Design Theory and Methodology; Design of Manufacturing Systems; Engineering Management and Operations Management
The long term goal of my research is to improve the efficiency and responsiveness of engineering design processes. Product design is expensive, capital-intensive, can have significant technical and market risks, has a large impact on manufacturing costs, and occurs in a competitive environment. Hence there is significant value in design optimization tools that take these costs into account. Design as a knowledge creation, synthesis, and management activity will benefit from formal quantitative product development process models. My research focus is to develop and integrate tools to improve product design and design in manufacturing. While much has been done to develop general frameworks for design, design theory and methodology can be better tailored to specific applications and between disciplines, and there is a shortage of tools taking into account the human in the design process, as both a consumer of design as well as a designer. A designer benefits from an ability to break down a design in order to conduct an analysis, as well as build up the design in the context of greater organizational needs and goals. My research is generally a bottom-up approach, where I develop analytical models with the objective of using them to examine more global issues of design, including the interaction between design, manufacturing, and business. I also have a interest in lean design processes. My research activities are also include design for manufacturing and manufacturing system design, driven by the current need to provide flexibility in manufacturing systems. Flexibility can provide the ability to quickly modify a manufacturing system to meet customer needs and competitive pressures, aiding current product modifications, new product introductions, or capacity adjustments. However, the diversity of potential system configurations inherent to a truly flexible paradigm requires that analytical models be available to provide performance metrics of those systems.