Annual Report 2016 - Mechanical Engineering

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282 Product Development
Product Development
Processes, methods and tools for developers of technical products
Innovation and Creativity
The current research activities of the
Institute of Product Development in the
field of innovation and creativity aim at
the integration of relevant knowledge from
various disciplines of product develop-
ment. The institute mainly refines design
methodologies and adapts processes
in companies. An essential component
of research is applications within an
industrial environment. Research helps to
develop sustainable product architectures,
find new ideas using methodologies of the
‘Open Innovation’ toolbox and implements
new organizational models following the
principles of ‘Open Organization’.
Projects
n KME project – SME specific application
of outside-in open innovation
n BMWi project – InnoCyFer: Integrated
design and fabrication of customer
individualized products in cyber physi-
cal manufacturing systems
n BMBF project – RAKOON: Progress by
active collaboration in open organisa-
tions
n BSH project – Innovative dish care
solutions
n Zeidler-Forschungs-Stiftung project –
Innovative drinking assistance
n The focus of the institute in the last two years is represented by the five
focused research fields.
Most projects are located in the field of
innovation and creativity. Together with
industrial partners, the institute works on
topics like user experience, bio-mimetics
and open innovation (represented in three
projects).
The institute has a long tradition in the
field of systems engineering and engineer-
ing design processes: In this field, the
institute works on four projects within the
Collaborative Research Centre SFB 768
and on several projects in collaboration
with large companies as well as small and
medium enterprises (SMEs).
Knowledge and approaches from systems
engineering are also transferred to the
research field of knowledge management.
Facing the challenge of the huge amount
of employees carrying knowledge for
fulfilling tasks, the structural complexity
approach helps handling these domains
and deriving measures.
Finally, projects on the topic of cost ma-
nagement deal with the challenge of early
determination, at least cost.
Prof. Dr.-Ing.
Wolfram Volk
(interim)
Phone +49.89.289.15151
Contact
Creativity in the development and
design process