Empirical analysis of product design with different times and interruption levels
Year: 2013
Editor: John Lawlor, Ger Reilly, Robert Simpson, Michael Ring, Ahmed Kovacevic, Mark McGrath, William Ion, David Tormey, Erik Bohemia, Chris McMahon, Brian Parkinson
Author: Djaloeis, Bima Raymond-Sati; Frenz, Martin; Duckwitz, Sönke; Hinsch, Malte Sebastian; Feldhusen, Jörg; Schlick, Christopher Marc
Series: E&PDE
Institution: RWTH Aachen University, Germany
Section: Experimental Studies in Design Methods
Page(s): 184-189
ISBN: 978-1-904670-42-1
Abstract
Effective and robust engineering design processes are vital in early phases of a product life cycle, such as in product design. This highly dynamic field of work is influenced by many interacting, partly conflicting factors, which require methodical human input. However, there is little research on the education in product design. It is essential to teach junior engineering students systematic approaches which allow them to reliably cope with this volatile field of work. In this paper, the design and the results of a large-scale product design experiment (79 participants) with five product design tasks are presented. This experiment is based on the levels of systematic design by Pahl et al and on the description of human reliability by Rasmussen. It is part of an exam for the education of junior engineering students of mechanical engineering, which aims to teach junior engineering students design methodology which helps them to work effectively in this volatile field of work. In this setting, the effects of âinterruption frequencyâ and âamount of available timeâ on both product requirement fulfilment and on the subjective workload are focused on. The analysis of these empirical results provides more insight in the fields of teaching design methodology in education and contributes to a better understanding of factors shaping human reliability in product design.
Keywords: Teaching design methodology, human reliability, product design, interruption, time