The increase in competition amongst companies that produce complex or large product portfolios has created a need to utilise modularity strategies not only to flexibly manage technical complexity in a costeffective manner but also for visual appearance. This research aims to understand how the visual appearance of products is affected by modular product development strategies. Specifically, the aim is to understand how such strategies induce constraints and generate possibilities for management of visual appearance in the design process. Five studies have been conducted during the course of this licentiate thesis. Two were conducted with professionals and students in design, while the remaining three are theoretical studies based on findings in the literature, theory building, and experimental research. The goal has been to investigate how designers work when they are put to the task of changing and developing the designs of complex products that are part of a portfolio. The challenge has been to study what suitable strategies exist that manage complex products and product brands, then investigate how these influence designers’ practices. The first study examined how coherence towards a product category influences the design of new products. The outcome of the study was a method to explore visual coherence and diversity in the appearance of a product category. The remaining four studies investigated how modularity, brand management and the redesign of product portfolios influence a design process. The second study described a design phenomenon known as aesthetic flexibility, which was further explored in studies three and five. The outcome from these studies was a proposal for four aesthetic flexibility strategies. The fourth study investigated in what way portfolio extension strategies found in brand management and design research are related, and how such strategies influence aesthetic flexibility. The results from study four were illustrated as a model. The main contribution of this work is the phenomenon of ‘aesthetic flexibility’, which helps understand the factors that influence designers when working with branded modular products. Understanding visual flexibility serves as a starting point in further investigations of how different development strategies affect the possibilities for visual product design. The findings of this work serve to illustrate and explain a complex and multi-facetted design phenomenon which many designers manage more or less intuitively today, thus advancing academics’, teachers’ and professional designers’ understanding of the field.

Der systematische Umgang mit Unsicherheiten, die in Form von Wissens- und Definitionslücken vorliegen, stellt eine zentrale Aktivität der Produktentwicklung dar. Im Zuge der Zielsystementwicklung liegen Unsicherheiten insbesondere in Form von aus Kunden- und Anwendersicht nichtzutreffender und fehlender oder unvollständiger Ziele und Anforderungen vor. Um bei der Konkretisierung des initialen Zielsystems dahingehend zu unterstützen, wurde eine Methode abgeleitet, welche die systematische Integration von Kunden und Anwendern in die Erhebung von Zielsystemelementen adressiert. Dabei formulieren Kunden und Anwender gemeinsam mit Produktentwicklern Ziele für das zu entwickelnde Produkt. Um dies zu unterstützen, werden die Ziele in Form von Satzschablonen formuliert, um die Vollständigkeit der Ziele zu gewährleisten. Weiter kann durch den Aufbau der Satzschablone sichergestellt werden, dass die Begründung in Form des Kunden- oder Anwendernutzens dokumentiert ist. Zusätzlich wurde ein Portfolio abgeleitet, welches die Ziele entsprechend der Zielgruppe und des relevanten Use-Cases strukturiert und damit fehlende Ziele darlegt. Im Rahmen einer Evaluation konnte gezeigt werden, dass durch die Anwendung der Methode in einem Entwicklungsprojekt von Hekatron Brandschutz die Vollständigkeit des Zielsystems gesteigert und die vorliegende Unsicherheit reduziert werden konnte.

Background: The needs of the consumers seem to develop at the same rate as the technology advancements and put more pressure on firms to produce new and innovative products at a faster pace. Research has shown that external sources can have a significant effect on the firms’ innovation performance, but the results are partial contradicting and more research is needed. Purpose: Investigate customer and supplier involvement in product innovation in Swedish manufacturing firms. Delimitations: The study was carried out to manufacturing firms in Sweden, as Swedish firms are the most innovative in Europe at this point in time. Only large and medium sized firms were under investigation as larger firms are more eager to innovate than smaller firms. Method: The research had a deductive quantitative approach. The data was collected through a questionnaire sent out by e-mail and 124 firms participated in the study. After assessing validity and reliability, the hypotheses were tested by multiple and single regression analysis. Conclusions: Firms that strives to improve their new product development process should seize their customer’s knowledge and use it to co-develop new products. Another important factor was to use lead users, as these will improve the innovativeness even more than “ordinary” customers. The study found no support for early supplier integration in the new product development process.

This research aims to shed insights and produce supportive tools to help stimulate the design of education programs. First a characterization of opportunities and challenges for education programs is given from a global sustainability standpoint. Second a characterization of what education programs may contain and take into account from a full sustainability standpoint, as an outline of education programs in a desired future at a principle level, is provided to help inspire purpose-led education services organizations. Third an outline of possible tools and strategies to help strategically close the gap between the current unsustainable state and the desired sustainable future is provided. A special focus is put on the Template for Sustainable Product Development (TSPD) process tool, originally used to help industries in their production chain, but here adapted as the “Sustainability Potential” Express Strategic Assessment for Education Programs to benefit education programs stakeholders. The authors also propose a set of three abilities acting in synergy: Creativity, “Knowledge Making” &amp; “Open Values” (CKMOV) that are at the heart of Strategic Sustainable Development and thus may help form three equally vital pillars, which education programs may strategically take support from while helping society transition to a sustainable equilibrium. / <p>+86 13637758331</p>

Insbesondere die frühen Phasen in Prozessen der Mechatroniksystementwicklung sind durch ein hohes Maß an Unsicherheit gekennzeichnet. Zu diesem Zeitpunkt des Produktentstehungsprozesses liegen lediglich vage und unscharfe Anforderungen an das Produkt vor, welche es zu konkretisieren gilt. Aktuelle Herausforderungen der Produktentwicklung haben einen verstärkenden Effekt auf die Unsicherheiten in frühen Entwicklungsphasen. Diesen begegnen Unternehmen aus dem Bereich der Mechatroniksystementwicklung zunehmend mit der Implementierung agiler Entwicklungsansätze in ihre etablierten Prozesse. Neben der frühen und kontinuierlichen Kundeneinbindung, der klare Ausrichtung der Prozesse auf die Wertsteigerung der Produkte aus Kundensicht, flachen und offenen Hierarchien und dem stetigen Aufbau und Weiterentwicklung von Prototypen verleihen meist geplante Iterationen den jeweiligen Projekten das Adjektiv „agil“. Die Vielfalt der in der Literatur beschriebenen und meist generisch formulierten Arten von Iterationen (geplant oder ungeplant, korrekturbezogen oder progressiv) ist jedoch sehr groß. Zudem werden Iterationen in der Praxis meist intuitiv und unbewusst durchgeführt, was zum einen dazu führt, dass das jeweilige Entwicklungsvorgehen nicht situationsoptimal ausgeführt wird oder gar hinsichtlich der Ergebnissynthese und –Analyse redundante Tätigkeiten erfolgen. Aus diesem Grund verfolgt das vorliegenden Forschungsvorhaben die Zielsetzung, einen Beitrag zur Unterstützung der Produktentwickler in frühen Entwicklungsphasen bei der Identifikation notwendiger Iterationen zu leisten. Durch eine Berücksichtigung dieser in der kurz- und mittelfristigen Projektplanung kann somit die Prozessunsicherheit reduziert werden.