Designing the Future: Resilient Trans-Disciplinary Design Engineers
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Bath
Department Name: Mechanical Engineering
Abstract
It is readily acknowledged that decisions made in the early design stages influence the product cost, performance, utility and impact on the environment. However, we know that advances in new technologies such as Additive Manufacturing result in compressed design and manufacturing cycles. Smart materials and automation influence the manufacturing system and the need for a data-driven manufacturing value-chain utilising the Internet of Things and Industry 4.0 changes the business models and consequently the entire manufacturing environment. Basically, to meet future manufacturing needs our design and manufacturing tools need to transcend disciplines and industrial sectors.
However, as researchers we tend to focus on on multi-disciplinary engineering (where experts from various disciplines draw on each other knowledge) or inter-disciplinary (where expert knowledge, tools and methods are integrated together to solve a single challenge). It is our view that we need to create new knowledge beyond the single subject of investigation/discipline and provide methods for engineers of the future to use. Our vision is to create this capability with a pipe-line of 'Trans-Disciplinary Design-Engineers' and evolving tools to enable rapid uptake across sectors of enhanced and new manufacturing processes.
To achieve our vision, the heart of our Platform proposal is focussed on the retention and development of our Early Career Research staff. To sustain and expand our talent pipeline, we are providing career management and targeted staff development. This will enable our research staff to leap forward into their next career step and become Trans-Disciplinary Design-Engineers, who have the skills to realise the potential of current and future manufacturing processes and techniques.
The under-pinning research will provide these trans-disciplinary design engineers with a suite of evolving models. The models will be dynamic, data driven and will allow designers to be trans-disciplinary through providing the means to understand new manufacturing process, costs, economics and complete through life decisions at the early stages of a design. Fundamentally changing how 21st century products are designed.
However, as researchers we tend to focus on on multi-disciplinary engineering (where experts from various disciplines draw on each other knowledge) or inter-disciplinary (where expert knowledge, tools and methods are integrated together to solve a single challenge). It is our view that we need to create new knowledge beyond the single subject of investigation/discipline and provide methods for engineers of the future to use. Our vision is to create this capability with a pipe-line of 'Trans-Disciplinary Design-Engineers' and evolving tools to enable rapid uptake across sectors of enhanced and new manufacturing processes.
To achieve our vision, the heart of our Platform proposal is focussed on the retention and development of our Early Career Research staff. To sustain and expand our talent pipeline, we are providing career management and targeted staff development. This will enable our research staff to leap forward into their next career step and become Trans-Disciplinary Design-Engineers, who have the skills to realise the potential of current and future manufacturing processes and techniques.
The under-pinning research will provide these trans-disciplinary design engineers with a suite of evolving models. The models will be dynamic, data driven and will allow designers to be trans-disciplinary through providing the means to understand new manufacturing process, costs, economics and complete through life decisions at the early stages of a design. Fundamentally changing how 21st century products are designed.
Planned Impact
The beneficiaries from this research include the researchers themselves, design companies (SMEs to large scale businesses), Manufacturing Companies, Manufacturing Process Developers and Society (direct and indirect benefits).
People benefits
The researchers on the project will benefit through skills development. Our aim is to develop the engineers and academics of the future. The ability to work with e.g. research experts from different fields, analyse historical data and engage with experts from different disciplines will provide the researchers with skills that can be applied in any area of engineering. This will enable the UK to benefit in the short-term through training engineers. The platform also enable us to be flexible in the way staff are employed. As we know 50% of our workforce are women and often in traditional grants it is difficult to fund part-time working. In our platform we have two women who wish to work part-time, this flexibility provides benefit for the individual as well as society - offering us access to skills we sometimes lose as we are not flexible in offering sustained appointments.
Industry & Societal Benefits
The initial direct beneficiaries include our researchers and our initial project partners (CubikInnovation, Renishaw, Moog and Airbus). However, we have commenced wider engagement with industry at our workshop on 6th June 2017. Once we have created the dynamic models, years 3-5 of the platform will be aimed at widening the industry partners. The benefits they will realise through the creation of 'live evolving integrated design and manufacturing tools' will include
- quicker uptake of new manufacturing processes through the development of trans-disciplinary design engineers
- realisation of whole life value benefits through innovative progressive manufacturing processes reaching their full potential.
- creation of a standard for assessing a Designers Readiness Level for Future Manufacturing. As with Technology and Data Readiness Levels, we the standard can be used for industry to assess their capability to utilise new manufacturing knowledge. This will enable industry to target their efforts where greatest benefit will be realised.
Engaging Future Engineers
The topic integrating Design and Manufacturing utilising data analytics and novel manufacturing processes already gives us an opportunity to engage schoolchildren early in their development. We will actively undertake school engagements each year ensuring the image of manufacturing is one that is an exciting domain to enter. We will focus our activities at primary (key stage 2) children. Although this is a long-term impact, it is important for UK PLC to have design and manufacturing seen in a positive manner by children. We will use the new manufacturing processes and digital models to engage children with manufacturing from the outset.
People benefits
The researchers on the project will benefit through skills development. Our aim is to develop the engineers and academics of the future. The ability to work with e.g. research experts from different fields, analyse historical data and engage with experts from different disciplines will provide the researchers with skills that can be applied in any area of engineering. This will enable the UK to benefit in the short-term through training engineers. The platform also enable us to be flexible in the way staff are employed. As we know 50% of our workforce are women and often in traditional grants it is difficult to fund part-time working. In our platform we have two women who wish to work part-time, this flexibility provides benefit for the individual as well as society - offering us access to skills we sometimes lose as we are not flexible in offering sustained appointments.
Industry & Societal Benefits
The initial direct beneficiaries include our researchers and our initial project partners (CubikInnovation, Renishaw, Moog and Airbus). However, we have commenced wider engagement with industry at our workshop on 6th June 2017. Once we have created the dynamic models, years 3-5 of the platform will be aimed at widening the industry partners. The benefits they will realise through the creation of 'live evolving integrated design and manufacturing tools' will include
- quicker uptake of new manufacturing processes through the development of trans-disciplinary design engineers
- realisation of whole life value benefits through innovative progressive manufacturing processes reaching their full potential.
- creation of a standard for assessing a Designers Readiness Level for Future Manufacturing. As with Technology and Data Readiness Levels, we the standard can be used for industry to assess their capability to utilise new manufacturing knowledge. This will enable industry to target their efforts where greatest benefit will be realised.
Engaging Future Engineers
The topic integrating Design and Manufacturing utilising data analytics and novel manufacturing processes already gives us an opportunity to engage schoolchildren early in their development. We will actively undertake school engagements each year ensuring the image of manufacturing is one that is an exciting domain to enter. We will focus our activities at primary (key stage 2) children. Although this is a long-term impact, it is important for UK PLC to have design and manufacturing seen in a positive manner by children. We will use the new manufacturing processes and digital models to engage children with manufacturing from the outset.
Organisations
- University of Bath (Lead Research Organisation)
- International Society of Transdisciplinary Engineering (ISTE) (Collaboration)
- Renishaw (United Kingdom) (Collaboration, Project Partner)
- Airbus Group (Collaboration)
- Airbus (United Kingdom) (Project Partner)
- Moog Controls Ltd (Project Partner)
- Cubik innovation (Project Partner)
Publications
Nassehi A
(2022)
Daydreaming factories
in CIRP Annals
Lattanzio S
(2021)
Concepts of transdisciplinary engineering: a transdisciplinary landscape
in International Journal of Agile Systems and Management
Lattanzio S
(2020)
Transdisciplinarity within the academic engineering literature
in International Journal of Agile Systems and Management
Kharlamov A
(2020)
Limited evidence for servitisation in UK publishing: an empirical analysis
in International Journal of Business Environment
Sajdakova J
(2022)
Proposal of a Self-Assessment Competency Framework for Transdisciplinary Engineering
in Journal of Industrial Integration and Management
Spuzic Sead
(2024)
A contribution to improving clarity in transdisciplinary creation, sharing and application of knowledge.
in Journal of Multidisciplinary Research
Gooding H
(2022)
Characterising the transdisciplinary research approach
in Product Management & Development
Kharlamov A
(2020)
The impact of servitization and digitization on productivity and profitability of the firm: a systematic approach
in Production Planning & Control
Description | Transdisciplinary is a term which can cause confusion. In research, it is often helpful to have a definition where research can be undertaken and we are comparing like with like. One of our outputs identifies that for Transdisciplinarity within Engineering there is no single definition but a landscape of concepts. This landscape will assist researchers to identify where they sit based on context, situation and other factors etc. This finding will be very important for the research and in time industry partners to enable an analysis of how transdisciplinary they are or need to be depending on context, time, project etc. The other key funding is levels of disciplinarity that occur at different project lifecycle stages. This classification is of use to those managing projects and in particular stakeholder engagement and whether Transdisciplinary working is needed. |
Exploitation Route | The landscape can be used by researchers to map where they are as well as used in our TREND index as a start point to assist industry to ascertain whether they are or need to be Transdisciplinary and where they are on their journey |
Sectors | Aerospace Defence and Marine Agriculture Food and Drink Chemicals Construction Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software) Education Electronics Energy Environment Healthcare Government Democracy and Justice Manufacturing including Industrial Biotechology Pharmaceuticals and Medical Biotechnology Retail Transport |
Description | Member of EPSRC Manufacturing Strategic Advisory Board |
Geographic Reach | National |
Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
Impact | The EPSRC Manufacturing the Future has wide ranging impacts - being on the committee is advisory and one cannot map exact impacts (easily) to the SAT |
URL | https://epsrc.ukri.org/about/people/?selectedCategories=Group%252ESATs%2520and%2520other%2520advisor... |
Description | Multidisciplinary Standards ISO/IEC - On-going Aydin Nassehi. Participating in the multidisciplinary standards (ISO/IEC) group that is developing the standard smart manufacturing reference model to move them toward transdisciplinarity |
Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
Policy Influence Type | Membership of a guideline committee |
Description | Presentation to Postgraduates in Brazil |
Geographic Reach | South America |
Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
Description | President of the International Society of Transdisciplinary Engineering |
Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
URL | https://intsoctransde.org/?page_id=216 |
Description | Training postgraduate students to have an awareness of Transdisciplinary Engineering. |
Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
Description | APPS CDT at Bath - PhD - Enabling effective Transdisciplinary Working with the Automotive Sector |
Amount | £85,000 (GBP) |
Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 09/2020 |
End | 09/2024 |
Description | Made Smarter Innovation - People-Led Digitalisation |
Amount | £5,037,458 (GBP) |
Funding ID | EP/V062042/1 |
Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 08/2021 |
End | 02/2025 |
Description | University studentships |
Amount | £70,000 (GBP) |
Organisation | University of Surrey |
Sector | Academic/University |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 01/2022 |
End | 01/2025 |
Description | International Society of Transdisciplinary Engineering |
Organisation | International Society of Transdisciplinary Engineering (ISTE) |
Country | Netherlands |
Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
PI Contribution | ISTE has been struggling as a community to agree on the bounds and definitions of Transdisciplinary Engineering. The research from the platform has provided them a paper describing the landscape of TE and this will be used to map further research across the international members of ISTE. |
Collaborator Contribution | The partners have engaged in surveys and responses to build the landscape. |
Impact | Transdisciplinary |
Start Year | 2020 |
Description | airbus |
Organisation | Airbus Group |
Department | Airbus Operations |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Private |
PI Contribution | Working on people skills - but due to COVID early stages |
Collaborator Contribution | Providing access to Subject matter experts |
Impact | Heading towards Transdisciplinary |
Start Year | 2017 |
Description | renishaw |
Organisation | Renishaw PLC |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Private |
PI Contribution | Updates on research findings and requests for future studies, |
Collaborator Contribution | Access to Subject matter experts |
Impact | Limited activities due to COVID and focus of their activities |
Start Year | 2017 |
Description | ARUP passenger Airport - looking for future engineering skills in a digital world |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
Results and Impact | Our strategy is to engage the wider industry sector to gradually get buy-in on why Transdisciplinary working/design engineers are required. We are working with companies such as ARUP (Building Information Management) and the Institute of Asset Management to have regular articles to commence the industry engagement in parallel to the eraly research activities. In summary the intended purpose is to engage the wider industrial community (i.e. non partners) with our research from the early stages. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
URL | https://www.passengerterminaltoday.com/features/the-age-of-total-design.html |
Description | Article in International Society of Transdisciplinary Engineering Newsletter |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Other audiences |
Results and Impact | Focus was to introduce the platform work and raise our international profile. This was disseminated to upto 100 academics that are engaged with the yearly conference on Transdisciplinary Engineering. Multiple newsletter articles to be raising our profile |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019,2020 |
URL | https://intsoctransde.org/ |
Description | February 2019 - Institute of Asset Management - Holistic Working |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Our strategy is to engage the wider industry sector to gradually get buy-in on why Transdisciplinary working/design engineers are required. We are working with companies such as ARUP (Building Information Management) and the Institute of Asset Management to have regular articles to commence the industry engagement in parallel to the early research activities. In summary the intended purpose is to engage the wider industrial community (i.e. non partners) with our research from the early stages. This article focussed specifically on defining what Transdisciplinary working is. Holistic Working, S Lattanzio, Pg 26 Institute of Asset Management Magazine - February 2019 . It is a members only magazine, with IAM having 2500 members globally. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
URL | http://www.theIAM.org |
Description | Gopsill J - June 2018 - AutoDesk University - London |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
Results and Impact | Presentation at AutoDesk Conference/Workshop UK - wider engagement on TRansdisciplinary working |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
Description | Gopsill J - June 2018 - AutoDesk University Nov 2018 - AutoDesk Workshop/Conference |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
Results and Impact | Presentation at AutoDesk Conference/Workshop Las Vegas - wider engagement on TRansdisciplinary working |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
Description | Hosting the International Conference on Transdisciplinary Engineering July 2021 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Other audiences |
Results and Impact | The conference is targeted at leading edge research in Transdisciplinary Engineering. There are currently over 100 authors on approx. 70 papers. The keynotes are being organised by Bath and showcasing EPSRC/ESCR funded research as well as international researchers. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
URL | https://www.teconference.net/ |
Description | Institute of Asset Management - Members Magazine |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
Results and Impact | Article on operational efficiency linking with Transdisciplinary working. This is part of a programme of sustained engagement, leading to the IAM supporting our Centre bid on People-Led Digitalisation (builds on our platform research) and a £80K in-kind commitment and full engagement. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
Description | June 2018 - Connected Everything - Alex Kharlamov |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Other audiences |
Results and Impact | To present our project to a wider audience of academia and industrialists - mainly a briefing session. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
URL | https://connectedeverything.ac.uk/events/conference-2018/ |
Description | One of 10 people selected to talk at a seminar at the Centre of International Transdisciplinary Research to discuss the proposal of a Transdisciplinary Chair for education |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | The point of the event is to debate and discuss the logistics of what a formal education for transdisciplinary would look like in both Universities and at the United Nations. I will present the following 10 points, as well as, discuss research we have been undertaking over the past couple of years. What would a Transdisciplinary chair look like in theory and practical implementation? 1: A chair that educates that transdisciplinary is complementary, not competitive with mono-disciplinarity. We still need the values, approaches, theories and ideas of monodisciplinary, we will always need monodisciplinary. Conversely, we do not need to use transdisciplinary all the time. We need more understanding of specific context use, application and practice of transdisciplinary. 2: A chair that shows that transdisciplinary is not arrived to by the bringing together of participants from broad or different subject matters, rather, transdisciplinary is arrived to when different professions, social sectors, disciplines and stakeholders come together to provide solutions for complex problems. To engage in transdisciplinarity includes transcendence, integration and involvement of various stakeholders. 3: A chair that understands the epistemology of transdisciplinary, one individual cannot be transdisciplinary, rather, their competencies, abilities, behaviours and traits enable them to work in a transdisciplinary way when they engage in collective and collaborative work. 4: A chair who understands the institutional, publication and scientific challenges and barriers to transdisciplinary working and who shares these challenges openly. We have a publication system that uses monodisciplinary values, rigour, methods, and principles to assess the value of work from the disciplinarity's. 5: A chair who promotes the use of transdisciplinary for ethical and moral reasons. The term transdisciplinary is increasingly being cited year after year, and with researchers using the term to add practical relevance to their work, it is unclear now what the real transdisciplinary is and or means. Each discipline retracts the term transdisciplinary back into the boundaries of its silo, changing and adapting parts of the concept to suit what they most familiarise or resonate with. For instance, Max-Neef recently has been identified for plagiarizing Erich Jantsch's transdisciplinarity, the reason he did so is because he found it too complicated and therefore reduced the science down into something he understood. We need a chair who plays a key role in not engaging in concept convergence or stopping concept convergence from occurring. 6: A chair that promotes the right forms to assess and evaluate whether transdisciplinarity is happening or not. Bibliometric forms of analysis are biased and provide problems, we cannot tell whether someone is engaging in TD or not by just looking at their publications. How do we develop more understanding about if TD can measured? And if it can, what does that look like in practice? 7: A chair that attempts to reduce the bias and professional stigma of TD. It is not uncommon for researchers to be told that engaging with TD is considered "career suicide" and that no journals want to publish anything related to TD and/or ID. How do we train future researchers so that they have the necessary skills and knowledge to navigate the professional complexity that comes with being engaged in TD research? One individual cannot be a master or an expert in several disciplines, as Morin stated TD does not strive for a mastery of several disciplines. Instead, individuals should be able to adapt to the context of other disciplines and learn to integrate and transcend disciplinary boundaries, when necessary. Perhaps if we address this logic of TD we can remove some of the stigma attached to it. 8: A chair that facilitates discussion about how to prepare the university to provide a transdisciplinary education. It is clear that younger generations are showing a propensity to TD kinds of work, reports from places like the World Bank show that now Gen-Z are more likely to be skilled in more than one industry, or that they move between jobs more frequently. How do we prepare them then for this kind of future? 9: A chair that understands transdisciplinary from all angles, transdisciplinarity has many potential applications in the fields of leadership, sustainable development, environmental sustainability, philosophy, business management, corporate social responsibility, ethics, organisational and occupational psychology, team science and so forth. If transdisciplinary is to be, transdisciplinary in and within itself, we need to understand how and where transdisciplinary presents itself and the many different names that it has. 10: A chair that looks at and prioritises real-world applications. The word transdisciplinary was mentioned 100+ times in the European Union Horizon's funding call for funding handbook. A search for transdisciplinary in the United Nations only brings back 19 results. What are we doing here? Whilst it is necessary to develop the foundations of transdisciplinary in theory, we also need to focus on engagement with international collaborations, organisations and institutions to learn more about how outreach can be done and impact can be generated. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
Description | Presentation on TD to AgResearch - NZ agricultural science, innovation organisation. |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
Results and Impact | 40 min presentation/workshop and then extensive question and answer session with12 people from AgResearch. AgResearch is interested in learning about Transdisciplinary work, which it sees as central to the New Zealand Agricultural sector. AgResearch is seeking to enhance the value, productivity and profitability of New Zealand's pastoral, agri-food and agri-technology sectors. They have actively engaged with the research work and committed their time towards supporting Hannah Goodings work in developing tools to identify differences between MD, ID and TD projects and workers. Plans are made for a visit for Hannah to NZ to capture field data and give talks to business and government. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
URL | https://www.agresearch.co.nz/ |
Description | Presenting Transdisciplinary Engineering and Platform work engagement with Columbia - Industry and Academia |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Other audiences |
Results and Impact | A three month secondment to Colombia to engage with University, Policy Makers and Industry to discuss TREND platform activities. Outcome is running a training session for a mix of UG/PG/PGR students. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
Description | September 2018 - Industry Engagement - Thales HQ |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
Results and Impact | Seminar at Thales on design research projects included a summary of the background, motivation and research challenges of transdisciplinary engineering design and a synopsis of the project. Venue Thales HQ in Reading, September 2018, National team, 11-50 people. Industry/Business, interest in the project and getting involved. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
Description | Training PhD students in Transdisciplinarity |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | This was a specific training session to introduce the CDT cohorts from automotive to transdisciplinarity, approximately 10-15 attendees per session. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020,2021,2022 |