Purpose - This thesis aims to developing a decision-making tool which fits in a reconfigurable manufacturing system (RMS) milieu used to identify whether to introduce and produce a new product into an already existing assembly line or to invest in a new assembly line. To fulfil the purpose, four research questions were developed. 

1. Which line balancing problem-solving techniques exist in the literature?
2. Which investment costs can be considered vital for new assembly lines as a    consequence from new product introductions?
3. Can a decision-making tool be designed to evaluate new product introductions which considers both line balancing KPIs and investment costs in an assembly line?
4. To what extent can criteria in the RMS theory be linked with the attributes of the    designed decision-making tool to support its applicability?

Method - Literature studies were performed in order to create a theoretical foundation for the thesis to stand upon, hence enabling the possibility to answer the research questions. The literature studies were structured to focus on selected topics, including reconfigurable manufacturing systems, line balancing, and assembly line investment costs. To answer the third research question, which involved creating a decision-making tool, a single-case study was carried out. The company chosen was within the automotive industry. Data was collected through interviews, document studies and a focus group.

Findings & analysis - An investigation regarding which line balancing solving-techniques suit RMS and which assembly line investment costs are critical when  introducing new products has been made. The outputs from these  investigations set the foundation for developing a decision-making tool which enables fact-based decisions. To test the decision-making tool’s compatibility with reconfigurable manufacturing systems, an evaluation against established characteristics was performed. The evaluation identified two reconfigurable manufacturing system characteristic as having a direct correlation to the decision-making tool. These characteristics regarded scalability and convertibility.

Conclusions - The industrial contribution of the thesis was a decision-making tool that enables fact-based decisions regarding whether to introduce a new product into an already existing assembly line or invest in a new assembly line. The academic contribution involved that the procedure for evaluating the tool was recognized as also being suitable for testing the reconfigurable correlation with other production development tools. Another contribution regards bridging the knowledge gaps of the classifications in line balancing-solving techniques and assembly line investment costs.

Delimitations - One of the delimitations in the thesis involved solely focusing on developing and analysing a decision-making tool from an RMS perspective. Hence, other production systems were not in focus. Also, the thesis only covered the development of a decision-making tool for straight assembly lines, not U-shaped lines.

This report presents the conceptual development of an off-road cargo trailer designed for usage in conjunction with bicycles when camping. The objective of the study is to address the limitations of existing cargo trailers and thereafter create a trailer that efficiently can navigate off-road terrains while carrying various types of cargo. The research includes collecting data regarding user behaviours and desired functions an optimal trailer should obtain and was translated into user requirements. The result demonstrates the successful development of an off-road cargo trailer on a conceptual level that offers innovative solutions and improved load-carrying capacity in comparison to the available market, while considering factors such as weight, manoeuvrability, and ease of use. This research contributes to the field by presenting data, which can be used in development and a comprehensive solution that expands the possibilities for bicycle-based cargo transportation in off-road environments. Future work can include further refinements to optimise the trailer’s performance and address additional user requirements based on the data presented.

Hybrid education is a complex combination of simultaneous face-to-face and online teaching. This model of teaching comes with a wide range of benefits, primarily being able to offer the same content to a wider audience. Hybrid education became an effective form of teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. In these post pandemic years, the benefit of hybrid education can still be utilized, allowing for improved flexibility in teaching schedules, engaging students in interactive learning, bringing online students closer to the teacher and face-to-face students, and offering education to students who could not otherwise participate. However, with all the benefits of hybrid education, there are some significant challenges which restrict the implementation or hinder the full potential of hybrid education. Some key challenges are student engagement from the online students with the teacher as well as with other students, technological requirements, physical classroom set-up, education of the teachers, and time investment in re-structuring courses. In this article, we review the challenges of hybrid education, strategies to address these challenges focusing on implementation and effectiveness, as well as evaluating student feedback from students at Jönköping University that have been a part of hybrid education. 

Reshoring can be regarded as offshoring in reverse. While offshoring mainly has been driven by cost aspects, reshoring considers multiple aspects, such as higher quality demands, faster product delivery and product mass-customization. Where to locate manufacturing is usually a purely manual activity that relies on relocation experts, hence, an automated decision-support system would be extremely useful. This paper presents a decision-support system for reshoring decision-making building a fuzzy inference system. The construction and functionality of the fuzzy inference system is briefly outlined and evaluated within a high-cost environment considering six specific reshoring decision criteria, namely cost, quality, time, flexibility, innovation and sustainability. A challenge in fuzzy logic relates to the construction of the so called fuzzy inference rules. In the relocation domain, fuzzy inference rules represent the knowledge and competence of relocation experts and are usually generated manually by the same experts. This paper presents a solution where fuzzy inference rules are automatically generated applying one hundred reshoring scenarios as input data. Another important aspect in fuzzy logic relates to the membership functions. These are mostly manually defined but, in this paper, a semi-Automatic approach is presented. The reshoring decision recommendations produced by the semi-Automatically configured fuzzy inference system are shown to be as accurate as those of a manually configured fuzzy inference system. 

This report covers the development process of an induction powered toaster for the company C3. This included its interior function as well as its exterior design. The project resulted in a functional prototype of an induction powered toaster bearing a design language that fits into C3s existing product catalogue.

ESBE AB is a company with a long history that develops and sells plumbing and heating related products. Their products possess a markedly high quality and reliability along with a strong focus on their design language. The purpose of this thesis is to update this design language and produce three concepts that describes how it could be done. The thesis was carried out as a concept study, using a product development process to structure the work. The theories, methods and how those methods were carried out are also described. A large part of the study was dedicated to preliminary work which studied the history of the company, its brand strategy as well as the products position on the market in order to create a comprehensive basis for the concept generation phase and the concept selection phase. The study produced three final concepts that were presented to responsible parties at the company. All three concepts were considered to have potential for future implementation. ESBE intends to, after evaluation, eventually have one or several concepts be realized by a consulting firm that would produce prototypes and prepare for production. 

Husqvarna Group is a concern that manufactures products for gardening and construction building. Husqvarna has under the spring of 2022 launched the Pace series. The Pace-series are battery driven power cutters that are targeting the professionals in the construction business. This thesis focuses on the Pace-charger.The problem with the current charger is that it does not sustain the fall requirement that is in the specification. When the product is dropped, the fan housing does not withstand the tension that builds up when the product hits the ground. Since the product is moved back and forth to the construction area the risk of it falling increases. In the specified requirements the chargers must withstand a fall of 1.2 meter without being too damaged so that it would be possible for the user to reach the electric components that are inside. During this project a new design solution has been produced and an improvement of the current charger, both with improved strength.Relevant areas in physics have been studied to know which factors have a positive effect on the outcome. Articles about previous research in FEM and droptest has been used as a guide to evaluate the validation methods. Theories about design improvements to increase strength will be verified with the help of simulation program and then applied on produced concepts. A thorough analysis has been done on the charger to understand the reason of the construction and a study on equivalent charger from competitors to see if they have a working solution. After identifying the problem, the next step in the process was generating ideas to solve the issue with sketching concepts. With sketches as foundation the creation of simplified cad models were done for the concept to be evaluated with Solidworks simulation, the result from Solidworks were used as screening method. To produce prototypes two different methods were used using 3dprinters, FDM and SLS. This was done to analyze if the new concept has improved from the original charger.Throughout the project two concepts have been produced with the help of the issues of the thesis. One of the concepts is an amendment of the Pace-charger and the other one is a whole new design. The concept with a new design has a shape that encloses the two variants of batteries that fits the charger with a handle on top of the charger for easy carrying. With the validation methods used to test concept of strength, one can see an improvement in the result. The working methods can thus be used as a tool for a new designer to identify problems at an early stage if there is a development on an existing product. The use of these methods can save companies money through discovering the problems earlier in the process of product development. As costs for corrections increase exponentially with time in the development of a product. The use of 3Dprinted prototypes can be used to enhance the credibility of the results of the simulations.

This report is made to create a process for urban furniture that is going to be placed in Jönköpingand other cities in Sweden. The process is created in collaboration with the company Re-invent yourfuture, which works with architecture and product design both in Sweden and other Europeancountries. The process will deliver a conceptual prototype with visualization effects, it will includesolutions for social interaction, interest and space for the citizens that live in urban spaces and big cities.

Sustainability is one of the main concerns for businesses in order to being competitive

in the market. Sustainability is one the most important and popular fields for the

companies due to customer expectations and profitability. Therefore, there is a need to

comprehend sustainability in production systems in order to encounter drivers,

transform production systems with smart tools, and evaluate the measurements in

production systems.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how to achieve sustainability goals for start-up

companies and how these companies can incorporate sustainability in order to

improve their production systems. Literature study was performed to build a theoretical

foundation for this thesis, therefore allowing the opportunity to answer the research

questions of this thesis. The literature study was covered to identified aspects, including

drivers of sustainable production systems, sustainability indicators, and technological

developments in the production systems. To answer the research questions a single case

study was carried out. The company was a start-up company in the food and beverage

industry. Data was collected through questionnaires, document review, interviews, and

observations.

An investigation regarding sustainability goals and measurement indicators are critical

when implementing sustainability practices in the production systems. The outcome

from these investigations set a knowledge for improving production systems to better

meet sustainability goals. To measure sustainability indicators, there is a need to correct

data collection and understand how to use the equations. The measurement indicators

identified in production systems having a direction to measure environmental aspects

in the production systems. The technological improvements have an impact on the

motivation regarding sustainability indicators in order to decrease energy consumption,

waste and water management, emissions, and production efficiency, as well as

decreasing the cost.

This thesis provides a knowledge for the start-up company in order to implement

sustainability aspects in the production systems to better meet sustainability goals.

Additionally, highlights areas of drivers factor and measurement indicators for

integration of sustainability in the production systems.

This thesis is being done in collaboration with Pansar Sweden, who has identified many problems with their current prototype fixture. They believe that their fixture is not structured, user-friendly, and does not look like a product that is ready for mass production and sales.

This report covers the work of developing a fixture that will provide watchmakers with a complete lapping machine that can perform high-quality polishing. The purpose of the machine is to achieve the same quality as the available lapping machines on the market, but at a competitive price. The report outlines the methods used to arrive at the final concept, as well as the various concepts developed during the work to arrive at the final concept. The methods used to arrive at a final concept include competitive analysis in form of a SWOT-analysis, MoSCoW, functional analysis, brainstorming, requirements specification, Pugh's matrix, and moodboard.

The concept was modeled to provide Pansar Sweden with a solid foundation for potential further development of the concept and the work. The modeling was 3D printed to provide a comprehensive picture of how it works in practice and that it meets the customer requirements set forth.

The work concludes with a presentation of the final concept, which is compared to the current prototype, and how Pansar Sweden can further develop the fixture and the entire lapping machine. This report represents a formal text for a bachelor thesis

Small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have inherent characteristics, which require specific solutions for improving the sustainability performance of their operations. The purpose of this paper is to increase the knowledge on barriers and enablers for the adoption of sustainable manufacturing by manufacturing SMEs and to provide insights into what enablers can be used to overcome existing barriers. Taking, as a starting point, a systematic literature review, this paper presents a categorization of barriers and enablers for the adoption of sustainable manufacturing by manufacturing SMEs. In total, seven categories for classifying the barriers and enablers for the adoption of sustainable manufacturing within SMEs were identified: organizational, managerial and attitudinal; informational; governmental; financial; training and skills development; market and business context; and technological. Additionally, this study elaborates on what barriers could be mitigated through the enablers. This study found specific enablers with the potential to mitigate a significantly higher number of barriers and referred to them as ‘critical enablers’. SMEs aiming to adopt sustainable manufacturing practices or improve their sustainability performance are encouraged to focus on the enablers in these categories. This paper synthesizes and facilitates interpretation of the existing body of evidence on barriers and enablers for adopting sustainable manufacturing in SMEs.

Magnesium with two-thirds of the density compared to aluminium and one-quarter of steel, intrigues product developers and material scientists due to the light metal’s excellent combination of strength to weight ratio as well as their capability of being produced as a High Pressure Die Cast component compared to other ferrous or light metal alloys.

However, a magnesium alloy inherits some concerning drawbacks, limiting the exploitation in structural applications and mechanical design such as automotive, heavy machinery and aerospace components. The need for a magnesium alloy that could withstand a sufficient amount of wear, temperature and corrosive environment, leads towards the investigation and evaluation of a suitable, functional coating as a solution to exploit the evident advantages a magnesium alloy exhibits. A substantial amount of research is required in order to reduce an existing knowledge gap that is the ongoing development in the search for a sufficient functional coating and adherence capability to the highly reactive substrate that is a magnesium alloy.

This industrial master thesis is an early stage investigation to evaluate how the currently used aluminium substrate with an electrodeposited coating relate and compares to a heat-treated electroless deposited coating through tribological and thermophysical induced stresses. These properties are tested with proven industrial standard methods resulted in a comprehensive conclusion and discussion regarding the feasibility of applying the coating onto a commercial magnesium alloy closely related to the Mg-alloy developed by Husqvarna and thereby contributing to technological advances to the highly relevant topic within product development in materials engineering.

In a time where digitalization is becoming more and more necessary to work with, tools such as simulation is becoming more of a standard to be able to make decisions made on facts. Within previous research there is a gap in the research, as the factors enabling operators to use simulation is an unexplored topic. Therefore, to fill this gap and provide the industry with help, this study fulfills the purpose: 

Create a framework for enabling operators to use simulation for continuous improvements. 

By looking at the different areas in the production and identifying challenges within the production, information handling between the departments and the structure of the company, the purpose of this study is fulfilled. The purpose was achieved through the usage of two research questions. 

What are the challenges in practice for enabling operators to use simulation for continuous improvements? 

How can these challenges be overcome, to enable operators to use simulation for continuous improvements? 

To answer the research questions, a case study was performed alongside a literature review. The case study consisted of interviews performed at a case company within the automotive industry. The gathered empirical and theoretical data was then analyzed trough a thematic analysis. 

The conclusion of this study was that, for enabling operators to use simulation for continuous improvements, companies must first have the right organizational structure, were a foundation for continuous improvement is present. The reason for this being that if a company desires to work with simulation tools, they must first work in an environment where suggestions and improvements are supported. 

Currently, customers are exerting a lot of pressure on companies by demanding for best product quality, customized products, reduced product lead time and reliable product delivery. Therefore, for companies to be highly competitive, there is need to improve productivity and delivery performance by having an efficient material flow. Nevertheless, the task of making the material to flow efficiently throughout the manufacturing process up to when the customer receives the product is not easy. To solve this, companies are focusing on the material handling system as it has an impact on efficient material flow and productivity. Hence, the aim of this project was to explore how an internal material handling system can be improved to guarantee a better delivery performance.

To fulfil the aim, a single case study was undertaken at a dairy food producing company in Jonkoping. The information on the subject area was obtained through interviews, observation at the company and an extensive literature review. The information that was obtained was assessed in accordance with the framework of the project that includes; principles and physical elements used for designing a material handling system, software and information, and human and management.

Combined analysis of the findings from the empirical study and the extensive literature review helped to identify the problems faced in an internal material handling system of the company. This was followed by identifying ways of improving material handling system and thereafter, improvement suggestions were made targeting enhancement of the delivery performance of the system.

In conclusion, the findings indicate that improvement of an internal material handling system does not only depend on improving the physical attributes of the system, far from it, it is more dependent on having an efficient and effective information system. Another factors that came out is that there should be a proper integration of the material handling system and the workers operating the system. From a systems perspective this research has added information sharing and human and management to the one dimensional physical elements improvement of a material handling system.

• Ph.D. students need to be supervised by someone with an international reputation so that the name on the recommendation letter carries weight. But they also must not be professors traveling from place to place, frequently leaving campus, and missing mentoring sessions to advance their careers.
• They have to be recognized, well-known, but also able to guide you without constantly refusing to meet you just because you have to take outside of the university.
• Many students affirm that they never received any satisfactory, effective, or useful guidance during the study. The student in Ph.D. research-level needs to have the right to choose a supervisor with whom he has a good relationship. However, as the bureaucracy in graduate management at universities increases, administrators and administrators' "pair" prospective doctoral students with supervisors more and more frequently.
• That will create bad cooperation and an uncreative scientifical product. A good supervisor-student relationship requires the joint efforts of both parties. Many Ph.D. students get into unnecessary trouble because they make some very common mistakes in their relationship with their supervisors. Unfortunately, our experience tells us that many students do not think deeply about this relationship and that most problems are predictable and avoidable.
• The study aims to interpret the negative action of supervisor practices of Ph.D. students during the supervising phasis and will classify the critical factors and types of a bad Ph.D. supervision.

The market has been evolving from mass production towards mass customization, which has increased the complexity level for the companies. Unlike in mass production companies where the tasks are routine and standardized, the mass customization types of companies have a varied work demand which makes the work environment complex. These types of mass customization companies are known as High Mix Low Volume type of companies basically because of their characteristics of having a high mix in products and comparatively low volume production. 

This thesis research was done with DEWTON INDUSTRIES, Kochi in India. Although product variety and complexity has been answered using technology development and modularization in the previous studies, there has been less focus given to reducing the complexity from the production process point of view. It is also evident that there is limited literature and research done regarding the standardization in High Mix Low Volume type companies both in the academia and in the industry. Hence, understanding the problems regarding standardization in a High Mix Low Volume company and how to handle them has been of a major importance at this point of time.

The purpose of the research is to see how standardization can be increased in HMLV companies. The research approach used here was the case study to collect the necessary data to achieve the results. The data collection techniques used were interviews, observations and literature review, which gave the guidelines and suggested solutions to the identified problems related to standardization in High Mix Low Volume company in the production department. 

The findings from the research suggest that standardization in HMLV production is very important for the companies in their current market demands. This is because standardization has a major effect on the quality of end products, production lead time, working standards of employees in the production department and design department. Various problems can occur, and only standardized procedures can solve these problems. It has been well exemplified in this thesis work, how these standardized procedures can increase the quality of the products, increase production speed, and also profit for the company.

This research paper can be used as a guideline by other HMLV companies, while they plan to implement standardization in the production department. To the best of our knowledge this research was one of a kind in this particular field of study and also provides a base for in-depth research on each identified problem.

Purpose:The primary purpose of the current thesis is to develop a virtual model using discrete event simulation (DES), which aims at supporting the decision-making process regarding automation solution proposals for SMEs. 

Method:The research approach is positivism, and it considers quantitative and empirical information. A literature search is conducted to generate a base for obtaining the theory required for the current report to answer the research questions. This search included the trace of relevant and reviewed topics regarding automation, discrete event simulation, and production lines. Then, a scenario simulation is designed and studied based on empiric knowledge and how automation would affect it, followed by a collection of information from the simulation iterations.

Findings& Analysis: Two scenarios are presented. One with a fully manually operated assembly line consisting of only human operators and a second scenario, a semi-automated assembly line that includes some robots in specific areas doing specific operations. The two scenarios are simulated to check to what extend the KPI’s and parameters improved between each scenario. The experiment result concludes that by introducing automation elements in the production line, there is an increase in the overall efficiency, throughput rate, and a considerable gap against humans in WIP.

Conclusions and recommendations: The results obtained from the experimentation in discrete event simulation software and study from previous research show that discrete event simulation has a significant contribution when considering a decision-making tool's role. Since it allows to understand and study the specific scenario by imitation and try different solutions in the same production system, it also allows studying several indicators from the scenarios to be checked to what extent they could be improved.

Delimitations: The current thesis includes several delimitations. First, it focuses only on an operational level. Also, this study consists of a specific type of product with many variants, and finally, there are only two scenarios studied: a fully manual scenario and a semi-automated scenario with the presence of robots. 

The thesis project is about concept design of roof box. The roof box is targeted towards urban users who live in compact houses and are limited by space to store the conventional hard roof boxes. The project explores the idea of transforming the roof box into a compact size to be stored in a duffel bag. 

The project incorporates several methods like Bootcamp Bootleg, Double Diamond, Mockups and Prototyping. The project involved making several mockups to ideate, build, test and verify if it works. The result of which is a roof box which folds into a compact size to be stored and transforms into its full size adding additional cargo space to your vehicle.

This thesis project was done together with Swaroop Rajagopal, while the design and implementation is carried out by me, the material research and the testing is carried out by him in his master thesis project. This Master Thesis project is done in collaboration with Thule Sweden AB.The project is still in its conceptual phase and further development is required before it is ready to hit the market.

ROL Ergo is a company that manufactures and develops height-adjustable tables. Their product line-up consists mainly of electrically operated tables, but also a small-scale of tables where the height is determined by a hand-driven crank.

One problem with ROL Ergos hand-operated crank table, PR25 2-column 2-stage crank, is the function of stopping the table after 470 mm which is the tables desired stroke. The solution the existing table have, to prevent this from happening, is a plastic stop mounted on top of the table’s outer legs.

This plastic stop is intended to stop the table when the leg reaches its highest position. The hand crank used to change the height of the table have an integrated torque clutch which is used to prevent that the torque applied to the crank exceeds 4.3 Nm. However, the force applied to the plastic part that is generated by the hand crank is greater than what the plastic part is constructed for. This results in the stop being pushed out of its position and must be mounted back by hand, or in worst case, breaks.

This report covers the steps taken to find a solution to this problem. Initially, the forces generated by the hand crank in the tables height adjustable system is needed. When these forces were calculated the process of finding concepts and solutions could begin. When a final concept was defined, the solution was verified with simulations and physical tests to ensure the concept’s stop function.

Through this process the work resulted in a concept where a C formed ring is mounted onto the table’s thread bars. This ensures that the thread bars are prevented to thread further than the desired height. By using results from calculations, simulations and physical tests, the developed concept could be verified to withstand the forces generated by the hand crank in order to stop the table at the desired stroke.

Changeability and reconfigurability are some of the most important sources of competitiveness in today's manufacturing industry. However, the development and implementation of reconfigurable manufacturing systems still appear to be challenged and limited in industry. Therefore, it is increasingly relevant for engineers and professionals in the manufacturing industry to build knowledge and competences in reconfigurability. This paper presents preliminary insights and learnings from developing and running a problem-based learning (PBL) course in reconfigurable manufacturing for continuing engineering education (CEE). Presented insights cover both observed benefits and learnings for professionals participating in the course, as well as important learnings on how to best transfer knowledge from research to practice.

This book is for professionals working with the development of production systems. It provides guidance on how to design production systems capable of meeting uncertain market requirements in the future, whether these are fluctuations in demand volume, requirements for product variants, or introduction of completely new product families.

• An introduction to the fundamental principles of changeable, reconfigurable, modular, and platform-based production systems.
• A research-based method for developing reconfigurable production systems.
• Practical tools for analyzing existing capabilities, developing new concepts, and evaluating these.
• Examples from Danish and Swedish production companies of various sizes and industries.

Increasingly volatile and complex manufacturing environments make the continuous development of engineering professionals’ knowledge and competences in changeable and reconfigurable manufacturing a major source of competitiveness in manufacturing companies. Enablers of this include modular and platform-based product and manufacturing system design, as well as industry 4.0 related technologies and digitalisation. Therefore, this paper focuses on Continuing Engineering Education (CEE) in changeable and reconfigurable manufacturing and investigates the implications of applying a university-industry collaborative approach to Problem-based Learning (PBL) for CEE in company-settings. The paper builds on a four-year CEE initiative from Swedish manufacturing industry and includes insights from implementing a CEE course in changeable manufacturing, which was designed based on PBL principles and run as an industry-university cooperation for four consecutive years. Implications addressed in the paper relates to (1) PBL as a suitable approach for CEE, (2) Research transfer to industry through PBL-based CEE, and (3) industry-university collaboration for CEE, which provides valuable insights on how to conduct successful CEE in knowledge fields that are fast evolving in order to enable fast industry transitions. 

Increasing product variety, rapid new product introductions, volatile market demands, and pressure for cost reductions are among the main drivers for developing changeable and reconfigurable manufacturing systems constituting platforms that can be developed and utilized jointly with product platforms. However, methodologies to support platform-based co-development of products and manufacturing systems remain limited in previous research, including lack of knowledge on successful practices for the platform-based co-development project and process. Therefore, the objective of the research presented in this paper is to identify practices for platform-based co-development of products and manufacturing systems through a case study of a company that has successfully transitioned towards changeability through platform-based co-development. The findings cover various aspects of the co-development process and project, providing initial insight into how to enable joint development of products and manufacturing systems, in order to achieve changeability and reconfigurability.

In order to work with continuous improvements and be competitive on the market, it is important that companies identify where their losses are [1]. A suitable way to identify losses is by using measurements [2] and with today’s information technology, it is easier than ever to collect data [3]. The problem is not that companies do not measure performance at all, they measure too much [4]. The study has been made at a producing company who stated that they do not reach their desired amount of availability in the production. There is no information on what their biggest losses are today and there is a lack of a systematic approach to reduce them. There is either any information on how much time that is used on maintenance activities or the distribution between operator maintenance or specialist maintenance. The study’s questions are following: 

[1]   What can be determined and what conclusions can be drawn from existing data from the company’s industrial system and maintenance system? 

[2]   Can a suggestion on a systemized working method be identified for working with availability losses for the case company? 

Theories about operational reliability, maintenance technology, PDCA and the cornerstone model has been used to answer the study’s questions. Quantitative and qualitative data collections has been used to analyze the results from the company’s industry- and maintenance systems. Qualitative interviews have been made with affected personnel. 

The cause of the company’s losses in the industry system cannot be identified as the data does not reflect the reality. The reason for that is the lack of standardized way of working when availability losses are registered. In the maintenance system, the structure of how cases are registered is lacking and the sectioning between operator maintenance and specialist maintenance is unclear. 

The study’s proposed action is to create conditions for the case company to make their data more reliable and how they can reduce their availability losses. This is done by standardizing the work method in the industrial system, introducing a new structure for how the maintenance system is used and structured working methods between operators and maintenance personnel. The entire study results in a model on how to be able to identify losses and how they systematically can be reduced.

Six Sigma is one of the most successful improvement strategies of the last 5 decades and has been implemented worldwide by organizations in different sectors and sizes. Despite the popularity, 60% of all Six Sigma initiatives are abandoned or end in failure. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to investigate what factors large manufacturing enterprises in Sweden need to prioritize to introduce Six Sigma successfully. The research was conducted as a holistic multiple-case study where qualitative data was collected through semi-structured interviews with three companies. A thematic analysis was made to identify patterns between the companies about critical success factors associated with Six Sigma, Change Management, and Organizational culture. It was shown that Company 1 has introduced Six Sigma but has no defined plan on how to move forward with the initiative. Company 2 has fully introduced the method and is actively working with it, while Company 3 has failed with the introduction of Six Sigma. All identified factors were rated as either a success or a failure factor for each case company. The success factors differentiating Company 2 from the other case companies have been evaluated to be the most critical success factors. Top management commitment, Organizational support, Organizational culture, Communication, and Strategic plan have been identified as the most critical success factors that must be prioritized to introduce Six Sigma successfully. Furthermore, cultural factors such as communication between departments, supportive managers, and committed top management have been identified as important to introduce Six Sigma successfully. The results of this study can be applied to successfully introduce change initiatives in large manufacturing enterprises in Sweden. 

Medical technology is a field of work with connection to prevention, diagnosis, monitoring, treatment and care. The company Human care is a well-established company in Sweden with red rollators seen all over Sweden. The product family of Human care has four different units of mobility aid solutions. These are lifting devices, rollators, healthcare beds, and convertible chairs. In common they share the same brand, but they do not have any clear connection to each other when it comes to form, colour and texture.

In this thesis a visual brand language is developed and created for the company. At the same time, it is implemented and developed on a lifting solution for patient mobility in the healthcare. To find a brand language which should be easier to implement on the products investigations into the brand and products has been done. By trying to find a common ground in the current products the step from creation to implementation of a guideline will be smaller. Further, research has been done in colour psychology, ergonomics, surface textures and forms.

The result of this thesis is a guideline which the company can use as a base when developing new products. In this thesis, it has been implemented on a lifting device for patient transportation.

This report is the result of a thesis project for the program Mechanical Engineering: Product Development & Design at Jönköping University School of Engineering. The thesis includes a product development carried out by Linus Andersson and Martin Lundgren in collaboration with Husqvarna AB.  

The product development process that forms the basics of the work includes a user analysis, market analysis, concept development, creation of a requirement specification, concept screening, and finally prototype manufacturing. 

The purpose of the study was to develop a functioning prototype of an aid intended for felling trees. A user analysis was conducted to explore the needs and how a felling aid should be designed and integrated into a chainsaw. The user analysis consisted of multiple interviews and observations that answered the research question and validated the need for a tree felling aid.  

Based on the identified needs from the user analysis and the product development process, the prototype resulted as an integrated digital spirit level on the Husqvarna 540iXP chainsaw. The digital spirit level indicates the chainsaw´s orientation relative to the horizontal plane through LEDs integrated into the side of the chainsaw. Tests with the prototype demonstrate that the indicator accurately reflects the actual angle between the saw and the horizontal plane. The aid can make it easier for the user to perform the horizontal cuts and thus relieves the woodcutter's everyday work regarding both exposure to uncomfortable working positions and increases safety when felling trees. 

This report investigates the development of a new and innovative product for storing robotic lawnmowers for Globe Technologies Sweden AB. Globe Technologies Sweden AB is a Swedish company located in Jönköping working with R&D that is part of Globe Technologies Europe. Globe Technologies manufactures electric power tools and machines which are battery powered. The company currently lacks a storage solution for their robotic lawn mowers and has therefore started a project with the purpose ofsolving this problem. The project has been carried out as a bachelor’s thesis by two students of Jönköpings Tekniska Högskola during the spring term of 2024 with a timeframe of 18 weeks.

The work has been conducted using different engineering methods on a structured basis according to the planning through a Gantt-schedule. Firstly, a pilot study was designed through a market analysis, a needs analysis, requirements specification and function analysis. The information obtained from the pilot study was then used to generate different concepts which formed the basis for CAD modelling and finally the making of a prototype.

The elements and methods used throughout the work have been validated by Globe Technologies Sweden AB to produce desired results.

In summary, the project has contributed to a new and innovative product for storing robotic lawnmowers made for Globe Technologies Sweden AB which can be further developed in the future.

This thesis report aims to help the client developing their new product. The new product to be developed is a safety bracket for a safety system. The safety bracket connects different parts which create the safety system and it should be able to withstand impacts from moving objects. The client has a set of requirements that needs to be addressed during the product development process. One of the most important requirements that must be fulfilled is the given impact energy that the safety bracket must withstand. The methodology used during this thesis work is the product development processes (PDP). The product development process is used to find concepts that have the potential to answer the research questions and to fulfil the requirements. Some methods used in the product development process are brainstorming, brainwriting and combining working principles. The concepts were evaluated with a combination of Pugh´s matrix and weighting matrix. The three best concepts were selected for further development and tested with FEA simulation with Abaqus CAE. The impact simulation gave indications if the concepts could handle the impact energy and if they could fulfil the requirements. All three concepts could withstand the impact energy based on the simulations and most of the requirements could be fulfilled. The concepts with thinner profile walls had a reduction in stress and an increase in impact duration, where the kinetic energy is distributed throughout the impact. A protective shell helps with the reduction of stress and the energy absorption during the impact simulation.

Purpose: Healthcare organisations are often described as less innovative than other organisations, since organisational culture works against innovations. In this paper, the authors ask whether it has to be that way or whether is possible to nurture an innovative culture in a healthcare organisation. The aim of this paper is to describe and analyse nurturing an innovative culture within a healthcare organisation and how culture can support innovations in such a healthcare organisation. Design/methodology/approach: Based on a qualitative case study of a healthcare unit that changed, within a few years, from having no innovations to repeatedly generating innovations, the authors describe important aspects of how innovative culture can be nurtured in healthcare. Data were analysed using inductive and deductive analysis steps. Findings: The study shows that it is possible to nurture an innovative culture in a healthcare organisation. Relationships and competences beyond healthcare, empowering structures and signalling the importance of innovation work with resources all proved to be important. All are aspects that a manager can influence. In this case, the manager's role in nurturing innovative culture was very important. Practical implications: This study highlights that an innovative culture can be nurtured in healthcare organisations and that managers can play a key role in such a process. Originality/value: The paper describes and analyses an innovative culture in a healthcare unit and identifies important conditions and strategies for nurturing innovative culture in healthcare organisations.

Thule Sweden AB is a company that develops products to facilitate people's adventures. The companyfocuses on various transport solutions where products are offered in four product categories which areSports and Cargo Carriers, Active with Kids, RV Products and Packs, Bags and Luggage. Thecategories consist of everything from roof racks, roof boxes, bicycle carts and strollers to tents for RVsand caravans and backpacks for everyday life.A problem that Thule Sweden AB has identified is the limited opportunity to bring important objectswith you on your bike. The pursuit of a possible solution would, in the company's opinion, be a newconcept for transport where a bicycle could be used. This is due to an increase in the number ofcyclists in all possible areas. With an increasing number of cyclists, new needs and problems alwaysarise at the same time as the company wants to explore a potential development of the existingpackage holder "Tour Rack" in the product collection. The result of the new concept would mean thatit would be integrated with the package holder, where new transport options could be created.The report covers the steps taken to find a solution to enable the transport of objects that have beenidentified as difficult to carry on a bicycle. This has been done with the help of a product developmentprocess where a lot of focus has been on the customer's wishes and needs. Initially, a boot camp wasconducted to identify the target group and possible objects that cyclists considered difficult to bring.This step led to the establishment of a requirements- and function specification, which was the basisfor the generation of several different concepts. The concepts were eliminated and decisions onfurther development were made where one concept was considered to be the best according to theboot camp. The concept was developed step by step and verified using physical prototypes and tests.The tests consisted of assembling manufactured prototypes with the desired objects, which were thenintegrated with the package holder. This was done to ensure the function of the concept.Through this process, the study resulted in a concept where an H-shaped geometry is integrated withthe package holder "Tour Rack". The concept has three integration points in form of screws thatenable an easy mounting process and a functionally stable concept for transport. Securing of objectstakes place by the user tightening two straps over the placed object which attaches softly between tworubber surfaces.

Globalization has continuously brought an increased competition among companies, which entails a need for faster and more frequent deliveries of new products. Traditional project management methods, such as stage-gate and waterfall, are commonly used in production development projects and builds on a sequential approach. These methods have proven to have some disadvantages in flexibility, long lead times and it often creates communication barriers between the actors at each stage. The software industry has already encountered these obstacles and responded by introducing agile project management. Which improves the adaptability and allow changes to be made, due to new requirements from stakeholders or customers, throughout the entire development process. However, it remains unknown how agile models can improve production development. The purpose of this study was therefore to investigate how agile models can be applied to production development and what the effects are. 

The authors have performed a case study at eight different companies within the automotive industry. The purpose of it has been to gain a deeper understanding about the case companies current production development processes and review how familiar the organizations are with the concept of agile project management. The extraction of the empirical data was conducted by questionnaires, interviews, and document reviews. An analyzation was done by comparing the empirical findings with the theoretical background out of eleven different categories that relates to project management (e.g., project goals, process, customer integration etc.). The analyzation concluded that the case company exclusively conducts their production development project by using a sequential approach. 

The analyzation and the eleven categories where, together with the theoretical background about agile project management, later used to create the result by brainstorming different practices to become more agile. The results are presented out of three different scenarios, depending how agile the companies would like to be. For instance, are two process models suggested, one that is completely agile and one that is a hybrid of an agile and a stage-gate. Furthermore, are the implementation of self-organized teams, holistic approach towards internal and external partners, and reduced demand for documentation some of the practices that are suggested. Additionally, are three considerable aspects for the implementation presented. 

The expected outcome and effects of applying these practices are discussed in the final chapter. Some of these outcomes are a company culture that will attract and retain talented personnel, where shared responsibilities and authorities triggers the employees to an increased commitment and sense of ownership towards their projects. Furthermore, are the companies expected to experience a more flexible and responsive approach towards conducting production development projects with a high focus on customer requirements and creating customer value. 

Manufacturing companies are continuously faced with requirements regarding technology novelty, shorter time to market, a higher level of functionality, and lower prices on their products. This is especially the case for companies developing and manufacturing highly customized products, also known as engineer-to-order (ETO) companies. The traditional view of the product lifecycle introduces the customer only at the sale and distribution phase, which is often concerned with identifying and transferring customer needs into fixed specifications that guide the development of end-consumer products. In the ETO industry, however, the customer is involved already at the scoping and quotation stage, and a significant amount of engineering needs to be performed for every customer order. Thus, ETO companies cannot work according to the traditional model described above since specific requirements are set directly by the customer, or a detailed requirements specification is missing and must be developed in cooperation with the customer. It is not uncommon that products are developed in joint ventures with the customer and run for several years, during which requirements change.

Product platform approaches have been generally accepted in the industry to serve a wide product variety while maintaining business efficiency. However, how to apply a product platform approach in ETO companies that face the reality described above is a challenge. Product platform approaches tend to require focused development of the platform, which, in turn, requires some knowledge about the future variants to be derived from the platform. The research presented in this thesis investigates the state of art and practice in the industry regarding the challenges, needs, and current use of product platforms. To respond to the identified need, a product platform approach is proposed that expands the scope of what a product platform has traditionally contained. The purpose of this proposal is to aid the development of highly customized products when physical modules or component scalability do not suffice. The resulting approach, the Design Platform Approach (DPA), provides a coherent model and methodology for heterogeneous engineering assets to be used in product development, supporting the activity of designing and existing solutions. The approach is based on identifying and modelling generic product and process items, which are the generic building blocks of the product, its structure, and the process of designing them. The generic product and process items are associated with the generic assets governing their design. By describing engineering assets that are the outcome of technology and product development, such as finished designs, design guidelines, constraints etc., in a standardized format, the DPA successively evolves.

This thesis outlines the DPA in detail and presents cases of applications that have focused on different aspects of the approach. Tools to support the DPA are presented and evaluated in different kinds of industries along with the specific methods used and literature summarization.

Original equipment suppliers (OES) that develop unique products are continuously faced with changing requirements during both the quotation and product development processes. This challenge is a different reality from companies that develop off-the-shelf products for the end consumer, which use fixed specifications and where product platforms have been a strong enabler for efficient mass customization. However, product platforms cannot adequately support companies working as OES. The reason is that a high level of customization is required which means that interfaces cannot be standardized, the performance is not negotiable, requirements are not initially fixed, and the specific system interacts with, is affected by, or affects other systems that are simultaneously developed in a transdisciplinary environment. The design platform (DP) approach provides a coherent environment for heterogeneous and transdisciplinary design resources to be used in product development by supporting both designing and off-the-shelf solutions. This research describes the introduction, application and further development of the DP approach at an automotive supplier to support the development of customized solutions when traditional modularity or platform scalability do not suffice. A computer tool called Design Platform Manager has been developed to support the creation and visualization of the DP. The support tool has a connection to a product data management database to link the platform model to the various kinds of engineering assets needed or intended to support variant creation. Finally, the support tool was evaluated by the case company representatives showing promising results. 

A common strategy which has in many cases become a necessity in product developing companies is to apply platform thinking to some extent. Engineer-to-order (ETO) companies are firms that need to invest in a significant amount engineering time in each product ordered by customers. These companies have in the past been known to not be fully able to apply platform strategies. An area of concern to product development is the design and manufacture of machine tools aimed for part manufacturing which is a large investment and a critical bottle neck. As a response to these challenges the design platform (DP) concept was developed which is founded on the re-use of company assets. This paper aims to investigate the application of the DP in a company designing and producing unique high-pressure die casting tools for different applications and customers. To enable companies of this character to utilize platform thinking to a higher degree and thus increase the efficiency in product development, a focus is set on modelling and managing relations within the DP. In addition, a PDM system setup is proposed together with an integrated support application for the realisation in industry.

Industrialized house-building (IHB) is a sector offering unique products by adopting an engineer-to-order (ETO) strategy. Customer satisfaction is achieved by adaptation of product solutions and the fast-paced introduction of new technology in combination with short lead-times and cost-efficient production. Product platforms is acknowledged as a strategic enabler for mass customization and increased competitiveness. The strategy has been a necessity in the mechanical industry for several decades. However, for IHB, platforms have only gained interest in recent years. In general, ETO companies struggle with adopting the common product platform approach, set by pre-defined modules and components. Predefinitions require standardization of the product offer which reduces the customization ability which is regarded as a competitive edge. The Design Platform (DP) approach was developed aimed to support ETO companies by utilizing different types of engineering assets in a coherent transdisciplinary model enabling efficient customization. The long-term aim of this work is to investigate and support the DP applicability in IHB to increase efficiency in development and delivery. For this article, data were gathered from a single case study, including workshops with company representatives combined with interviews and document analysis. Based on the data analysis, engineering assets were identified and characterized. Further, a conceptual PLM solution is proposed and outlined to support the DP application combined with the assets. The results suggest that a PLM system can host parts of the DP and that it is applicable in IHB.

Introductory paragraph: Imagine, beginning a day without that first cup of coffee. Pressing a button on the coffee machine makes the process so much easier. Imagine, being on different corners of the world away from your loved ones, how products such as mobile phones or computers bring them nearer to you. You are a person who enjoys spending time with your family, imagine the products makes the day-to-day activities simpler, saves you time to provide more opportunities for safer and quality time with the family. Products, they make our lives simpler, but product development is a complex process.

Product development is affected by uncertainties due to changing customer requirements, changing regulations, technological developments, long lead times, high product complexities, and geopolitical issues. Automation, increased flexibility of production, and reduced lead times are drivers that allow product development to be competitive in this scenario. Design engineers should be aware of production capabilities to facilitate early producibility assessments and to avoid late changes. Production preparation is identified as an important activity in the product development process, whereby the producibility of a product is assessed. In this thesis, the current state of production preparation during product development is investigated and a method is introduced supporting production preparation using production requirements. The work was carried out using the design research methodology framework and comprised four studies based on the four steps of the framework. The research clarification and descriptive study 1 phases aimed at developing understanding and were done by means of data collection at the companies through interviews and document studies. The next two steps were prescriptive study and descriptive study 2, which aimed at developing and evaluating the support. This was done through observation, workshops, and solution development. The production preparation process is supported by Design for Manufacturing and Assembly, failure mode and effects analysis, lesson-learnt documents, and computer-aided design, and the efficiency of the process is dependent on individual skills and knowledge. Tools to support common understanding, remove ambiguity in requirements, and enable collaboration between design and production engineers are needed. The developed method allows for the identification, definition, structuring, and sharing of production requirements, aligning with varying maturities of product and production systems during product development. This helps improve the collaboration between design and production engineers for production preparation.

The production preparation process (3P) enables collaboration between design and production engineers during product development but its efficiency is limited by the abundance of documentation of manufacturing constraints and capabilities. Empirical studies showed that use of production requirements can increase the efficiency of 3P, however, the support for production engineers to capture and share production requirements is scarce. A method to support production engineers in identifying, defining, structuring and sharing production requirements and collaborating with design engineers is presented. The method has three major parts - focus areas and requirement categories, a worksheet for production requirements capturing and prioritization, and a workflow for using the worksheet. The method was developed in collaboration with practitioners and contributes to the existing knowledge by providing production engineers with a structured way of working with production requirements. Evaluation of the method in the case company showed its usability when developing product variants and that additional work is needed to support the development of new product families and assembly lines.

Product development is multidisciplinary with high uncertainties necessitating coordinated decision-making between design and production. This paper presents a method to work with production requirements to support production preparation during product development aligned with different product and production maturities. The work was conducted in collaboration with two global manufacturing firms. The method supports identification, definition, and structuring of production requirements and the collaboration between design and production engineers for requirement prioritization and follow-up. 

Changing customer requirements, regulations, technology and regulations, shift to automated assembly and product variety are common challenges faced by many manufacturing industries and alignment between product and production system is critical for business success. Design engineers should be aware of production constraints and capabilities to ensure efficient manufacture and assembly of products that are developed. This requires different and detailed support to guide the work, evaluate different design solutions, enable continuous and concurrent work with design for producibility and production preparation. A study was conducted in three companies to understand alignment and integration of product development and production preparation processes. Also, utilization of production requirements, design for manufacture and assembly (DFMA) and failure modes and effect analysis (FMEA) to support design for producibility (DFP) was studied. Currently, production preparation is done through discussions between design and production engineers. Production preparation and work with DFMA and FMEA is skill and experience dependent. Definition, structuring and sharing of production requirements on different system levels, from production and product perspectives are identified as critical to supporting design for producibility and production preparation. The work with FMEA and DFMA can be developed and improved with systematic and structured way of working with production requirements.

New business opportunities are created when the advantage of changeable manufacturing systems expand beyond increased freedom in production location to increased freedom in product design. However, there are new challenges to overcome, including improved ability to design and adapt products when requirements from stakeholders quickly change and/or new technology rapidly evolves. Simultaneously, the producibility of each design must be ensured while keeping the lead-time of the whole process to the minimum. Changeable product platforms (both flexible and adaptable platforms) are gaining attention in both research and industry. However, the level of alignment and integration of product development and production is critical for the efficiency of the product realization process. In this study, we map the state of practice in five companies with an initial literature review. The companies had no formal platform strategy and faced challenges with variant management and development time, had manual processes for production preparation and reuse of technical solutions and knowledge happened through components and documents. The production preparation and reuse were dependent on the engineer’s competence. Future work will concentrate on identifying how manufacturing inputs can be added as a design asset in a changeable product platform to enhance producibility and production preparation.

Today digital qualification tools are part of many design processes that make them dependent on long and expensive simulations, leading to limited ability in exploring design alternatives. Conventional surrogate modelling techniques depend on the parametric models and come short in addressing radical design changes. Existing data-driven models lack the ability in dealing with the geometrical complexities. Thus, to address the resulting long development lead time problem in the product development processes and to enable parameter-independent surrogate modelling, this paper proposes a method to use images as input for design evaluation. Using a case study on the curtain airbag design process, a database consisting of 60,000 configurations has been created and labelled using a method based on dynamic relaxation instead of finite element methods. The database is made available online for research benchmark purposes. A convolutional neural network with multiple layers is employed to map the input images to the simulation output. It was concluded that the showcased data-driven method could reduce digital testing and qualification time significantly and contribute to real-time analysis in product development. Designers can utilise images of geometrical information to build real-time prediction models with acceptable accuracy in the early conceptual phases for design space exploration purposes.

The development of more complex products has increased dependency on virtual/digital models and emphasized the role of simulations as a means of validation before production. This level of dependency on digital models and simulation togetherwith the customization level and continuous requirement change leads to a large number of iterations in each stage of the product development process. This research, studies such group of products that have multidisciplinary, highly iterative, and simulation-driven design processes. It is shown that these high-level technical products, which are commonly outsourced to suppliers, commonly suffer from a long development lead time. The literature points to several research tracks including design automation and data-driven design with possible support. After studying the advantages and disadvantages of each track, a data-driven approachis chosen and studied through two case studies leading to two supporting tools that are expected to improve the development lead time in associated design processes. Feature extraction in CAD as a way to facilitate metamodeling is proposed as the first solution. This support uses the concept of the medial axis to find highly correlated features that can be used in regression models. As for the second supporting tool, an automated CAD script is used to produce a library of images associated with design variants. Dynamic relaxation is used to label each variant with its finite element solution output. Finally, the library is used to train a convolutions neural network that maps screenshots of CAD as input to finite element field answers as output. Both supporting tools can be used to create real-time prediction models in the early conceptual phases of the product development process to explore design space faster and reduce lead time and cost.

Some high-level technical products are associated with transdisciplinary simulation-driven design processes. Therefore, their design process involves many stakeholders and is prone to frequent changes, leading to a highly iterative process with a long lead time. Despite the decades of statistical approximations and metamodeling techniques on prediction models, companies are still striving toachieve fully automated real-time predictions in early design phases. The literature study shows a gap in existing methods such as not being fully real-time or suffering from high dimensionality. This paper presents a generic model for the development process of such described products and motivation for such modeling through a series of semi-structured interviews with an automotive sub-supplier company. The proposed process model points to the digital verification in every design loop as the bottleneck which is then confirmed by interviewees. As alternative solutions to overcome the problems, a method for data-driven and real-time prediction models is presented to enable the designer to foresee the consequence of their decision in the design phase. To evaluate the method, two examples of such real-time metamodeling techniques, developed in an ongoing research project are discussed. The proposed examples confirm that the framework can reduce lead time spent on digital verification and therefore accelerate the design process in such products.

Many high-level technical products are associated with changing requirements, drastic design changes, lack of design information, and uncertainties in input variables which makes their design process iterative and simulation-driven. Regression models have been proven to be useful tools during design, altering the resource-intensive finite element simulation models. However, building regression models from computer-aided design (CAD) parameters is associated with challenges such as dealing with too many parameters and their low or coupled impact on studied outputs which ultimately requires a large training dataset. As a solution, extraction of hidden features from CAD is presented on the application of volume simulation of curtain airbags concerning geometric changes in design loops. After creating a prototype that covers all aspects of a real curtain airbag, its CAD parameters have been analyzed to find out the correlation between design parameters and volume as output. Next, using the design of the experiment latin hypercube sampling method, 100 design samples are generated and the corresponding volume for each design sample was assessed. It was shown that selected CAD parameters are not highly correlated with the volume which consequently lowers the accuracy of prediction models. Various geometric entities, such as the medial axis, are used to extract several hidden features (referred to as sleeping parameters). The correlation of the new features and their performance and precision through two regression analyses are studied. The result shows that choosing sleeping parameters as input reduces dimensionality and the need to use advanced regression algorithms, allowing designers to have more accurate predictions (in this case approximately 95%) with a reasonable number of samples. Furthermore, it was concluded that using sleeping parameters in regression-based tools creates real-time prediction ability in the early development stage of the design process which could contribute to lower development lead time by eliminating design iterations.

Demanding markets and complex products are only some of the reasons that make changes and variations inevitable through different stages of product realization. From early phases of product development to downstream production phase, these changes or variations cause failure either directly or by propagating to other phases, triggering more fluctuations like the well-known butterfly effect. In this paper, first, the definition of changes in product realization will be reviewed and then different papers and their classification on change related system properties (illites) will be discussed and compared. It was argued that considering a system-level view, one could trace these propagations in the systems as a result of not being robust, flexible, or adaptable, etc. Some of the ambiguity in this semantic field demonstrated and most repeated definitions are identified as the unanimous and agreed-upon definitions in the literature. In the end, a historical comparison of the three identified properties presented. The results of this study help us to understand the multidisciplinary nature of these propagations and identify their stemming turbulent environment. This will be used as a foundation for forthcoming research either to prevent these propagations or utilize their attributes in the product realization.