Data analytics needs dedicated tools, which are getting complex. In this paper we summarize the results of our literature research done with special attention to existing and potential future tools. The attention is paid mainly to processing big data, rather than to effective semantic processing of middle-of-life data (MoLD). The issue of handling of big MoLD of specific characteristics efficiently has not yet been addressed by the commercialized tools and methods. Another major limitation of the current tools is that they are typically not capable to adapt themselves to designers‟ needs and to support knowledge/experience reusability in multiple design tasks. MoLD require quasi-real life handling due to their nature and direct feedback relationships to the operation process and the environment of products. Nowadays products are equipped with smart capabilities. This offers new opportunities for exploiting MoLD. The knowledge aggregated in this study will be used in the development of a toolbox, which (i) integrates various tools under a unified interface, (ii) implements various smart and semantics orientated functions, and (iii) facilitates data transformations in contexts by the practicing designers themselves.@en

Though many enhancements are still possible and needed, data analytics software packages invaded all segments of industrial businesses. Since product designers are not specialized data analysts, an op- portunity of enhancement is to provide advice by smart data analytics toolboxes (SDATBs). For in- stance, SDATBs can provide guidance at selecting commercially available data analytics tools (DATs) for a specific design-related task. The reported work focused on the implementation of a recommendation functionality for selecting DATs for different appli- cations. The paper presents the proposed solution, which (i) interprets the designer’s input, (ii) pro- poses a description of the problem identified by the designer, (iii) reasons with the warehoused DATs and (iv) recommends DATs matching the designer’s task at hand. Besides presenting the needed func- tionality, the rules used for selecting DATs are dis- cussed and the computational algorithms are speci- fied. A computational feasibility testing of the tool recommendation functionality has been done considering the application case of enhancing a wash- ing machine by white goods designers. The testing process showed that the realized functionality works correctly from a computational point of view and that it achieves sufficiently good tool matching. It compensates for the knowledge lack of product de- signers concerning selection of data analytics tools and reduces time and effort for tools selection. The outcomes of this study will be used in a follow up research to develop a SDATB providing even more comprehensive support for product designers.@en

Companies are getting increasingly interested in learning how different customers use their products. Collecting data about the use of products provides useful insights and facilitates design enhancements. Effective data analytics needs dedicated tools. In this paper, we summarize the results of our literature research done with special attention to existing tools. We observed that everything is changing rapidly and getting more complex in terms of data and processing methods and tools. While remarkable attention has been paid to processing big data, much less is being devoted to effective semantic progressing of middle-of-life (MoL) data. One of our findings is that commercialized data analytics tools have not addressed extraction, aggregation, and handling genuine MoL data adequately. Another one is that the currently available tools are in the lack of the capability to adapt themselves to designers needs and to produce results that could be reused in multiple design tasks. Nowadays products are equipped with smart capabilities and this offers new opportunities for exploiting middle-of-life data. The knowledge aggregated in this study will be used in the development of a sophisticated toolbox. This will: (i) integrate various tools under a unified interface, (ii) implement various semantics orientated and smart reasoning-based functions, and (iii) facilitate data transformations by practicing designers in contexts.@en

Continuous enhancements of connected products make them able to generate and communicate a huge amounts of middle-of-life data streams to their producers. This affordance also creates a challenge for current data analytics tools unable to keep up with the heterogeneous nature and characteristics of these type of data. Accordingly, a function able to combine data from multiple data streams and analyze them as one source of information is definitely needed in a next-generation data analytics toolbox to support product enhancements by designers. As a result of a recent Ph.D. project, this paper presents the conceptualization and the implementation of a novel function of merging middle-of-life data streams. The implemented computational mechanism (i) acquires middle-of-life data streams, (ii) pre-processes them individually, (iii) merges information from the concerned streams, (iv) derives recommendation based on the merged information, and (v) send a recommendation as a message to the designer. The performance of the computational implementation was tested in an application case of data steaming and management to white goods designers for enhancing a connected washing machine. From a computational point of view, the testing proved that the set of proprietary algorithms designed for the realization of computational merging, together with the existing ones taken from the literature, were able to efficiently perform the subtasks. The advantages of merges were: (i) it provides more information than the one obtained by processing sensors' data individually, (ii) it reflects the condition of the product with a higher fidelity, (iii) it communicates information about the product while it is in use by the customer, (iv) it reduces the sensors analyses time and effort, and (v) it provides recommendation as an action plan concerning the product at hand. The outcomes of this study will be used in a follow up research to develop a comprehensive smart data analytics toolbox to support product designers in product innovation.@en

Agricultural production worldwide is facing many challenges to be able to achieve the UN Sustainability Development Goals and international agreements with respect to environment, labour, and society. Our investigation revealed that further optimization of current farming practices with precision agriculture (PA) and precision livestock farming (PLF) technologies is insufficient to meet these challenges. Therefore, a paradigm shift is required for building the next- generation agricultural production systems that are (i) sustainable, (ii) circular, and (iii) regenerative. The Synergia research program, where this study takes place, addresses this transition through our new concept of ‘Technology 4- Ecology-based Agriculture’ (T4E-Agriculture) in the Netherlands. This concept implies that future agricultural systems have to (i) rely on natural processes as driver for agricultural ecosystems and primary productivity; (ii) be able to sense traits by focusing on following biological production processes instead of momentary states, and on biological and ecological traits in the systems instead of production traits and problem indicators only; (iii) build models based on the understanding of the underlying biological & ecological processes; and (iv) include control and management functions that focus on prevention of problems, and make smart use of biological diversity and ecological complexity. With this novel approach we are not opposing high tech to nature-based production, in the opposite, we are exploring how current and future farming technologies can enable and support truly ecology-based farming systems. This approach will be developed and validated within the Synergia research program in building next-generation (i) horticulture, (ii) dairy and (iii) arable farming systems.@en

Agricultural production worldwide is facing many challenges to be able to achieve the UN Sustainability Development Goals and international agreements with respect to environment, labour, and society. Our investigation revealed that further optimization of current farming practices with precision agriculture (PA) and precision livestock farming (PLF) technologies is insufficient to meet these challenges. Therefore, a paradigm shift is required for building the next- generation agricultural production systems that are (i) sustainable, (ii) circular, and (iii) regenerative. The Synergia research program, where this study takes place, addresses this transition through our new concept of ‘Technology 4- Ecology-based Agriculture’ (T4E-Agriculture) in the Netherlands. This concept implies that future agricultural systems have to (i) rely on natural processes as driver for agricultural ecosystems and primary productivity; (ii) be able to sense traits by focusing on following biological production processes instead of momentary states, and on biological and ecological traits in the systems instead of production traits and problem indicators only; (iii) build models based on the understanding of the underlying biological & ecological processes; and (iv) include control and management functions that focus on prevention of problems, and make smart use of biological diversity and ecological complexity. With this novel approach we are not opposing high tech to nature-based production, in the opposite, we are exploring how current and future farming technologies can enable and support truly ecology-based farming systems. This approach will be developed and validated within the Synergia research program in building next-generation (i) horticulture, (ii) dairy and (iii) arable farming systems.@en

Cet ouvrage est le fruit d'un long travail portant sur l'étude des usures des cerces d'arrêt bandages d'un exemple de four rotatif. Il essaye de toucher tout aspect de calcul, de conception et de dimensions à travers les différentes solutions proposées. Cette étude est faite sur un exemple de four rotatif qui est l'un des plus populaires actuellement dans l'industrie. Ce livre donne tous les détails allant de la définition du problème jusqu'à la proposition de solutions, et montre comment les solutions ont été construites au cours de l'étude.@en

Cet ouvrage est le fruit d'un long travail portant sur l'étude des usures des cerces d'arrêt bandages d'un exemple de four rotatif. Il essaye de toucher tout aspect de calcul, de conception et de dimensions à travers les différentes solutions proposées. Cette étude est faite sur un exemple de four rotatif qui est l'un des plus populaires actuellement dans l'industrie. Ce livre donne tous les détails allant de la définition du problème jusqu'à la proposition de solutions, et montre comment les solutions ont été construites au cours de l'étude.@en

Nowadays the innovation process has become a collective activity where designers have no longer to work only in their own field of expertise but they have also to work with others in project meetings in order to make decisions collectively. The main purpose of this study is to understand how participants argue and converge toward one solution in an upstream phase of an innovation project. Our work is based on a case study. We captured video and audio data and we gathered working documents from an innovation project meeting in a French company. Our first macro analysis showed that during this meeting there were no explicit decisions concerning both technical and business model solutions. We also noticed that the technical discussions converged towards a solution. This convergence was based on a multitude of mobilized criteria that we structured in different categories. In future research we plan to carry out micro analyses of particular moments highlighted in our current work in order to understand this convergence process.@en

Nowadays the innovation process has become a collective activity where designers have no longer to work only in their own field of expertise but they have also to work with others in project meetings in order to make decisions collectively. The main purpose of this study is to understand how participants argue and converge toward one solution in an upstream phase of an innovation project. Our work is based on a case study. We captured video and audio data and we gathered working documents from an innovation project meeting in a French company. Our first macro analysis showed that during this meeting there were no explicit decisions concerning both technical and business model solutions. We also noticed that the technical discussions converged towards a solution. This convergence was based on a multitude of mobilized criteria that we structured in different categories. In future research we plan to carry out micro analyses of particular moments highlighted in our current work in order to understand this convergence process.@en

Nowadays the innovation process has become a collective activity where designers have no longer to work only in their own field of expertise but they have also to work with others in project meetings in order to make decisions collectively. The main purpose of this study is to understand how participants argue and converge toward one solution in an upstream phase of an innovation project. Our work is based on a case study. We captured video and audio data and we gathered working documents from an innovation project meeting in a French company. Our first macro analysis showed that during this meeting there were no explicit decisions concerning both technical and business model solutions. We also noticed that the technical discussions converged towards a solution. This convergence was based on a multitude of mobilized criteria that we structured in different categories. In future research we plan to carry out micro analyses of particular moments highlighted in our current work in order to understand this convergence process.@en

Nowadays the innovation process has become a collective activity where designers have no longer to work only in their own field of expertise but they have also to work with others in project meetings in order to make decisions collectively. The main purpose of this study is to understand how participants argue and converge toward one solution in an upstream phase of an innovation project. Our work is based on a case study. We captured video and audio data and we gathered working documents from an innovation project meeting in a French company. Our first macro analysis showed that during this meeting there were no explicit decisions concerning both technical and business model solutions. We also noticed that the technical discussions converged towards a solution. This convergence was based on a multitude of mobilized criteria that we structured in different categories. In future research we plan to carry out micro analyses of particular moments highlighted in our current work in order to understand this convergence process.@en

This second Part of the paper (i) develops a detailed procedural model for handling complicated research problematics, (ii) transfers the procedural framework into a scenario of processing steps, (iii) demonstrates the deployment of the procedural scenario in a sample case, and (iv) addresses some important issues of research model development for supradisciplinary research. First, the framework called Holistic Systematic Combinatorial Scoping (HSCS) is introduced that comprises 21 subsequent activity steps. To illustrate the practical application of the HSCS framework, a demonstrative case study of preventing frequently occurring accidents at an uncontrolled intersection is presented. This case-study explains how the HSCS framework can facilitate (i) semantic capturing and rendering of complicated research problematics, (ii) scoping the overall research problematics and constructing definitive research problematics, and (iii) deriving a manageable research model of definitive research problematics. Further research intends to test the methodology by transdisciplinary research collectives and other CPSs related problematics.@en

This second Part of the paper (i) develops a detailed procedural model for handling complicated research problematics, (ii) transfers the procedural framework into a scenario of processing steps, (iii) demonstrates the deployment of the procedural scenario in a sample case, and (iv) addresses some important issues of research model development for supradisciplinary research. First, the framework called Holistic Systematic Combinatorial Scoping (HSCS) is introduced that comprises 21 subsequent activity steps. To illustrate the practical application of the HSCS framework, a demonstrative case study of preventing frequently occurring accidents at an uncontrolled intersection is presented. This case-study explains how the HSCS framework can facilitate (i) semantic capturing and rendering of complicated research problematics, (ii) scoping the overall research problematics and constructing definitive research problematics, and (iii) deriving a manageable research model of definitive research problematics. Further research intends to test the methodology by transdisciplinary research collectives and other CPSs related problematics.@en

There are many large-scale, transdisciplinary research problematics associated with next-generation cyber-physical systems, which are difficult to capture, analyze, and transfer into sharable research models. This two-part paper is intended to contribute to a better understanding and to provide a systematic approach to describing, scoping, and specifying manageable contents for transdisciplinary research models. Part 1 of the paper analyzes the essence and the interplays of the most important current trends, and creates a robust theoretical and methodological foundation for capturing and scoping research problematics associated with the evolving paradigm of cyber-physical systems. The elaboration and deployment of the proposed approach are discussed in detail in Part 2. Besides the overall procedural framework of the proposed holistic systematic combinational breakdown, all steps are explained and exemplified in an illustrative real-life example. The discussion in both Parts concludes with a number of propositions and further research opportunities concerning the theoretical and methodological foundations.@en

There are many large-scale, transdisciplinary research problematics associated with next-generation cyber-physical systems, which are difficult to capture, analyze, and transfer into sharable research models. This two-part paper is intended to contribute to a better understanding and to provide a systematic approach to describing, scoping, and specifying manageable contents for transdisciplinary research models. Part 1 of the paper analyzes the essence and the interplays of the most important current trends, and creates a robust theoretical and methodological foundation for capturing and scoping research problematics associated with the evolving paradigm of cyber-physical systems. The elaboration and deployment of the proposed approach are discussed in detail in Part 2. Besides the overall procedural framework of the proposed holistic systematic combinational breakdown, all steps are explained and exemplified in an illustrative real-life example. The discussion in both Parts concludes with a number of propositions and further research opportunities concerning the theoretical and methodological foundations.@en