MMEP Workshop, Design Method Eco-Systems

Engineering Design Centre, Cambridge UK
5th-6th November 2018

This workshop will discuss method eco-systems in companies and their relationship with design methods proposed by academia.

The workshop is organized by the MMEP SIG, chaired by Kilian Gericke and Claudia Eckert. The host for this workshop is Prof. John Clarkson, EDC Cambridge

The workshop is based on the discussion of the SIG's last workshop during the International DESIGN conference in Dubrovnik earlier this year.

Starting from the method zoo analogy that was used in Dubrovnik it has been realised that academia constantly creates new methods (animals) that are then incorporated into academic environment (publications, teaching, etc.,) - the zoo.

In this environment the consequences of having new methods are fundamentally different from the situation in companies. Companies have their set of methods that is working more or less well individually and as a whole, therefore it can be seen as an eco-system that is working under the specific conditions in a particular company.

Sometime that eco-system does not work properly, which might trigger the search for new methods or the development of new methods. However, as in any eco-system not every new species fits well. The species might not survive or the eco-system might get out of balance.

Academics are concerned about the first, companies (beside other things) are concerned about the latter.

In the discussion about method development and transfer of methods into practice the academic community tends to ignore the consequences of new methods on the eco-system and the analysis of the fit into the specific eco-systems. Methods are usually seen individually.

This workshop is organized around this issue. The goal is to identify and discuss which aspects of the method eco-system and of new methods need to be considered for enabling a proper selection and successful method introduction.

During the workshop we want to collect knowledge and experiences of participants on that topic to guide the discussion and future work in this area. The idea is to publish a paper at ICED’19 on this topic based on the workshop contributions.

If you are interested in participating in this workshop please contact Kilian Gericke (Kilian.gericke@uni.lu) before 1st of October 2018.

In order to organize the event we kindly ask you to send us one paragraph summarizing:

• your view on this topic,
• your experiences or
• prior work in this area.

Please feel free to contact Claudia Eckert or Kilian Gericke if you have any other questions.