Center for e-design

This is a Phase III renewal for the University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst) site to continue as a partner institution of I/UCRC for e-Design. UMass Amherst is one of the two founding institutions of the Center for e-Design. The mission and vision of the existing NSF Center for e-Design is to research and develop methods and tools that support the realization of a new design paradigm that can be used to design, develop, and manufacture new engineered products and systems. Research at the Center for e-Design is oriented to application areas where large scale, complex projects are being developed, often involving multiple collaborators at various locations. Application areas include transportation, manufacturing, information technology, and health and safety. Research is categorized into five thrust areas - New Design Paradigms and Processes, Visualization and Virtual Prototyping, Enabling Information Infrastructure, Design Optimization, and Design Education. Research projects address a diverse range of engineering challenges faced by high-tech companies and agencies competing in a global economy. UMass Amherst has a number of faculty and student researchers working in areas that directly support the research thrust areas of the center. The renewal will enable UMass Amherst to continue its research in the advancement of new methods and tools in conceptual design and product innovation, advanced engineering modeling and simulation, digital manufacturing, and medical devices design. UMass ongoing research projects involve projects dealing with integration and application of e-Design methods and tools into commercial design processes, as well as fundamental research projects on sustainability product design and engineering design innovation.The Center renewal will enable UMass Amherst to contribute significantly to the successful development and preparation of graduate and undergraduate students. Results from research effort will continue to be integrated into the educational curriculum to enrich the student learning experiences in conceptual design and product innovation, advanced engineering modeling and simulation, and digital manufacturing. Students associated with the Center will receive exceptional career development opportunities that include laboratory and field studies, participation at conferences and workshops, design colloquium series, and journal publications, as well as training in the ethical conduct of research. The PI and other UMass Amherst faculty will continue recruiting underrepresented students, including partnering with a number of university programs aimed at providing research opportunities for these students. Research and educational findings will be disseminated nationally and have significant broader impact through industrial collaboration and technology transfer. The industry partners will continue to benefit from first access to research, royalty-free use of the tools, and the opportunity to license and commercialize technologies. Research and educational findings will continue to be disseminated nationally and have a significant impact on U.S. industry as a whole., The Center for e-Design (CED) is an NSF Industry/University Cooperative Research Center (IUCRC) that works with its member organizations to research and advance solutions to complex problems associated with the innovation, design, production, distribution, and sustainment of innovative and high quality products and systems, that minimize costs and are responsive to the rapidly changing marketplace. Concurrent design of products and supporting processes; improved integration and collaboration among people, tools, and information; process improvements; knowledge capture and reuse; and automated/assisted decision-making are just some of the strategies employed. The Center for e-Design has research sites in place at six universities (Iowa State University, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the University of Buffalo, Brigham Young University, Oregon State University, and Wayne State University). This project adds The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State), a seventh university, to the research sites in the Center. Penn State brings expertise from a diverse interdisciplinary team of researchers from several departments, colleges, university centers and institutes. The primary contribution of the Penn State team will include the following areas: crowd-based design, big data analytics, design theory and innovation, collaborative design, design optimization, additive manufacturing, smart manufacturing, and model-based enterprise.The Center for e-Design's activities are organized around three major efforts which deliver value to its industry/government partners: 1) Fundamental Research focuses on creating tools, methods, and technologies to address industry relevant needs in e-tools-enabled product development and realization including enabling information infrastructure; conceptual design tools; multidisciplinary constraint management and optimization; and virtual prototyping and simulation; 2) Research Test Bed focuses on integration of interdisciplinary research activities to validate developed tools, methods, and technologies and establish a common framework for multiple applications while fostering collaboration between academic and industry research projects; and 3) Engineering Education and Technology Transfer, which focuses on educating a new cadre of engineers and scientists proficient in e-design and rapidly transferring research results into usable applications for industry and government., 1338780 Wayne State University (WSU); Kim Wayne State University (WSU) proposes to join the existing Center for e-Design that is currently comprised of Iowa State (lead), Virginia Tech, Brigham Young University, the University of Massachusetts, and the University of Buffalo. The mission of the center is to create new tools, processes, and methodologies that will assist in generating higher quality products at lower costs. Wayne States team complements the existing university partners' expertise in the four research thrust areas. The proposed sites relevant, fundamental research includes semantic product design and infrastructure, innovation tools for design fusion, virtual simulation, and human-machine interface tools. Furthermore, Wayne State's team has significant expertise in cultural and anthropological research in design, alternative and renewable energy technology design and optimization, and STEM education. Wayne State's participation can help grow the e-Design centers research to better meet both current and emerging industrial and social needs. Wayne State brings expertise from a diverse interdisciplinary team that draws from multiple departments across academic schools within the university. Site research from Wayne State's Center for e-Design will be integrated into its broader graduate and undergraduate educational endeavors to enhance students' development and preparation. Research will be integrated into existing educational curriculum, thereby enriching course content and student learning experiences in: design process and problem solving, decision making in engineering design, advanced design theory and computational issues, IT and knowledge engineering for design, and global product development. Wayne State provides excellent industry-driven internship opportunities to its graduate and undergraduate students. The proposed site plans to maintain a policy of strong diversity within the Center, including continued partnership and recruitment of minority and women graduate and undergraduate students., Oregon State University (OSU) will be joining the Center for e-Design IUCRC as a full university member research site. The mission and vision of the existing NSF Center for e-Design is to research and develop methods and tools that support the realization of a new design paradigm that can be used to develop new engineered products and systems. This new paradigm allows design and product realization to be customer driven in a collaborative e-design environment that supports transparent analysis, as well as virtual simulation and prototyping. This new design paradigm encompasses consideration of the entire life cycle of the product or system under development. The Center researches and develops a number of enabling technologies to support the proposed e-design paradigm. OSU has faculty and student researchers working in areas that are synergistic with the mission and vision of the existing Center for e-Design. The team is interdisciplinary, including 24 researchers from seven schools and departments across and several university colleges and institutes. Research activities of the OSU team will especially strengthen the Centers efforts in the area of process, product, and complex system design, analysis, and optimization. The specific needs within the Center to be met by the OSU team are focused in the following areas: 1) System Design Analysis and Optimization, 2) Decision Analysis; 3) Computational Design and Innovation. The addition of OSU strengthens the Center for e-Design and its role as a significant national resource capable of the following results: 1) inclusion of a multi-disciplinary viewpoint needed to ensure the development of a new paradigm of excellence in the design of engineered products and/or systems; 2) realization of conceptual modeling tools aimed at reducing design cycle time and ensuring maximum achievement of design goals for human use; 3) realization of an environment for economic and supply chain design optimization; 4) establishment of a critical mass of expertise focused on the development of an e-Design modeling and simulation software platform and virtual prototyping tools, as well as strategies for achieving simulation based acquisition.The proposed effort will contribute significantly to the successful development and preparation of graduate and undergraduate students across seven schools and departments. Results of this research effort will be integrated into the educational curriculum to enrich the student learning experiences in design, modeling and simulation, decision analysis, rapid prototyping, manufacturing, and simulation based acquisition courses. Students associated with the Center for e-Design will receive career development opportunities, to include laboratory and field studies, attendance and presentations at interdisciplinary conferences and workshops, a design colloquium series, participation in interdisciplinary activities and journal publications, as well as training in the ethical conduct of research. The addition of OSU to the Center contributes to the diversity of the Center. One the co-PIs as well as over 25% of the participating faculty are women, typically underrepresented in engineering. The PI and other OSU faculty will emphasize involvement of women and minority graduate and undergraduate students. Research and educational findings will be shared with the industry and the center will work towards the technology transfer.