Design Systems
Product Data Representation
Product data representation is fundamental both to enabling companies to exchange data and communicate effectively, and in the design of well-founded engineering information systems that provide effective product-related business process support.
Current Research Projects
- Knowledge and Information Management through life, external website.
- S4T - Service Support Solutions: Strategy and Transition, external website.
Product Design
Product design includes requirements management, shape synthesis and broader product design-related issues.
- Requirements management – key when taking a systems engineering approach to the integration of complex products.
- Shape synthesis – an approach to the generation of shape that offers the potential to ensure that early product designs conform with brand identity.
- Broader product design research issues are being addressed through collaborations under the AHRC/EPSRC Designing for the 21st Century research initiative.
Current Research Projects
- Knowledge and Information Management through life, external website.
- RAEng Visiting Professorship in Sustainable Design, website.
- Design Synthesis and Shape Generation, website.
- My Exhibition, external website.
Enterprise Engineering
Groups of organisations, so-called “enterprise networks”, deliver and support complex products that typically have lifecycles spanning 30 to 50 years. In this time there is a natural turnover of staff and organisations; the environment within which the network operates is subject to change, for example due to evolving standards and legislation; and the software and hardware infrastructure upon which both the product and the network are built is constantly shifting. This demands research to answer questions such as,
- How can products be best designed and supported in dynamic, network centric environments?
- Is it possible to create robust support networks which, through being both resilient and responsive to changing demands, can contribute to improved operational performance whilst reducing life-cycle costs in real terms? providing frameworks for the design and deployment of the networks of organisations that both develop and deliver products to market, and support them through life to disposal or reuse.
Current Research Projects
- Knowledge and Information Management through life, external website.
- S4T - Service Support Solutions: Strategy and Transition, external website.
- RAEng Visiting Professorship in Sustainable Design, website.
- Leverhulme Visiting Professorship in Global Engineering, website.