing Engineers. Boston: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Buur, J. (1990). A theoretical approach to mechatronics design. PhD Thesis. Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Institute for Engineering Design.Google Scholar
Crilly, N. (2010). The roles that artefacts play: technical, social and aesthetic functions. Design Studies 31(4), 311–344.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eckert, C.M., Alink, T., Ruckpaul, A., & Albers, A. (2011). Different notions of function: results from an experiment on the analysis of an existing product. Journal of Engineering 22(11–12), 811–837.Google Scholar
Frigg, R. (2003). Re-representing scientific representation. PhD Thesis. London School of Economics, Department of Philosophy Logic and Scientific Method.Google Scholar
Gero, J.S., & Kannengiesser, U. (2002). The situated function–behaviour–structure framework, Proc. Artificial Intelligence in Design '02 (Gero, J.S., Ed.), pp. 89–104. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Goldschmidt, G., & Porter, W. (2004). Design Representation. Berlin: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hacker, W. (1997). Improving engineering design contributions of cognitive. Ergonomics 40(10), 1088–1096.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hill, A., Song, S., Dong, A., & Agogino, A.M. (2001). Identifying shared understanding in design using document analysis. Proc. 2001 ASME Design Engineering Technical Conf., Paper No. DETC2001/DTM-21713, Pittsburgh, PA, September 9–12, 2001.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hinds, P., & Weisband, S. (2003). Knowledge sharing and shared understanding. Virtual Teams That Work Creating Conditions for Virtual Team Effectiveness (Gibson, C., & Cohen, S., Eds.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey–Bass.Google Scholar
Hubka, V. (1973). Theorie der Maschinensysteme. Berlin: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kirschman, C.F., & Fadel, G.M. (1998). Classifying functions for mechanical design. Journal of Mechanical Design 120(3), 475–482.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Otto, K., & Wood, K.L. (1998). Reverse engineering and redesign methodology. Research in Engineering Design 10(4), 226–224.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pahl, G., & Beitz, W. (1996). Engineering design: a systematic approach (Wallace, K., Blessing, L., & Bauert, F., Trans.), 2nd ed.. London: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Umeda, Y., Takeda, H., Tomiyama, T., & Yoshikawa, H. (1990). Function, behaviour, and structure. In Applications of Artificial Intelligence in Engineering, V (Gero, J.S., Ed.), pp. 177–193. Southhampton/Berlin: Computational Mechanics Publications/Springer–Verlag.Google Scholar
Verein Deutscher Ingenieure. (2004). VDI Richtlinie 2223. In Methodisches Entwerfen technischer Produkte. Berlin: Beuth.Google Scholar
Vermaas, P.E., & Houkes, W. (2006). Technical functions: a drawbridge between the intentional and structural natures of technical artefacts. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 37(1), 5–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wood, K., Jensen, J., Bezdek, J., & Otto, K.N. (2001). Reverse engineering and redesign: courses to incrementally and systematically teach design. Journal of Engineering Education 90(3), 363–337.CrossRefGoogle Scholar