Introduction
Sustainability is an important performance indicator of a system, be it – a product, manufacturing system, service system, integrated product-service system – and requires to be planned for during the design stages. A number of computer-based tools are available for sustainable design, such as a CAD-integrated DFE workbench tool (Roche et al., Reference Roche, Man and Browne2001), use-phase analysis-matrix for environmental impact estimation (Oberender and Birkhofer, Reference Oberender and Birkhofer2003), or the more commercially prevalent EcoIt,SimaPro, and Sustainable minds. However, these mainly support either a specific design activity, such as evaluation, or a specific life cycle stage, such as use-phase, and address one, such as environment, and not all three dimensions of sustainability. Therefore, there is an unaddressed area in supporting the design of sustainable systems in holistically addressing the various design activities, that is, generate-evaluate-modify-select (Srinivasan and Chakrabarti, Reference Srinivasan and Chakrabarti2010a) performed during the design process across each design stage (Pahl and Beitz, Reference Pahl and Beitz1996), for the various life cycle stages of a system, with respect to all three dimensions of sustainability (Elkington, Reference Elkington1997). Furthermore, it has been reported that the implementation of methods and tools in the design process aids in performing an array of design tasks leading to the generation of a larger number of ideas (Lopez-Mesa, Reference Lopez-Mesa2003) and an overall improvement in the design outcome (Chakrabarti and Lindemann, Reference Chakrabarti and Lindemann2016). Büyüközkan et al. (Reference Büyüközkan, Direllí and Baykasoglu2004) reported on a number of methods and tools for concurrent new product development and discussed internet-based collaboration as a promising platform towards inclusivity and agility. However, current design methods and tools, such as “Pinngate” (Sauer et al., Reference Sauer, Degenstein, Chahadi and Birkhofer2006), Competence support in Design and Development “CiDaD” (Ponn and Lindemann, Reference Ponn and Lindemann2006), the “Landscape of Methods” (Strasser and Grösel, Reference Strasser and Grösel2004), the “Design Exchange” (Roschuni et al., Reference Roschuni, Agogino and Beckman2011, Reference Roschuni, Kramer, Zhang, Zakskorn and Agogino2015), “IDEO Designkit” (Kelley et al., Reference Kelley, Woren and Kelley2013), “WikID” by Industrial Design Engineering at TU Delft (Vroom and Horváth, Reference Vroom and Horváth2014), or “Amsterdam mediaLAB Design Method Toolkit” (Amsterdam, MediaLab., 2016), act mainly as repositories of methods and tools that are provided as an unconnected set of possibilities, without any systematic design process or methodology to bind them together across an overarching platform. Feng (Reference Feng2005) suggested a web-based collaboration between process planning and preliminary design activity and noted that a knowledge-base is a critical element of such a platform, while Costa et al. (Reference Costa, Lima, Sarraipa and Jardim-Gonçalves2016) stressed on the need for an appropriate ontology-driven platform for knowledge-sharing that could be intelligent for approaching design. Thus, a support that can help orient the design intent toward sustainability and recommend pertinent knowledge, through a user-friendly computer interface, is currently missing. This is the key motivation for the development of the InDeaTe tool described in this paper.
InDeaTe (I nnovation D esign Database and Template) is a knowledge-driven, computer-based, holistic support for design of sustainable systems, be these products, manufacturing systems, service systems, or a combination of these. It supports environmental, legislative, and competitive factors, during the design process, by (i) imbibing life cycle thinking into the design process through a generic design process template, (ii) incorporating sustainability definitions and their measures, collated from the literature, into the process for consideration, and (iii) aiding in the selection and use of appropriate design methods and tools from an expandable, ontologically tagged design database. This paper presents the theory and background behind the InDeaTe tool and reports the empirical findings from six case studies, conducted in two countries for two versions of the tool, to assess its effectiveness.
Literature review
Supporting life cycle thinking approach and sustainability
The “Brundtland Report” defined Sustainable Development (WCED, Reference WCED1987: p. 43), including the dimensions of society and economy (Elkington, Reference Elkington1997) within the ambit of sustainability, thereby expanding well beyond “traditional environmentalism”. To assess holistic progress, the need for “review of the whole system as well as its part” (Harris et al., Reference Harris2001) and regard of the various implications “connected with every stage of a project's life cycle” (Vezzoli and Manzini, Reference Vezzoli and Manzini2008) have been recommended. Thus, consideration of the entire life cycle of the system, termed as “Life Cycle Thinking”, is an approach that is not only important for the assessment of issues in attaining sustainability, but also as a means for addressing these issues. It is the life cycle of the system, rather than the system in itself, that determines the overall sustainability of the system (Bras, Reference Bras1997; Bhamra et al., Reference Bhamra, Evans, McAloone, Simon, Poole and Sweatman1999; Kota and Chakrabarti, Reference Kota and Chakrabarti2014). The life cycle is determined during the design stages (Srinivasan and Chakrabarti, Reference Srinivasan and Chakrabarti2010b; Kota and Chakrabarti, Reference Kota and Chakrabarti2014); therefore, in order to enable significant improvement in the sustainability of a system, a life cycle oriented, systematic approach is needed to be applied during the design process itself where most decisions are made on the system's life cycle (Ullman, 2003).
Over 80 sustainability “Definitions” are currently in use; each is open to interpretation, thereby requiring appropriation, with potential for use across a wide range of causes (Elliot, Reference Elliot1999). Sustainability “Principles” are less ambiguous and constitute the fundamental concepts that form the “basis for action” (Glavic and Lukman, Reference Glavic and Lukman2007) toward “assessment activities” (Hardi and Zdan, Reference Hardi and Zdan1997). Besides principles and definitions, policymakers also need “Methods” for assessing the effects of development so as to determine whether a development trend is sustainable or not (IAEA, 2005). “Indicators” offer that much needed appropriation by providing “comprehensive information about the systems shaping sustainable development” (IISD, 2012), thereby helping to “identify possible directions of changes” (Singh et al., Reference Singh2009). Indicators help not only in measuring and calibrating progress toward sustainable development goals, but also in providing early warnings for prevention, sound decision-making, and effective action (UN-CSD, 2007). While sustainability Definitions imply the context and issues of what “sustainability” is, Principles provide frameworks or guidelines for how to address these issues; Indicators are measures that indicate the state of a system with respect to the pillars of sustainability. Together, these facets communicate the common vision of sustainability of a system and help clarify the design intent and develop requirements and solutions.
Supporting design methods and tools in practice
In the 1980s onwards, a number of significant contributions were made towards the development of Engineering Design Methodology, such as by Hubka (Reference Hubka1982), Pahl and Beitz (Reference Pahl and Beitz1996), Cross (Reference Cross2000), Pugh (Reference Pugh1991), Ulrich and Eppinger (Reference Ulrich and Eppinger1995) or French (Reference French1999); a further list of contributions have been noted by Cross (Reference Cross1993). The common thread across these is the agreement that design is an iterative process of activities performed and decisions taken across several, overlapping stages, and that the use of design methods “brings rational procedures” (Cross, Reference Cross2000) into the design process. Several other studies, however, found that relatively few methods were widely and systematically used, with many methods adapted using ad hoc modifications and abandoned mid-way into the design process (Lopez-Mesa, Reference Lopez-Mesa2003). More recently, Chakrabarti and Lindemann (Reference Chakrabarti and Lindemann2016) reported, based on results from large-scale studies across industry, that the correct use of appropriate design methods and tools resulted in significant positive impact on industrial practice; use of design methods and tools not only systematized the process but also improved the design outcome. The appropriate selection of methods was found to be a key factor for successful use of methods (Ritzén and Lindahl, Reference Ritzén and Lindahl2001; Ernzer and Birkhofer, Reference Ernzer and Birkhofer2002).
Web-based portals, such as “Pinngate” (Sauer et al., Reference Sauer, Degenstein, Chahadi and Birkhofer2006), and computer-based tools, such as Competence in Design and Development “CiDaD” (Ponn and Lindemann, Reference Ponn and Lindemann2006) and Landscape of Methods (Strasser and Grösel, Reference Strasser and Grösel2004), have been developed to support the use of design methods in practice. Other more recent, web-based design supports include the Design Exchange (Roschuni et al., Reference Roschuni, Agogino and Beckman2011, Reference Roschuni, Kramer, Zhang, Zakskorn and Agogino2015), the Amsterdam mediaLAB Design Method Toolkit (Amsterdam, MediaLab., 2016), the IDEO Designkit (Kelley et al., Reference Kelley, Woren and Kelley2013), WikID by Industrial Design Engineering at TU Delft (Vroom and Horváth, Reference Vroom and Horváth2014), the Korea University Design Method Toolkit (KIID, 2014), the Google Design Sprint Kit (Banfield et al., Reference Banfield, Lombardo and Wax2015), Design and Emotion Society Library (McDonagh et al., Reference McDonagh, Hekkert, van Erp and Gyi2004), Usability.gov and Usability Body of Knowledge (Usability Professionals’ Association, 2005). Most of these are databases tagged to design stages or micro-cycles, with descriptions and categorizations, but with little clarity on the specific improvement about in the design outcome as a result of use of these methods. Tools such as mind-mapping or Idea-Inspire (Chakrabarti, et al., Reference Chakrabarti, Sarkar, Leelavathamma and Nataraju2005), on the other hand, focus on specific improvements (e.g. design synthesis) but are not integrated within the design stages or life cycle. What is ideally needed is a combination of both, as discussed in the section “Discussion and inferences from the literature”.
Discussion and inferences from the literature
The above review of literature indicates two major needs. The first is the need for inculcating life cycle thinking for design for sustainability (DfS). The second is the need for following a systematic design process that integrates the selection and use of appropriate methods and tools during the process. However, these two strands of research have rarely been brought together. In order to address this gap, the work reported in this paper proposes a support tool with the following requirements:
1. Integration of life cycle thinking within a systematic design process;
2. Selection of appropriate methods, with respect to the contexts and benefits of use; and
3. Appropriate use of the selected methods, with clear instructions on their procedure from defined start to desired end points, as well as the clarification of resources and training needed as a prerequisite to their use.
The support tool is expected to provide an integrated platform that would allow movement through design stages and activities, supported by appropriate methods and tools, to reduce the cognitive burden on designers.
Research framework and methodology
Ontological framework for organizing design knowledge
InDeaTe has been developed based on an empirically validated, holistic design framework – ACLODS (Kota and Chakrabarti, Reference Kota and Chakrabarti2014). ACLODS is an acronym for design dimensions, namely, Activities, Criteria, Life cycle phases, Outcomes, Design stages, and Structure. These dimensions, variously reflected in design methodologies and observed across empirical studies, have been found to be consistent and essential for designing the life cycle of a system (Kota and Chakrabarti, Reference Kota and Chakrabarti2014). The dimensions are defined as follows;
Activities are performed during the design process on the Outcomes (see below); the activities used in InDeaTe are: Generate (G), Evaluate (E), Modify (M), and Select (S).
Criteria are considerations for a design. For DfS, the key criterion is sustainability, which can be described using the TBL, that is, sustainability dimensions of the environment, society and economy (Elkington, Reference Elkington1997), and can be quantified using appropriate indicators.
Life cycle phases of a design are the contributors to the sustainability of the system being designed. The phases consist of processes, where each process impacts the ecology, economy, and society, influencing their sustainability. The phases are Materials (Mat), Production or Manufacturing (Mfg), Distribution, Storage and Transportation (Dist), Use (Use), and After-Use (AUse).
Outcomes of design are either requirements, that is, what needs to be satisfied by the system being designed (needs, demands, or wishes to be fulfilled by the system), or solutions, that is, how the requirements could be fulfilled, at different levels of abstraction from concept to embodiment. These outcomes, driven by the criteria, emerge and co-evolve through the stages of design.
Design stages are the four broad temporal divisions within the design process, Task Clarification, Conceptual Design, Embodiment Design, and Detail Design, as prescribed in many design methodologies such as Pahl and Beitz (Reference Pahl and Beitz1996). Each stage has well-defined deliverables that act as input for the next stage.
Structure of a design are the entities that the designer conceptualizes and embodies during the design process. In products and manufacturing systems, structure is often associated with a set of physical objects; empirical studies, however, reveal that an abstract structure exists even at the conceptual stage (Acharya and Chakrabarti, Reference Acharya and Chakrabarti2017).
The ACLODS (Kota and Chakrabarti, Reference Kota and Chakrabarti2014) ontology supports the uniform representation of all design-related information available in the database of the tool proposed, so that this information can be utilized in appropriate contexts within the design process.
Methodology for the assessment of the effectiveness of InDeaTe tool
For assessing the effectiveness of InDeaTe, a series of design exercises were conducted. The design concepts developed in the exercises were compared by experts or clients for improvement in sustainability and with additional user feedback collected via questionnaire on other aspects of the design process. The effectiveness of the tool was assessed against the following criteria:
(i) Number of requirements generated and percentage of sustainable requirements within these;
(ii) Number of solutions generated, percentage of sustainable solutions among these, and percentage of sustainable solutions selected among the total generated as final concepts;
(iii) Number of sustainability Definitions and Principles selected;
(iv) Number of sustainability Indicators selected and percentage considered or used in generating requirements;
(v) Number of Design Methods and Tools selected in all stages of the design process, and percentage considered or used in the design process.
The rationale for using the above criteria is the following criteria. Criteria (i) & (ii) should help assess improvements in sustainability considerations due to the use of InDeaTe tool; while Criteria (iii), (iv), & (v) should help assess the contribution of the various types of knowledge provided by the InDeaTe tool during the design process. It is the percentage of use of this knowledge in the design process, as opposed to the knowledge initially selected from the tool, that reflects the efficiency of the tool in supporting the design of sustainable systems.
Description of the InDeaTe tool
InDeaTe is a computer-based tool developed for supporting the design of sustainable products, manufacturing, and service systems. It approaches design process holistically – from problem identification and solution seeking, through concept selection and detailing, to the development of documents – all critical to design practice. The tool has two modules: a generic design process Template (section “Ontological framework for organizing design knowledge”) that imbibes life cycle thinking into the design process and a Design Database (section “Methodology for the assessment of effectiveness of InDeaTe tool”) of sustainability Definitions, Principles and Indicators (SDPI), as well as design methods and tools, all ontologically tagged using the dimensions of ACLODS.
The three main functionalities of the tool are as follows:
(i) to provide knowledge on sustainable design as a process provided by the Template by training the user with ACLODS as an ontology for tagging of its database; and on sustainability definitions and measures, and design methods and tools provided in its database;
(ii) to support the on-going design process through pertinent, ontologically tagged information and aid in performing design activities with the use of appropriate methods and tools from the database; and
(iii) to support design research and retrospection on the design process by creating design documents that captures the decisions and rationale of a project.
InDeaTe is envisioned as a web-based, open-source support with a crowd-sourced, expandable repository.
InDeaTe design process template
The InDeaTe design process Template is generic in its applicability across several types of systems and domains. It supports life cycle thinking at the intersections of life cycle phases (L) and the stages of design (D) and prompts iterative design Activities (A) for sustainability as Criterion (C). Figure 1 illustrates these intersections in the process that guides the formulation of requirements and solutions, that is, Outcomes (O) that are further developed into concepts and embodiments, that is, Structure (S) that are more sustainable. The template recommends steps or guidelines, outlined in Table 1, which direct the design activities and guide the use of the database.
Fig. 1. InDeaTe design process template.
Table 1. Steps of the InDeaTe design process template
InDeaTe Design Database
The Design Database in InDeaTe supports the design process with “sustainability Definition, Principles and Indicators” (SDPI) information to help clarify the design intent, in terms of the aspects of sustainability of the system to be improved; and the “methods and tools” information for its appropriate selection and use to perform the iterative activities. The database is organized with respect to the dimensions of sustainability, that is, Triple Bottom Line (TBL) (Elkington, Reference Elkington1997) and the ACLODS ontology (Kota and Chakrabarti, Reference Kota and Chakrabarti2014), so that relevant information can be easily accessed, understood, and used. This allows filtering of information from the database to the designers, as per the sustainability goals and the focus of the system being designed. The comprehensive list of sustainability definitions and principles in the InDeaTe database helps represent the generic sustainable development perspectives of the design project through the selection of one or more of these to guide the design process. The sustainability indicators in the database are specific measures for the selected definitions and principles that aid help evaluation for decision-making.
The design methods and tools database aids in the appropriate selection of methods and tools for the specific Activities, Life cycle phases, and Stages during the design process. The database also aids the designers in the appropriate use of the methods and tools selected.
User-interface and working of InDeaTe
InDeaTe guides a design project using its generic process Template and its recommended steps, see Table 1. As the project progresses from task clarification to conceptual design and so on, the designer searches the databases in the prescribed steps to identify appropriate sustainability definitions, principles, and indicators for the generation of requirements. Pertinent design methods and tools, filtered against the designer's selection of problem type, TBL scope, Life cycle phase, design stage, and design activity, are suggested by the tool to aid the design process. The tool provides an input–output representation for each method/tool, along with its objectives, structure or means of use, requirements, benefits, and costs. Furthermore, each method is linked to case studies that act as examples of the contexts and use of the methods. The steps followed and the design information used are automatically recorded as the tool is used, thereby providing a documentation of the process chosen to be carried out.
Case studies
To assess the effectiveness of InDeaTe, six comparative design case studies, each with two outcomes – one with and the other without the use of InDeaTe, were undertaken. In the studies where design sessions “without use of InDeaTe” cases were unavailable, design outcomes from the session using the tool were compared with the existing designs. The effectiveness of the tool was evaluated by analyzing the re-designed outcomes with respect to the satisfaction of requirements and the improvement of sustainability considerations by users or clients, and by assessing the application of the tool through retrospective questionnaire answered, by the participants in the design teams in these studies, on their experience of using the tool, see Criteria (i)–(v) in the section “Research framework and methodology”.
Two empirical design sessions with three case studies each were conducted in June and October 2015, in India and USA, respectively, with design teams comprising students from both the countries. Each case study was on one of three types of design problems – products, manufacturing systems, or service systems – with the intent of improving the sustainability of an existing design. The deliverables of each study were the iterative list of requirements generated, sketches of solution, concept selected and embodied, documentation of the design methods and tools used, and answers on retrospective questionnaire. The teams designing with the use of InDeaTe tool used both the step-by-step template prescribed in Table 1 and the design database discussed in the section “InDeaTe design database”. Thus, each session included introduction of the problem brief and tool to the team concerned, the design exercise spanning several days and across various stages of design as time permitted, and evaluation of the effectiveness of the tool.
Case study session 1 with InDeaTe v1.0 in India
The three re-design problems for empirical study were identified from existing and in-use design solutions in India. Designs conferred as innovative were selected and the problem brief designed by members of the National Innovation Foundation (NIF) India who had worked closely with the innovators of these solutions. Each problem description, along with details of the associated empirical study (team composition, duration of study, design stages addressed) is elaborated in Table 2.
Table 2. Design exercises
The main findings and observations from the first study are the following:
• Use of InDeaTe expanded existing concept space and resulted in the generation of a larger number of feasible solutions.
• Use of InDeaTe improved sustainability considerations in the solutions; the re-designed solutions systematically incorporated a number of sustainability strategies.
• Teams appreciated the structure and resource accessibility of the tool.
• A lack of training and time for understanding the template and in clarity on how to use the database were observed.
• A trend in designers using certain methods with which they were already well versed was observed.
Therefore, the key areas of improvement, leading to development of InDeaTe v2.0, were identified as follows:
• Expand the database with more methods and tools for supporting different scenarios;
• Add information on time and skill requirement for use, and domains of application;
• Develop training material on the use of InDeaTe template and databases;
• Improve the UI of the tool to support intuitive navigation.
Case study session 2 with InDeaTe v2.0 in the USA
A second study was conducted, in October 2015, to assess the effectiveness of InDeaTe v2.0, to assess its improvements above and its applicability in a different geo-cultural context. Three design problems relevant in the USA, outlined in Table 2, all with existing solutions, were selected for re-design aimed at improving their sustainability.
The main findings and observations are the following:
• Use of InDeaTe tool improved the existing concept space, in agreement with results from the first study.
• Use of InDeaTe tool improved the sustainability considerations in the re-designed solutions compared to the existing designs used as benchmark, also in agreement with results from the first study.
• Teams continued to appreciate the structure and resource accessibility of the tool.
• The presence of a team member well versed with the tool and template allowed smooth navigation of the design process and the computer-based tool.
• The trend of designers using certain methods with which they were already well versed continued, but the method representation newly incorporated was found helpful for selection of methods.
• The UI of InDeaTe v2.0 was found to be easy for referencing the template and the database.
Overall results from the empirical studies
The design data, collated from the design processes in the series of exercises at the USA, for assessing the effectiveness of InDeaTe, as illustrated by the example in Figure 2, highlights its influence on the design outcomes. The tool not only contributes towards consideration of design knowledge, but also to its application in the design process, across the various types of systems, as seen in Figure 3.
Fig. 2. Design data with use of the InDeaTe tool (product design of OS board-making unit).
Fig. 3. Percolation of design knowledge by use of the InDeaTe tool across re-designed systems.
The criteria discussed in the section “Methodology for assessment of effectiveness of InDeaTe tool” have been used to analyze the design exercises with the following results:.
i. The percentage of sustainable requirements out of the total number of requirements generated, as observed with the use of the tool, was within the range of 40%–45%. This elucidates the influence of the tool in improving the consideration of sustainability through the development of sustainable requirements.
ii. The percentage of sustainable solutions amongst the total number of solutions generated was within the range of 40%–50%; while it dipped to below 40% in the final concept selected. This indicates that the tool also enables the incorporation of sustainability into the resulting design.
iii. The number of Sustainability Definitions and Principles selected from the tool were between two and five in number, with mostly a common set for each type of system to be designed. The number of selections in itself did not confer any evidence towards the effectiveness of the tool. However, these selections translate into a set of filtered Indicators, and a complementary relationship was observed between the percentage of consideration of sustainability indicators and the generation of sustainability requirements.
iv. The percentage of Sustainability Indicators considered or used in generating requirements (Fig. 2) was high, with up to 80% of the total referred from the tool. In spite of the comparative availability of pertinent sustainability indicators being fewer in product design (Fig. 3), as opposed to those for manufacturing or service systems, the percentage of its percolation into the design process and its eventual outcome, that is, 63.6%, was the highest. The provision of sustainability Indicators by the tool reflects on the positive effect of this knowledge, of impact, and its measure, in improving design through the development of requirements to be addressed.
v. Similarly, up to 40% of the design methods and tools selected from the InDeaTe database was observed to have been used in the design process for products, and a similar value of 37% in services. However, the lowest of 27.3% of use of design methods in the process was observed for manufacturing systems. The use methods and tools in the design process indicates the current capability of the tool to support the design of systems and implies the need of further investigation.
Summary and conclusions
Design is a vehicle for sustainable development. Life cycle thinking is an important instrument with which sustainability considerations can be imbibed into a design, while using appropriate tools and methods to aid designers perform design activities in each design stage to achieve specific goals. The novelty of the InDeaTe tool lies in its integration of the life cycle phases of a design within each stage of design and its supports for carrying each design stage with relevant design methods and tools that are integrated to the template through its two design databases. Two versions of InDeaTe have been empirically tested, where comparative analysis of the effectiveness of InDeaTe has been evaluated with respect to five assessment criteria using six case studies. The results indicate that the InDeaTe tool has the potential to support a systematic design process and aid in the successful incorporation of sustainability considerations across its multiple dimensions through solution development. The use of InDeaTe offered the design teams a structured process for design and resulted in the development of comprehensive lists of requirements and in turn, in the generation of a large number of solutions. Also, the use of tool reflected positively on the percolation of design knowledge with respect to sustainability indicators to clarify intent and in use of design methods and tools to perform the design process. It may be concluded, therefore, that InDeaTe promises to be an effective tool for DfS, as it seems to have holistically supported different aspects of design – the design approach, the design intent, and design methods and tools for different types of systems.
Limitations and future work
While the findings in section “Summary and conclusions” indicate promise for InDeaTe, a number of areas need further improvement, validation, and expansion, as outlined below.
Across the case studies conducted, a major limitation has been the potential lack of uniformity among teams, with respect to the participants’ education, prior experience, knowledge and design vocation, as well as time spent across the design sessions. Hence, a more comprehensive testing of InDeaTe needs to be carried out, in realistic scenarios across diverse users and clients.
While literature reports a large number of methods and tools for supporting DfS, empirical verification is seldom reported for the underlying design models on which the methods are based, or for the prescriptive efficacy of the methods. Future work includes documenting real-time use of the tool and user feedback through crowd-sourcing on the use and usefulness of the methods and tools, so as to provide detailed validation of its effectiveness.
Finally, though sustainability is the key criterion for which InDeaTe has currently been tested, it may have potential for supporting design-led innovation in general. This too requires further development and validation.
InDeaTe is envisioned as a support that would dynamically grow with the user addition of information, knowledge, and feedback, so as to eventually support both design and design research.
Dr. Shakuntala Acharya is an architect and a post-doctoral research associate at the Centre for Product Design and Manufacturing (CPDM), Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. Over her tenure as a doctoral scholar, she has pursued several international collaboration projects, seeped in problem-based learning – one under the purview of the Indo-US CoE for Design of Sustainable systems (with UC Berkeley, NIST, Washington State U, Syracuse U, CSTEP Bangalore, IIM Ahmedabad, National Innovation Foundation) and other with Japan Advanced Institute Science and Technology (JAIST). She has mentored design sessions and workshops on topics of Sustainability, Design Thinking and methodology, and Innovation, which are her key areas of research. She also has an experience of professional practice in urban design, landscape design and historic building conservation.
Mr. Kiran Ghadge is a PhD student at the Centre for Product Design and Manufacturing (CPDM), Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. He has done B.Tech in Mechanical engineering from NIT Jamshedpur and M.Tech in Biomedical engineering from IIT Bombay. His research interests include Knowledge management in manufacturing, Ergonomics, Asset tracking and Sustainable manufacturing. He has also been trained in Design thinking and sustainability. He wants to contribute to the industry by making manufacturing more efficient and safer through his research.
Mr. B.S.C. Ranjan is a PhD student in the Innovation, Design Study and Sustainability Laboratory, Centre for Product Design and Manufacturing, Indian Institute of Science. He received his Masters in engineering design from the Indian Institute of Science in 2012 and his Bachelors in mechanical engineering from Visvesvaraya Technological University in 2007. His research interests include Design creativity, Creativity evaluation, Design methodologies, Embodiment design, Robotics, Automotive engineering, Biomimetics, CAD, Geometric modelling and feature recognition.
Dr. Suman Devadula is passionate about design and how design-led innovation can systemically support sustainability. His contributions to design and design research have been recognized several times at national and international platforms. He wishes to utilize his academic and industrial experience in Sustainability, Design and Management to add value to industry and institutions. His research interests span the areas of design, cognition and sustainability.
Professor Amaresh Chakrabarti is currently the Chairman of the Centre for Product Design and Manufacturing (CPDM) and Chair of the IISc Press (in collaboration with Cambridge U Press, World Scientific Publishing Co.) He is the convenor of the Innovation, Design Study and Sustainability Laboratory (IdeasLab), “Smart Factory” Lab, Virtual Reality Laboratory (VR Lab) and the Indo-US CoE on Design of Sustainable Products, Services and Mfg Systems. He heads the IISc-TCS Innovation Centre and and is the conference chair of the International Conference on Research into Design (ICoRD). He has authored several books on design research and is also on the editorial board of several other journals such as Design Science Journal (CUP), Research in Engineering Design (Springer) and Journal of Remanufacturing (Springer). His key areas of research are Design Synthesis and Creativity, Eco-Design and Sustainability, AI and Data Analytics, Product Informatics, Smart Manufacturing and Biomedical Devices.
