Visit the Decision Based Design Open Workshop web page at http://dbd.eng.buffalo.edu

DECISION-BASED DESIGN OPEN WORKSHOP
August 2002 Newsletter

In this Edition

Upcoming Events - 14th Face-to-Face Open Workshop
Exciting News - Upcoming E-Colloquium on DBD
Questions for Debate

Upcoming Events

14th Face-to-Face DBD Open Workshop Meeting

To be held at:

2002 ASME DETC Conferences
Sunday, September 29, 2002
Le Centre Sheraton Hotel and Towers
Montreal, Canada

8:30 AM - Noon

Description:

The workshop will be structured around a panel made up of representatives from both academia and industry, who will provide their views on "Demand and Preference Modeling in Engineering Design."

To support a company's goal of making profitable products, it is crucial to construct proper models for product demand that relate product design with customer choices. There is a need for developing demand analysis approaches that are applicable for engineering design and conform to basic economic principles. The panel session is focused on two issues: 1) What are the applicable approaches to demand modeling in engineering design? and 2) How preferences of both the producer and customers should be integrated in engineering decision making. The invited panelists include:



The panelists will be asked to address a set of questions related to demand and preference modeling. There will also be and open-floor discussion on the topics covered. If you are interested in attending please register through ASME and let one of the organizers know that you are attending the workshop. The organizers can be contacted at:
Wei Chen
weichen1@uic.edu
(312) 996-6072

Linda Schmidt
lschmidt@eng.umd.edu
(301) 405-0417

Kemper Lewis
kelewis@eng.buffalo.edu
(716) 645-2593 x2232


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Upcoming E-Colloquium on Decision-Based Design
We are also planning on initiating a DBD E-Colloquium where research and educational papers on DBD will be peer-reviewed, published on-line, and available for invited commentary and on-line discussion. The E-Colloquium is expected to lead to an exciting book on Decision-Based Design (we are in current talks with multiple publishers). The book will include research-style papers and educational-style papers (submitted and invited). Topical areas in DBD covered by the E-Colloquium and book include:


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Question for Debate
The new polling questions are up on the DBD homepage. If you haven't submitted your views already, be sure to do it today.

Topic:

Meeting Customers' Needs in Engineering Design

Pairs of Debating Views - choose your most preferred view from each group and briefly explain why.

Views:

Goal of Design

a. Meeting customer satisfaction is the primary goal of decision making. A product will eventually become profitable if it is of good quality and customers like it.

b. The primary goal of design decision making is not to meet customer satisfaction, instead it is to make profit. Costs associated with improving a quality feature that customers desire must be considered. Designers may decide not to improve a quality feature if it does not lead to profit.

c. Other view:

Capturing the preference of a group of customers

a. A group of customers' preferences can be captured by a value function that represents the aggregate preference as a function of multiple product attributes.

b. A group of customers' preferences cannot be aggregated and captured by a value function. Market share (or demand) is the most appropriate measure of how much a group of customers like the product.

c. Other view:

Meeting both the needs of producer and customers

a. Engineering design is a tradeoff between meeting the needs of customers and that of the producer. This tradeoff can be made through multiattribute utility analysis and modeling the customers' preference and the producer's preference by two separate utility measures.

b. The design utilty is solely determined based on the producer's preference in engineering design. There is no such "tradeoff" between the customers' preference in engineering producer's preference in the utility function. Customers' interests (or desires) are captured through other means such as the product demand.

c. Other view:

Submit your views

Workshop Organizers

Wei Chen
Associate Professor
Mechanical Engineering
University of Illinois at Chicago
Chicago, IL

Linda Schmidt
Associate Professor
Department of Mechanical Engineering
University of Maryland
University Park, MD

Kemper Lewis
Associate Professor
Dept of Mech & Aero Engineering
State University of New York at Buffalo
Buffalo, NY

Visit the Decision Based Design Open Workshop web page at http://dbd.eng.buffalo.edu