figure 6. Long term priorities
figure 7. Medium term priorities
figure 8. Short term priorities
figure 9. Combined priorities
figure 10. Combined priorities5. RESULTS - QUESTIONNAIRE
The participants were asked to fill in a 'questionnaire' based on the issues raised at the previously referred to 1996 workshop in the USA (Ref 18). The participants were asked to rank the issues in order of importance for business development over a short, medium and long term timescale, Appendix 1. The actual topics caused some discussion and this may well reflect differences in terminology and emphasis across the Atlantic. The results are shown in figures 5 to 9. The assessment is presented as a single figure for clarity of assessment. It is considered that the important aspect is the overall ranking and the relative position of the different requisites.
The assessment is achieved using a single weighting method for the first 5 priorities, i.e. 5 for priority 1, 4 priority 2 etc. and summing to give an overall score (Ref. 22). (The data was evaluated weighting items 5 and above as either 1 or 0. This was undertaken to evaluate the impact of the 'tail' on the priority items. In fact the 'tail' made a difference to the overall score but not to the relative priorities or scores.) Figure 8 is included to show the difference. The other figures are based on weighting of 0 for the "tail".
5.1 Evaluation of results
For all three timescales quality of design and the enhancement of creativity and innovation are the clear priorities. (Figures 6,7,8,9,10 and Table 1).
After the first two items there seems to be consideration that the short term issues are process based "understand the product realisation process" and "integrate product and manufacturing process development". Whereas the issues of "team decision making", "complexity", "information and archiving and reuse" emerge or are seen as medium to long term requirements. The issue of the 'seamless integration between analysis tools' emerges as both a short and a long term issue.
|
SHORT |
MEDIUM |
LONG |
|
Improve quality of Design |
Improve quality of design |
Improve quality of design |
|
Enhance creativity & innovation |
Enhance creativity & innovation |
Enhance creativity & innovation |
|
Critical thinking/evaluation methods |
Facilitate team decision-making |
Improve design environments |
|
Seamless integration between analysis tools |
Manage complexity |
Archive and reuse design history |
|
Understand product realisation process |
Improve information infrastructure |
Facilitate team decision-making |
|
Integrate product and manufacturing process development |
Archive and reuse design history |
Create seamless integration between analysis tools |
Table 1 Summary of priorities.
5.2 Comparison with USA.
The American study did not consider the different timescales but had improve quality of design as the top priority. The next five were "facilitate team decision-making", "improve design environments", "seamless integration between analysis tools" and "understand product realisation process". Thus there is remarkable similarity between the key issues as a result of this process. It has to be said that 'improve quality of design' is rather a catch-all as is 'improve design environments'. But it is clear that there are still a number of issues that need to be researched for improved design performance.
figure 6. Long term priorities
figure 7. Medium term priorities
figure 8. Short term priorities
figure 9. Combined priorities
figure 10. Combined priorities
