The development described in the introduction implies marked technical and organisational changes in the technical and technical-administrative functions of companies. These functions include amongst other things sales, bidding, order management, design, production, calculation and production preparation activities. The system which carries out these activities will be denoted the company’s specification system.
The specification system is that part of the company which creates and handles product knowledge and information during different phases of the product life cycle. The specification system includes descriptions of customer requirements, the consequential product properties, the production processes which can produce the requested products and at end of life disposal procedure and environmental load. Thus technical, economical and market information during the whole product life cycle is included. The descriptions are given in the form of models in various forms depending upon the stage in the product life cycle.
Product models describe IT systems that contain knowledge and information about the product in different phases of its life cycle. Such systems are able to support the task of working out specifications, such as drawings, bills of materials, the production specification, sales specifications, prices and so on.
Through the building up of such models, knowledge is expressed explicitly and thus becomes available to more people within the organisation. An example is a product model for configuration of products in the sales phase. In this case, the engineers model rules for the structure and composition of the product. The designed model is implemented in an IT system, and a salesperson can then use the constructed product model as basis for configuration of a product tailored to customer needs.
The use of such models leads to a change of paradigm for the way in which engineers works. Instead of primarily working operationally on making specifications in relation to concrete products and customer orders, engineers must be able to build up a degree of preparedness in the form of the product models mentioned above. These models can then support the task of completing the specifications in connection with concrete enquiries and orders from customers.
The pre-requisite for carrying out such a change of technology and way of working is that theories, concepts, techniques and procedures for development of the company’s specification system are developed.
Extensive research on application of product modelling is conducted at several universities and research centres around the world, e.g. University of Tokyo (Tomiyama), Technical University of Berlin (Krause), and MIT (Eppinger). In addition major industrial companies like Boeing, Toyota and Saab work intensively on developing product models, and have achieved important business benefits.
The university research is typically carried out based on a distinct viewpoint e.g. a technical or an organisational viewpoint. The approach of Centre for Industrialisation of Engineering is to combine different viewpoints, as a practical implementation of product modelling in industrial companies requires an integrated research approach.
Aim
The aim is to develop and test theories, models, techniques and procedures for the development of industrial companies’ specification systems by using information technology.
Contents
To achieve the aim, it is necessary to work with a combination of technological, organisational and strategic aspects of the development of specification systems.
Within the technical area, methods and techniques for building up product models are to be developed. Important matters to be elucidated are:
- How to "read" a product and translate, for example, the designer’s knowledge to an operational product model.
- How to structure and document models which take every single group which has an interest in the matter into consideration together with the language of their domain, and which pays them due respect, so that one ensures that the models will be used and maintained. For this purpose, it is necessary to exploit both research on feature modelling and design languages, and also research on the overall structure (architecture) of product models, including information handling systems such as product data management systems, modern CAD and configuration systems.
- How to collect up experience from development and production in a product model. The aim is to structure and register experience from design and production.
- How to realise and implement product models in a company’s existing IT systems. This is concerned with the implementation of product models in concrete IT tools.
The question of implementation is also related to methods for the digital representation of product knowledge. This is concerned with the choice of knowledge representation in connection with the implementation of product models. A "taxonomy" is built up, describing various forms of modelling principles, such as rule based, logic based, procedure oriented and neural network based. Criteria are set up for the choice of knowledge representation. This is a matter of transferring and adapting knowledge from the area of computer science and the artificial intelligence area for use in the building up and implementation of product models.
In the organisational area, concepts and methods will be built up to control the considerable organisational changes which are a consequence of implementing product models in the company's specification system.
It is important to recognise that any attempt to modernise engineering practices is not to be based solely on an understanding of universal prescriptive principles/concepts or organisational models/roles. When dealing with formalisation of engineering knowledge it is of key importance to recognise that the so-called technical knowledge is a social product, and to develop theoretical and empirical understanding of this.
The organisational dimension of the research is therefore to develop and apply two perspectives on the introduction and use of IT in the formalised modelling of knowledge generating processes.
The first is to study theoretically and empirically how the existing social organisation of knowledge production can be characterised. The study builds on the premises that the social rules of "how do we do it here" have a high degree of tacitness and represent institutionalised ways of interaction among the different groups of engineers. Theoretically the project seeks to develop relevant dimensions of a model for representation of social knowledge. Empirically, it seeks to codify the specific social rules for knowledge generation (i.e. the definition of engineering tasks, interesting versus uninteresting engineering work, senses of quality engineering work, and the corresponding identities and motivational forces at play) seen from within the engineering community itself. This research will be linked to the theoretical and empirical research on the issue of the "specific" Danish model of engineering practices.
The second perspective will discuss how it is possible to identify and define new relevant roles and profiles of competencies for engineers that can be assimilated into the perceived strengths of the existing social models already "in use".
In the strategic area, a procedure for the development of the company’s overall specification system, in relation to the company’s strategy, organisational conditions and technological possibilities, is to be built up.
The procedure is based on system theory, and has as its aim the systematic development of a system (in casu the specification system). The method is based on classical design theory, where determination of the system’s structural design starts from an analysis and formal description of the functional requirements placed on the system by the environment.
The method includes two sets of descriptions:
- Functional descriptive dimensions, which are necessary for the analysis of the so-called "specification task." For this purpose, analysis tools for analysis of the individual functional dimensions are to be developed.
- Structural descriptive dimensions, which are necessary for the design of the specification system of the future. For this purpose a solution catalogue is to be developed, giving the possible solution elements for use in designing the specification system. An example of such solution elements is a characterisation of possible forms of engineering knowledge production; another example is criteria for defining the degree of IT support of the individual specification activities.
In connection with the development of the overall procedure, methods are built up for supporting the implementation and follow-up activities of changes in the specification system. Here it is necessary firstly to develop methods for measuring the specification system’s performance, and secondly to develop concepts and methods for dealing with the considerable organisational changes which take place when the company’s specification system is developed.
Results
In the technical field, the results will include:
- Methods and techniques for building up and implementing product models. This will involve guidelines for structuring product and production knowledge, reference architectures for product model systems, and methods for structuring and documentation of experiences from design and production.
- A taxonomy for different forms of knowledge representation, together with criteria for selection of a form of knowledge representation when building up product models.
In the organisational field, the results will include:
- A formalisation of the social rules and identities into models of interaction patterns by explicating some of the tacit social knowledge of how to develop technical knowledge in the organisation (this is equivalent to the so-called technical process of "interpreting" and explicating the technical knowledge embodied in a product).
- New metaphors to describe the relevant dimensions of the patterns of action and interaction that generate particular knowledge and competencies. These metaphors will provide new understanding of the roles and identities of engineers that 1) are in play and that 2) could or should be in play in an organisation.
- Definition of new roles and competence profiles for engineers. Application of product modelling will dramatically change working patterns and responsibilities of engineers. The work of the engineers might be divided into a preparation task (building product models) and application task (using the product model). The role of preparation engineers could be characterised as "model managers".
In the strategic field, the results will include:
- A procedure for the development of specification systems. The procedure will include an analysis part with functional analysis points for use in analysing the specification task, together with a synthesis part with structural descriptive points and solution examples for use in the design of the specification system.
- Methods for the implementation of changes and methods for measurement and follow-up on the specification system.
- Forms of knowledge production, with a description and characterisation of various basic structures in the company’s specification system.