A Study of Student Design Team Behaviors in Complex System Design

Large-scale engineering systems require design teams to balance complex sets of considerations using a wide range of design and decision-making skills. Formal, computational approaches for optimizing complex systems offer strategies for arriving at optimal solutions in situations where system integration and design optimization are well-formulated. However, observation of design practice suggests engineers may be poorly prepared for this type of design. Four graduate student teams completed a distributed, complex system design task. Analysis of the teams’ design histories suggests three categories of suboptimal approaches: global rather than local searches, optimizing individual design parameters separately, and sequential rather than concurrent optimization strategies. Teams focused strongly on individual subsystems rather than system-level optimization, and did not use the provided system gradient indicator to understand how changes in individual subsystems impacted the overall system. This suggests the need for curriculum to teach engineering students how to appropriately integrate systems as a whole. [DOI: 10.1115/1.4007840]

[1]  A. Kendon.  Conducting Interaction: Patterns of Behavior in Focused Encounters , 1990 .

[2]  Nigel Cross,et al.  Expertise in Design: an overview , 2004 .

[3]  Durward K. Sobek,et al.  Linking design process to customer satisfaction through virtual design of experiments , 2006 .

[4]  Nigel Cross,et al.  Solution driven versus problem driven design: strategies and outcomes , 2006 .

[5]  Gloria Mark,et al.  Extreme collaboration , 2002, CACM.

[6]  Kemper Lewis,et al.  Planning on Mistakes: An Approach to Incorporate Error Checking Into the Design Process , 2008, DAC 2008.

[7]  Kemper Lewis,et al.  Using Bounded Rationality to Improve Decentralized Design , 2008 .

[8]  C. Atman,et al.  Considering Context: A Study of First‐Year Engineering Students , 2007 .

[9]  Daniel D. Frey,et al.  Engineering design thinking, teaching, and learning , 2006 .

[10]  Alex H. B. Duffy,et al.  Distributed design coordination , 2002 .

[11]  Jeffrey W. Herrmann,et al.  Progressive Design Processes and Bounded Rational Designers , 2010 .

[12]  D. P. Thunnissen,et al.  Icemaker/sup TM/: an excel-based environment for collaborative design , 2003, 2003 IEEE Aerospace Conference Proceedings (Cat. No.03TH8652).

[13]  Wei Chen,et al.  Decision Making in Engineering Design , 2006 .

[14]  James R. Wertz,et al.  Space Mission Analysis and Design , 1992 .

[15]  I. Gilboa,et al.  Objective and Subjective Rationality in a Multiple Prior Model , 2010 .

[16]  Nicholas P. Vitalari,et al.  Differences Between Novice and Expert Systems Analysts: What Do We Know and What Do We Do? , 1998, J. Manag. Inf. Syst..

[17]  Pamela J. Hinds,et al.  The Place of Face-to-Face Communication in Distributed Work , 2002 .

[18]  Kemper Lewis,et al.  A study of convergence in decentralized design processes , 2005 .

[19]  H. Simon,et al.  Models of Bounded Rationality: Empirically Grounded Economic Reason , 1997 .

[20]  B. Gardini,et al.  The ESA / ESTEC Concurrent Design Facility , 2000 .

[21]  Robert J. Crutcher,et al.  The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance. , 1993 .

[22]  K. Smith,et al.  Conducting Rigorous Research in Engineering Education , 2006 .

[23]  T. L. Vincent,et al.  Game Theory as a Design Tool , 1983 .

[24]  Theodor Freiheit,et al.  Modified game theory approach to multiobjective optimization , 1988 .

[25]  J. C. Heideman,et al.  Sequential gradient-restoration algorithm for the minimization of constrained functions—Ordinary and conjugate gradient versions , 1969 .

[26]  Benjamin M Linder.  Understanding estimation and its relation to engineering education , 1999 .

[27]  Maria C. Yang,et al.  An information-passing strategy for achieving Pareto optimality in the design of complex systems , 2011, Research in Engineering Design.

[28]  George A. Hazelrigg,et al.  A Framework for Decision-Based Engineering Design , 1998 .

[29]  Jeremy J. Michalek,et al.  Should Designers Worry About Market Systems , 2009 .

[30]  Yan Jin,et al.  A study of argumentation-based negotiation in collaborative design , 2010, Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis and Manufacturing.

[31]  Paul Collopy,et al.  ECONOMIC-BASED DISTRIBUTED OPTIMAL DESIGN , 2001 .

[32]  C. Bao Iturbe,et al.  Educating the engineer of 2020: Adapting engineering education to the new century , 2009, IEEE Engineering Management Review.

[33]  Kurt Becker,et al.  Engineering Design Thinking. , 2013 .

[34]  Rekha Bhowmik.  Building design optimization using sequential linear programming , 2007, Proceedings 2007 IEEE SoutheastCon.

[35]  J. Nash,et al.  NON-COOPERATIVE GAMES , 1951, Classics in Game Theory.

[36]  Elliot Soloway,et al.  A model of software design , 1986, Int. J. Intell. Syst..

[37]  G Gigerenzer,et al.  Reasoning the fast and frugal way: models of bounded rationality. , 1996, Psychological review.

[38]  G. Karpati,et al.  The integrated mission design center (imdc) at nasa goddard space flight center , 2003, 2003 IEEE Aerospace Conference Proceedings (Cat. No.03TH8652).

[39]  Kemper Lewis.  An Algorithm for Integrated Subsystem Embodiment and System Synthesis , 2013 .

[40]  B. Danette Allen,et al.  Collaborative Mission Design at NASA Langley Research Center , 2005 .

[41]  Farrokh Mistree,et al.  Collaborative multidisciplinary decision making using game theory and design capability indices , 2005 .

[42]  Timothy W. Simpson,et al.  Metamodels for Computer-based Engineering Design: Survey and recommendations , 2001, Engineering with Computers.

[43]  Cynthia J. Atman,et al.  Engineering Design Processes: A Comparison of Students and Expert Practitioners , 2007 .

[44]  Gyung-Jin Park,et al.  Comparison of MDO methods with mathematical examples , 2008 .

[45]  Kemper Lewis,et al.  Equilibrium stability in decentralized design systems , 2005, Int. J. Syst. Sci..

[46]  J. B. Harvey.  The Abilene paradox: The management of agreement , 1974 .

[47]  Deborah G. Ancona,et al.  The Comparative Advantage of X-Teams , 2002 .

[48]  Bonnie A. Nardi and Steve Whittaker.  The Place of Face-to-Face Communication in Distributed Work , 2002 .

[49]  Kemper Lewis,et al.  Modeling Interactions in Multidisciplinary Design: A Game Theoretic Approach , 1997 .

[50]  Jaroslaw Sobieszczanski-Sobieski,et al.  Multidisciplinary aerospace design optimization - Survey of recent developments , 1996 .

[51]  Maria C. Yang,et al.  An Examination of Team Effectiveness in Distributed and Co-located Engineering Teams* , 2008 .

[52]  Jamie C. Gorman,et al.  Assessment of Team Cognition , 2022 .

[53]  Mark S. Avnet,et al.  Socio-cognitive analysis of engineering systems design : shared knowledge, process, and product , 2009 .

[54]  I. Gilboa,et al.  Objective and Subjective Rationality , 2008 .