The present Ph.D. thesis addresses the problem of knowledge-based engineering template update in product design. The reuse of design knowledge has become a key asset for the company's competitiveness. Knowledge-based engineering templates allow to store best practices and knowhow via formulas, rules, scripts, etc. This design knowledge can then be reused by instantiating the template. The instantiation results in the creation of an instance of the template in the specified context. In the scope of complex and large products, such as cars or aircrafts, the maintenance of knowledge-based engineering templates is a challenging task. Several engineers from various disciplines work together and make evolve the templates in order to extend their capabilities or to fix bugs. Furthermore, in some cases, the modifications applied to templates should be forwarded to their instances in order that they benefit from the changes. These issues slow down the adoption of template technologies at a large scale within companies. The objective of this work is to propose an approach in order to support engineers in the template update related tasks. In order to address these issues, a process supporting the template update related tasks is defined. Then a framework is proposed that helps design engineers during the template update process by providing a decision support system and a strategy for the update of template instances. The former is a system designed to ease the collaboration between various experts in order to solve template related problems. The latter aims at providing a sequence of updates to follow, in order to forward the templates' modifications to their instances. This sequence is computed with data extracted from models and templates, which are stored in an ontology designed for this purpose. The ontology is used to represent and to infer knowledge about templates, products and their relations. This facilitates the construction of update sequences as it provides an efficient overview of relationships, even implicit ones.

Les travaux de recherche présentés adressent des problèmes de mises à jour de knowledge-based engineering templates dans le cadre de la conception de produits. La réutilisation de connaissances de conception est devenue un avantage clé pour la compétitivité des entreprises. Le savoir faire ainsi que les bonnes pratiques peuvent être stockés au sein de templates par le biais de formules, règles, scripts, etc. Ces connaissances de conception peuvent alors être réutilisées en instanciant le template. L’instanciation résulte en la création d’une instance du template dans le contexte spécifié.Dans le cadre de produit complexes et imposants tels que des voitures ou des avions, la maintenance des templates est une tache ambitieuse. Plusieurs ingénieurs de diverses disciplines travaillent ensemble et font évoluer les templates pour augmenter leurs aptitudes ou pour corriger des problèmes. De plus, dans certains cas, les modifications faites aux templates devraient être appliquées à leurs instances afin qu’elles puissent bénéficier de ces modifications. Ces problèmes ralentissent l’adoption à grande envergure des templates au sein des entreprises. L’objectif de ce travail est de proposer une approche afin d’épauler les ingénieurs dans les tâches relatives à la mise à jour des templates.Pour traiter ces problèmes, un processus adressant les tâches relatives à la mise à jour des templates est défini. Ensuite, un framework est proposé dans le but d’aider les ingénieurs de conception au cours du processus de mise à jour, en fournissant un système d’aide à la décision ainsi qu’une stratégie de mise à jour des instances. Le premier est un système conçu pour faciliter la collaboration entre les différent experts dans le but de résoudre les problèmes liés aux templates. Le second a pour but d’élaborer une séquence de mise à jour à fin d’appliquer les modifications du template à ses instances. La séquence est calculée avec les données extraites à partir des modèles CAD et des templates. Ces données sont stockées dans une ontologie conçue spécialement à cet effet. L’ontologie est utilisée pour représenter et inférer des connaissances sur les templates, les produits et leur relations. Cela facilite la construction des séquences de mises à jour en fournissant une vue d’ensemble sur les relations entre documents, même implicites. / The present Ph.D. thesis addresses the problem of knowledge-based engineering template update in product design. The reuse of design knowledge has become a key asset for the company’s competitiveness. Knowledge-based engineering templates allow to store best practices and knowhow via formulas, rules, scripts, etc. This design knowledge can then be reused by instantiating the template. The instantiation results in the creation of an instance of the template in the specified context. In the scope of complex and large products, such as cars or aircrafts, the maintenance of knowledge-based engineering templates is a challenging task. Several engineers from various disciplines work together and make evolve the templates in order to extend their capabilities or to fix bugs. Furthermore, in some cases, the modifications applied to templates should be forwarded to their instances in order that they benefit from the changes. These issues slow down the adoption of template technologies at a large scale within companies. The objective of this work is to propose an approach in order to support engineers in the template update related tasks. In order to address these issues, a process supporting the template update related tasks is defined. Then a framework is proposed that helps design engineers during the template update process by providing a decision support system and a strategy for the update of template instances. The former is a system designed to ease the collaboration between various experts in order to solve template related problems. The latter aims at providing a sequence of updates to follow, in order to forward the templates’ modifications to their instances. This sequence is computed with data extracted from models and templates, which are stored in an ontology designed for this purpose. The ontology is used to represent and to infer knowledge about templates, products and their relations. This facilitates the construction of update sequences as it provides an efficient overview of relationships, even implicit ones.

Syftet med studien är att presentera ett designkoncept för publika diskussioner på nätet med målet att uppnå djupare diskussioner och minska mängden information overload. Arbetet använder metoden Concept Driven Interaction Design (CDID) som går ut på att skapa ett designkoncept utifrån flera olika teorier som appliceras genom interaktionsdesign. Ett designkoncept innehåller tre delar: ett namn, ett syfte och huvudprinciper. CDID innehåller sju steg som arbetet är utformat efter: 1.      Concept Generation – Summeras i en tabell som jämför diskussioner i forum (med flera antagande) och diskussioner med hjälp av metoden Philosophy for Children (P4C), samt annan teori. 2.      Concept Exploration – Åtta olika designaspekter identifieras utifrån jämförelsetabellen. 3.      Internal Concept Critique – Designaspekterna jämförs med två snarlika diskussionsformat. 4.      Design of Artifacts – Designkoncept version 1 skapas. 5.      External Design Critique – Intervjuer utförs för att undersöka intervjupersonerna generella erfarenheter av online diskussioner, testar antagandena från jämförelsetabellen och ge direkt feedback på första versionen av designkonceptet. 6.      Concept Revisited – Ändringar görs baserat på intervjumaterial och direkt feedback. 7.      Concept Contextualization – Designkonceptet kopplas tillbaka till litteraturen. Studien resulterar i ett designkoncept kallat CoFramer och stödjer dessa huvudprinciper som ställs i kontrast till material som identifierats genom intervjuerna: Tabell 1: CoFramers huvudprinciper och faktorer från intervjuer om diskussioner på forum. CoFramers huvudprinciper | Från intervjuer om diskussioner på forum Strukturerad början och slut | Diskussion utan tydligt slut Begränsat antal deltagare | Stor mängd deltagare Minimum antal deltagare | Många inaktiva åskådare Explicita deltagare | Lite information om deltagare Gemensamma förutsättningar | Otydlighet kring deltagares förutsättningar Begränsad informationstäthet per inlägg | Långa inlägg och/eller snabba inlägg Den röda tråden och parallella trådar | Oftast parallella trådar Aktiv samtalsledare | Outredda missförstånd Studien indikerar på att CoFramer bör resultera i mer strukturerade diskussioner och som utsätter användaren för en lägre mängd information overload och mindre grounding cost jämfört med vad som vanligtvis uppstår i publika diskussioner online. / The focus of this essay is to develop a design concept for online public discussions with deep discussions and low information overload. The method used is Concept Driven Interaction Design (CDID) which involves constructing a design concept by applying a variety of theories in tangible interaction design. A design concept has three basic parts: a name, high-level goals and outlines generic principles. CDID includes seven steps which is used in this work: 1.      Concept Generation – Formatted into a table that compare forum discussion (with several hypothesis) compared to discussions with the method Philosophy for Children (P4C) and other theories. 2.      Concept Exploration – Eight distinct design aspects are identified from the comparison table. 3.      Internal Concept Critique – The design aspects are compared to three similar discussion formats. 4.      Design of Artifacts – Design concept version 1 is created. 5.      External Design Critique – Interviews are conducted to explore their general experience of online discussions, investigate the hypothesis from the comparison table and to seek direct feedback on the first draft of the design concept. 6.      Concept Revisited – Changes are made to the design concept based on the interview material and the direct feedback. 7.      Concept Contextualization – The design concept is related to the original literature. The result of the study is a design concept named CoFramer. CoFramer’s generic principles are summarized and contrasted against factors identified from the interview material in this table: Tabell 2: CoFramer’s generic principles and interviews about online discussions. CoFramer’s generic principles | From interview material on forum discussion Organized start and ending | Discussions without clear ending Limited number of participants | Large number of participants Minimum number of participants | Large number of inactive spectators Explicit participants | Low information about participants Common conditions | Vagueness in participants conditions Limited information density per post | Long posts and/or fast posts The red thread and parallel threads | Often parallel threads Active facilitator | Unresolved misunderstandings The study indicates that CoFramer would create more structured discussions with a lower amount of information overload and less grounding cost compared what normally arise in public online discussions.