SE course is part of MSPI, Mechanical Engineering and Industrial Economics programs. . And it also educates and teaches students how to find end customers’ needs, and design and define them as ‘requirement specification’.  Next step is mapping those specifications as the product-service or system’s functions in order to seek for solutions. These steps are needed for basic production planning and service offering. So, holistic system and design thinking approaches are required to analyze each steps, when one designing or analyzing complex systems. This is the main goal of the System Engineering course in order to equip students with the methods, tools and mindset to have the capabilities to run complex system analyses.

Students are requested to work in groups of 4 or 5 members for the dominant part of the course as their ‘group projects’. Teacher assistants, Babak Kianian and Shahryar Eivazzadeh, provide participants with coaching and mentoring during their projects.

Students will present the final result of their group projects on May 28^th – 29^th 2013. As a middle point check-in, on May 8^th the instructors introduced and provided students groups with a group exercise session with holding a space, that enabled students to implement a creative, action-oriented technic called “Pro Action Café’.

Pro Action Café is a conversational process that follows a methodology to host, in this case and course, project that each group are defined and engaged for a period of two months. The process collects and flourishes the perspective of each group and respectively its members, and also it enables them to involve and engage with other participants in order to have the benefits of their inputs and point of views.

Babak Kianian, SE course teacher assistant, mentioned that; “It was the first time that we have introduced and practiced the Pro Action Café technic with Systems Engineering students. The result indicated around 30% more active participation within the students. This result is really optimistically impressive and it illustrates that students are really keen and open to new experiences, and also they would like to participate in activities that allow them to be fully involved and responsible for their own learning and also benefits from their peers and other classmates’ perspectives and experiences. I have noticed that even a small change to single arrangement and properties of a place (Classroom) result and alter the mood and nature of interaction among students.”

Here are some pictures of our Pro Action Café exercise in May 8^th 2013 for SE course in the Wednesday afternoon session. One representative for each student group projects starts to illustrate and describe their projects for the rest of the participants as the middle check-in time in their projects.

For more information, contact Professor Tobias C. Larsson, tobias.larsson@bth.se, Product Development Research Lab.

Under tiden, fick Sharon även chansen att presentera sin och AMTs forskningsverksamhet både på SSPU och på Shanghai Jiao-Tong University (ett av de absolut bästa i Kina). Tillsammans tog man fram några samarbetsstrategier (bilderna togs framför fordonslaboratoriet på Jiao-Tong och testresultat på crash-boxar till bilar).

Mer information:

• SSPU-artikel: http://en.sspu.cn/structure/newsxx_31971_1.htm

Eager to do a full scale project we jumped on one of the suggested projects.

The project is about a different set of coating for photovoltaic solar panels. The coating claim to have a number of properties, one of them is to increase the efficiency output of the solar panel.

The project is then simple, examine the output of the four following

• A regular non coated panel
• A panel coated with plan B
• A panel coated with sparkling sun
• A panel coated with colored sparkling sun

In short plan B looks like a normal panel in the sense that it has a transparent coating. It claims to be more resilient towards mechanical impact as well as slightly reduce the temperature of the panel and in that way slightly increase the efficiency.

Team installing the panels

Sparkling sun on the other hand looks nothing like a normal panel. It’s entire surface sparkles and in addition to the properties of plan B it’s also said to increase the effectiveness of panels in steep angles towards the sun, that means panels either mounted horizontally or vertically.

For the last 7 months the group that now calls themselves “InnoMech” have been working on a concept for conducting these types of tests, making it possible to replicate them.

Parallel to this they have also designed and manufactured a construct that allows them to fasten the solar panels and test them in different angles to be as thorough as possible.

It’s been a long journey with quite a few bumps along the way but now, at last, we can spot the light at the end of the tunnel. The solar panels are currently gazing towards the sky at BTH and soon the measurements will begin and more information will follow shortly!

Coated panel

Best regards

Erik Petersson, Gustav Müller Lundgren, Philip Nilsson, Martin Nilsson Lind and Daniel Petersson

For more information on research collaboration with Product Development Research Lab: Tobias Larsson, tlr@bth.se, http://www.bth.se/pdrl.

BTH and Stanford students are during autumn 2012 – spring 2013 working together on a project to develop spaces to support innovation. The project is part of the course “ME310 Global” (Stanford University, Mechanical Engineering) which aims to build students capabilities in design thinking by matching students with real life problems, and hence in collaboration with corporate partners.

After an exploratory phase that included benchmarking, needfinding and rapid prototyping, the students meet for the 2md time  in Sweden. During this week the students conducted workshops with companies in order to test some of the elements of that will be present on this innovative space with companies.

“We aimed to verify how the different methods that will be part of the Kungshall experience will be perceived and received by potential clients” – says Andre Benaim, one of the project members. The students explained that one aspect of the workshop was about testing the technology prototype developed in the project at Stanford. The aim of the prototype is to help facilitators to have the documentation registered in a seamless way. Such documentation would be an easy way to register what has happened, as well to filter elements that will be used on later stages of the innovation process, such as prioritized ideas. Furthermore, the tool allow to have an overview of the process at anytime and for anyone interested, keeping relevant ideas safe and accessible.

“Despite the physical tool is ready, the software coding needs to be developed. In this case we acted behind the scene as if we were the software, which allow us to see what we would need the software to do”, explains Jonathan Goh, one of the Stanford students. Another aspect focus on the in-between lines of the workshop was to verify whether participants would see value in the processes that was being used. On one of the workshop days participants were astonished that in 5 hours we have developed concepts we can work down to the requirements. Others confirmed the power of leaving the company to enter a space in which they can focus on innovation. A participant said; “If I was at my office I would be thinking about my work way more often, going to check emails on the breaks and hence not being so present”. The students were very satisfied with the results. The next steps for the project is to consolidate the concept of such a innovation space and finalize the tool development. However,  as the students say, on design thinking path things can change very quickly according to results of the rapid prototypes and testing. So, stay tuned for the final outcome in June, that will be presented at the yearly “Expe : Stanford Design Experience” at Stanford University.

ME310 global collaboration mode

“I’ve been collaborating with Stanford and the Design Division and d.school for several years and now we aim at deepening the collaboration between BTH Mechanical Engineering and Stanford Mechanical Engineering to be able to offer continuous project collaboration in global innovation projects together with industry“, says Professor Tobias Larsson of Mechanical Engineering / Product Development Research Lab. He continues; “We are now scouting for projects with industry connection for upcoming autumn, and also interested students to participate. The projects are tough and demanding, but extremely rewarding.”

Partners in the 2012/13 project are:

• Volvo Construction Equipment
• Michano
• Blekinge Institute of Technology
• Stanford University
• Rimfrost Design

For more information, contact Professor Tobias C. Larsson, tobias.larsson@bth.se, Product Development Research Lab.

Professor Tobias Larsson (forskningledare för Product Development Research Lab) inledde dagen med att berätta vad man gör vid en högskola för att vidga vyn och förståelsen för verksamheten. De flesta har uppfattningen att det är undervisning som gäller och kanske inte har koll på att en stor del av verksamheten är också forskning och problemlösning tillsammans med företag.

Efter detta gick man över till att jobba med tre dimensioner av arbeten, dels hur man kan arbete effektivare för att göra det man redan gör (Lean production), och detta övades med att skruva ihop ficklampor snabbare och snabbare i lag och hitta sätt att göra detta på vad som tycks vara omöjliga 4-5 sekunder när första gången tog över 2 minuter.

Sedan gick vi över på en samarbetsövning. I grund och botten bygger allt arbete på förmåga att samarbeta och med en övning där man ger en halva av laget en ritning och den andra halvan legobitarna och sedan får de utan att se varandra försöka via enbart muntlig konversation få ihop modellerna. Inte alltid så enkelt men lärorikt!

Fika, lunch och rundvandring i lokalerna var ett bra break för att sedan gå in i en skapandeövning, att bygga en bro över ett 1m långt spann och som kan bära 1kg last. Tejp, träpinnar, ståltråd är komponenterna och här fick man först planera arbetet och skissa upp koncept innan man började bygga. Det blev en kul utmaning och lagen tävlade mot varandra på ett bra sätt. Alla broar klarade lasten och det slutade med att man fick släppa vikten från höjd för att hitta när broarna knäcks, för detta måste man ju prova .

Dagens absolut sista kreativitetsövning var att hitta på ett koncept på glass som skulle realiseras via skisser istället för material och även här visade barnen på stor skapandekraft och själv skulle jag som glassfantast gärna se några av dessa koncept i butik!

En kul dag som gav energi både för oss på BTH och för Hästöskolan, och vi ser på responsen att detta är ett koncept vi får göra oftare och erbjuda fler. “School workshop in a box” får helt enkelt bli ett koncept från vår sida

För mer information: Professor Tobias Larsson, tlr@bth.se, 0455-385525, Product Development Research Lab.

Ola Isaksson of GKN at the whiteboard

In the profile project two main mechanisms are used in order to drive the progress of the research; Use Cases and Research Tracks.

Use Cases are mechanisms where industrial settings serve as host of research and gathers researchers around a research challenge where a partner company have a specific interest, and hence support the work and its development. In this case GKN hosts the initial work of “UC1 – Sustainable and Value-Driven Engine Sub System Design”, and the goal of a use case is that it should demonstrate research capabilities in relative short term (i.e. within a year). Multidisciplinary is the work since researchers from different disciplines join in, and the day was targeted on getting to know each other and what competences that people have and to start aligning these towards the goal of the Use Case, and the profile.

From start we have 6 use cases in the project:

• UC1 – Sustainable and Value-Driven Engine Sub System Design (GKN Aerospace Engine Systems)
• UC2 – iCoach and iGroups (Volvo Construction Equipment)
• UC3 – Value-Driven Product Development (Dynapac Compaction Equipment)
• UC4 – Easy Open Food Packaging (Tetra Pak)
• UC5 – PSS for Online Functional Offering of Automotive Fixtures (Holje International)
• UC6 – Providing Lux as PSS Instead of only Light Tubes for Lightning (Aura Light International)

Research Tracks are mechanisms where the research areas are in focus and more longitudinal stable over the years of the research. This is the host environment of BTH and where researchers reflect back upon findings and how this brings the research forward. 4 research tracks exist from start:

• RT1 – Sustainability Integration in Conceptual Design
• RT2 – Ambidextrous Organizations for Sustainable PSS innovation
• RT3 – Value-Driven Design of PSS in Collaborating Networks
• RT4 – Simulation-Driven Design and Knowledge Engineering

With the profile being all about increasing companies competitiveness in developing the next generation of sustainable products and services, there is going to be a growth in the research that supports this so we do expect new companies and research projects (Use Cases, and adding to Research Tracks) to join.

For more information on the Use Case contact project leader Sophie Hallstedt, sht@bth.se.

For more information on the profile project contact Director Tobias Larsson, tlr@bth.se.

Companies and organisations collaborate directly with BTH Product Development & Mechanical Engineering students to get innovative ideas, problems solved, and to see how our students are trained to work. We now share one such story from the Innovative Product Development course (MT1303) within the Mechanical Engineering programme.

Who are we?

AIT Project Nexus is a social entrepreneurship project initiated by Hugo Leandersson and Björn Fhager late summer 2012 aiming to produce a platform that would allow rural developing communities in sub-saharan Africa to begin their journey of social, economic and agricultural development. At the core of our offer lies is a photo-voltaic power plant which can supply both onboard facilities and community members with access to green electron, sustainable energy 24/7 without charging a single cent at point of delivery. To realize such an ambitious dream we aim to produce an integrated technological ecosystem including knowledge resources which “teaches a man how to fish” rather than “giving him a fish”.

The core idea is that by diversifying our revenue stream and using frugal innovation, we can deliver a platform for ‘IKEA-style community development’ that quite literally creates new markets for consumers and businesses to grow in. We strongly believe that much of what is shown on the news today about the developing societies paints an unnecessarily dark picture of the true potential of it’s inhabitants and, if only given the right tools, they would quickly be able to improve their living standards and productivity on their own. We believe in “business for good”, and by giving every individual the basic infrastructure and elementary knowledge called for he or she can begin contributing towards global development of sustainable living for all.

The task

At the beginning of the project we presented quite an ambitious task: “To produce a structure with a minimum effective solar panel area of >500m2 that can be manufactured to fit inside standard 40 feet shipping containers and can be deployed without the use of heavy machinery or specialized labour.” We had already conducted several exploratory studies on suitable components and projected size of the unit but as far as the technical design and viable blueprint were concerned we had nothing.

Managing our own expectations was hard as we wanted to get the out of our groups without overloading them with work. Finally, we settled on that the groups should deliver: “a primary concept complete with CAD, basic stress analysis and proven assembly feasibility”. These deliverables were seen by us as the critical factors that needed development for the project to progress.

Working with BTH

What was really good about the BTH students was that already in our introduction meeting they took charge of the idea generation process and quickly produced concrete suggestions for how both teams could work in parallel to cover the most ground. A typical concern when working with students is that they could need someone to ‘hold their hand’ through the process, and we had several internal discussions about how we could best support them without hindering their creativity. Amusingly enough, when the project started we realized that many of our management tactics were not needed as the students had a clear sense of priorities and could allocate themselves into the correct roles with great ease.

Instead, we found ourselves in the unexpected situation were the students would come to us with suggestions and ideas that went above and beyond their roles as engineers. Through the entire two months we received relevant, and critical, questions that helped us on the backend refine our product offering in areas such as user-friendliness, theft protection, and logistics. Both groups had regular check-ins with our engineering coordinator where clear progress and decisions made were presented to us. This gave us the ability to ‘look over their shoulders’ to see how the teams were attacking the problem, and what we found was thorough, methodical, and quite frankly brilliant lines of thinking. This helped instill a high level of trust on both sides and helped us release control of the project to the students to let them put their full potential to use. As the project presentations started to draw near, the halls of AIT became filled with ever increasing anticipation of success.

Det har snackats mycket i korridorerna senaste veckorna om hälsotester och träningsdagböcker. Vad är det som pågår?

Först och främst; vad härligt att snacket går och att intresset för en hälsosammare arbetsplats lyfts upp!  Vi är i full gång med vår kandidatuppsats som handlar om fysisk träning på stillasittande arbetsplatser (2*60 minuter/vecka under 7 veckor) och dess effekter på styrka, kondition, rörlighet, blodtryck och flera andra parametrar och dess positiva effekter för ekonomin på arbetsplatsen.

Hur kom ni på detta?

Under vår utbildning har vi vid flertalet tillfällen stött på alarmerande forskning kring stillasittandets negativa effekter på vår hälsa och hur detta i förlängningen skapar produktionsbortfall och lidande för den enskilda medarbetaren. Detta skapade ett intressera för ämnet och när vi sen gavs möjlighet att genomföra studien hos Blekinge tekniska högskola föll alla bitar på plats. Underbart med en arbetsplats som är intresserade av att visa framfötterna när det gäller en hälsosammare arbetsplats!

På vilket sätt är detta positivt för BTH?

Förbättrad hälsa hos medarbetarna ökar produktiviteten för företaget och förbättrar naturligtvis den enskillda individens välbefinnande. Sett ur ett större perspektiv är ohälsa ett enormt globalt problem och under Världsekonomiskt forum i Davos 2013 var detta en av de prioriterade punkterna då den ekonomiska utvecklingen i världen inte hänger med kostnaderna som medföljer ohälsan. För att vända denna trend handlar det om att företag måste göra omprioriteringar när det gäller vad man lägger pengar på och prioritera hälsa på arbetsplatsen. Att arbeta promotivt i hälsofrågor tror vi kommer bli framtidens absolut bästa investering.

Vad hoppas ni få för resultat?

Naturligtvis hoppas vi på flertalet positiva effekter för våra hårt arbetande adepter. Eftersom studien bara pågår i sju veckor kan vi inte förvänta oss några revolutionerande resultat men troligtvis tillräckligt för att det ska indikera positiva effekter av interventionen.

Spelar verkligen kondition och styrka någon roll på en akademisk arbetsplats där det intellektuella arbetet är i fokus?

ABSOLUT!  En dålig syreupptagningsförmåga kommer per automatik rendera i sämre produktivitet på arbetsplatsen. Man säger att fysiskt inaktiva personer bara kan nyttja maximalt 20-25% av VO2max (syreupptagningsförmåga) för att undvika mjölksyrabildning och detta får till följd att flertalet inaktiva inte är i närheten av att orka jobba en hel arbetsdag utan förmodligen har nog med att hålla sig vakna. En månads arbete på ett år skulle i dessa fall ”försvinna” pga dålig kondition.

Styrkan är även den av stor vikt då flertalet arbetare är mycket stillasittande vilket medför stora risker för skador i nack-, axel/skulder- och rygg-partierna som kan innebära sjukskrivningar i förlängningen. Det finns betydande vetenskaplig evidens bakom att fysisk aktivitet även minskar riskerna för depressiva symtom, ångest, upplevd stress och utbrändhet vilka är mycket vanliga sjukskrivningsorsaker på arbetsplatserna idag. Ett rehabärende som pågår under en sjuårsperiod beräknas mycket lågt kosta runt 1,8 miljoner men att arbeta promotivt och förändra möjligheterna för en hälsosammare arbetsmiljö kostar troligtvis kring 1 % av vad ETT rehabärende kostar, alltså välinvesterade slantar.

Det är många som lite avundsjukt nyfiket vill vara med och vad säger ni till dem?

Be chefen kontakta oss då vi mer än gärna kommer till deras avdelning för att tillsammans skapa bättre förutsättningar för en hälsosam arbetsplats. Våga ställ krav på era chefer – alla är värda en god hälsa och bra förutsättningar för att leverera på topp!

När är ni klara och hur få vi reda på resultatet?

Studien är klar i slutet av maj och naturligtvis kommer vi publicera resultaten på hemsidan för Sektionen för Ingenjörsvetenskap (http://www.bth.se/ing).

Arbetet utförs i samverkan med Blekinge Health Arena.

För mer information: Kontakta Professor Tobias Larsson, Product Development Research Lab (handledare för Malin och Sofie).

Prof. Tim McAloone of DTU in Denmark was faculty opponent, and the grading committee was composed of Prof. Bo Helgeson, BTH, Prof. Annika Olsson, Lund University, and Prof. Tomohiko Sakao of Linköping University.

Tony has conducted his research within several project at BTH in collaboration with industry, and his focus have been to tie the links between sustainability and industrial product development via the concept of product-service systems. In his defense he had to show the width of skills needed to perform research and the scientific dialogue with the opponent was of high value for the audience to listen in to. The session was live web-casted and followed via an online audience.

Find the PhD thesis here: http://www.bth.se/fou/Forskinfo.nsf/Sok/653381fb3537ba80c1257abf0033c5fa!OpenDocument

We congratulate Tony and wish him good luck!

Tony with grading committee and supervisors Tobias Larsson and Göran Broman

[Yan Zhang will do a public presentation of his work in J1630, Friday 14th December 8.15-10.00]

This story is not about a cool graduation trip, but a collaborative research project between Product Development Research Lab (http://www.bth.se/pdrl) at BTH and Volvo Construction Equipment after my fresh graduation from the Masters program in Sustainable Product-Service System Innovation (MSPI, http://www.mspi.se) at BTH.

In this project, my task is to explore and find new ways of designing the sustainable product-service systems and inherent values for Volvo CE to provide the new customer solutions for coal mining industry in China. For that, my footprints were mapped with 4600KM, 60days, 5 cities, 12 mining sites in west of China, hopefully compensating this with improved sustainability in future product-service solutions and their operation.

My daily job is like an ”needfinding spy” to act in different roles for capturing the needs from state-owned mining company, project contractors and different equipment operators. Moreover, I need to work closely together with Volvo’s dealer, service staff and maintenance team for understanding how Volvo supports their customer on mining sites. A real life in mining sites is; getting used to live with sandstorm; no water; be a good actor, and; keep out of the way of hundred machines.

Of course, you can find no Internet and mobile signal at sites. Gender wise; at least I haven’t seen a female but stay with thousands of men and construction machines for one month. Ridding, but respecting, this harsh environment, the customer value, needs, problems and the production process are captured and fully analyzed in my pocket. After that, a customer solution design process will take place in collaboration with BTH and VCE to generate more sustainable customer solutions for these customers.

At Inner Mongolia I was completely taken when I first saw the grassland! Not because how beautiful or attractive as it supposed to be, but how odd the current situation came about in my eyes; hundreds of surface mining sites are living there, countless coal mines are excavating from our mother earth in there. The grassland was a place full of holes like a honeycomb and this all has truly happened. The main process of surface mining is firstly removing trees and grass out of grassland, then the construction equipment strips the soil by a vertical way that dig down around 100-200m until the underground coal be exposed. After that the coal were taken out and transported to power plants in different cities. All these processes are working 24 hours nonstop, day to day and, year after year as we speak.

As I know that many environmentalists argue that the coal mining sites should close immediately since the negative environmental impact from this industry is obvious. But why is the current situation still being maintained, and still running? How many people can understand the reason behind this why? In China, the most electrical energy is generated by coal in the local thermal power plant. Although many people have their general ideas like wind power, solar energy and other way which are more environmental friendly than coal energy, still the question is if these green approaches could directly meet the needs from 1.3 billion people and the second largest economy in the world as of now? The answer is “No”. Obviously, people choose coal energy as adaptive solution since there are lacking other available solutions that can be applied to satisfy their needs in a viable way. Follow a logical flow, coal is used to generate energy and most of our social activities are based on energy consumption. So the over-energy consumption is the enemy actually.

As engineers, what we need to do is not enrol in endless complaining on coal mining but try to find the future sustainable solutions. If that works, our society would like to choose this adaptive way and we can happily see coal mining exploration die out  from the fact that better solutions coming into play.

Again, as an engineer, keep calm and carry on, and I try bringing my part of the puzzle towards the future sustainable society!

All the best,

Yan Zhang, MSPI’12

Related information

A note on the project from Jenny Elfsberg, Director of Emerging Technologies at Volvo Construction Equipment.

Jenny Elfsberg, Volvo CE.

“Thanks to our collaboration with BTH we can utilize student projects, thesis works, research projects for PhD students,  and even short term assignments as this case to get very good support in our transformation from product focused sales to total customer solutions focus with sustainability in focus, but also in other areas. To collaborate with individuals knowing methods for product-service system design, but without deep insight in Volvo operations gives us valuable alternative perspectives sometimes and confirm our own reasoning sometimes. It is definitely an effective and interesting way to increase our knowledge. We also get an opportunity to see how well promising potential employees performs. Our collaboration with BTH is a real win/win partnership – our company is in a very exciting transformational phase which gives BTH good examples for their research and since BTH collaborate with other industries that have already done their shifts from products to services, for example, we can gain knowledge about proven methods instead of inventing everything ourselves.”

For more information, contact Professor Tobias C. Larsson, tobias.larsson@bth.se, Product Development Research Lab.