Supporting Creativity in Engineering Design: A Position Paper - Principia Designae: Pre-Design, Design, and Post-Design - page 21

3. Describe the situation/problem on a more abstract level, as far as required and in
a direction that may support further action! The degree of abstraction is depen-
dent on the situation/problem and on the experience of the engineering designer.
4. Find analogies! There are a lot of possibilities to find or generate analogies like
searching, combining known knowledge-elements, looking at other domains to
get inspired etc. A lot of well-known methods like the morphological box,
biomimetics, synectics or elements out of TRIZ (TIPS) (Pahl et al. 2007 ;
Lindemann 2009 ) are supporting this task. Using these methods requires some
training and in case of working in a team an experienced moderation is required.
5. Concretize found analogies in the sense of solutions and adapt these to the
situation, the problem! This again is a demanding step, which requires the ability
of open minded thinking. A lot of experience with regard to solution may hinder,
experience in generating new solutions may help.
6. Evaluate the findings/results! The above defined requirements are the first point
to be checked. An analysis of risks and chances, development efforts and time,
availability of necessary resources may be additional aspects of an evaluation.
7. Decide!
Iterations within this procedure are necessary and helpful, as long as the number
is kept on a small level. Teamwork may help in a few of these steps (mainly
“Understand the situation/problem” and “Evaluate the findings/results”) and it
may hinder progress in others (mainly “Describe the situation/problem ... ”, “Find
analogies” and “Decide”).
The “Concretize found analogies” seems to be the most demanding step with
hardly any systematic support. All the other steps are overall well supported by
systematic methods.
Novices may take more time and they need support during evaluation steps.
They have a good chance to bridge the gap of missing experience by using the
systematic way intensively.
Experienced practitioners are often hindered by mental blocks because of their
experience. They have a good chance to bridge the gap based on these mental
blocks by using the systematic way intensively.
2.6 Conclusion
Research in engineering design should address the points of teamwork versus
individual work with regard to its basics as well as to industrial practice. Difficulties
as measuring the output in terms of quality and the possibility of repeating exper-
iments have to be addressed.
Research in engineering design should also address the point of concretizing
found analogies in the sense of solutions and adaptation of these to the given
situation/problem.