This paper investigates decision making in the stage gate process at an aerospace manufacturer. More specifically how decision makers deal with uncertainties and ambiguities when making decisions is in focus. The stage-gate was found to be a discussion trigger—a boundary negotiating artefact—where stakeholders could bring things “on the table”; reflect on uncertainties, to decide where more knowledge is needed. Managers should be aware that the knowledge base might not always be perfect, and make use of the sensemaking capabilities of the stage-gate and the gate meeting to mitigate and improve the knowledge base. Therefore, this paper elaborates on formalized knowledge-based criteria to support this evaluation of the knowledge base.

This paper investigates decision making in the stage-gate process used by an aerospace manufacturer. More specifically, it focuses on the way decision makers deal with uncertainties and ambiguities when making decisions. The stage-gate model was found to be a discussion trigger - a boundary negotiating artefact - through which stakeholders bring issues to the table, reflect on uncertainties, and decide in what areas more knowledge is needed. Managers should be aware that the knowledge base might not always be perfect and should make use of the sensemaking capabilities of the stage-gate model and the gate meeting to mitigate and improve the knowledge base. This paper elaborates on formalized knowledge-based criteria so as to support this evaluation of the knowledge base.

Many companies have been using lessons learned practices as one oftheir key knowledge management initiatives to capitalize on past experiences.For product development companies, learning from product lifecycle phasesgives a true competitive advantage to improve the next generation of products.However, companies are still struggling in capturing and sharing lessonslearned and applying them in new situations. Based on this consideration, thepaper proposes a video-based approach–using social media technologies–as away to leverage continuous capturing and sharing lessons learned from productlifecycle phases to design practices. The paper presents the findings of a casestudy within the aerospace industry, which investigates the current industrialpractices with regard to experience feedback, and illustrates the implementationof a video-based approach. Further, the conceptual mock-up of video-based lessons learned sharing portal and its social platform that are aimed to support the design practices are illustrated.

The paper proposes a framework for analysing the performances of product-service systems (PSSs) development processes using a balanced scorecard (BSC) as an instrument to guide the implementation and the evaluation of new methods and tools. Emerging from a case study in the aerospace industry, the paper discusses the main challenges in PSS development and proposes a performance measurement framework for PSS development based on multi-criteria indicators. Finally, the benefits of a framework for PSS development performance measurement are discussed.

The design of complex systems requires detailed analysis to be moved earlier in the design process. Value Driven Design methodologies extend the Requirements Management and Systems Engineering processes to reduce time and costs needed to identify the right solution direction to be pursued in detailed design. Emerging from the findings of an EU FP7 research project, the paper describes an approach for preliminary concept selection, named EVOKE, that uses value as a basis for decision. EVOKE enables quick value analysis to be executed by component manufacturers by taking as input a set of value dimensions and drivers communicated by the system integrators, together with information about the high-level engineering characteristics of the sub-systems under consideration. The approach and its technological enablers are described in detail through the use of a case study related to the design of new intermediate compressor case for turbofan engines.

In light of emerging product development trends, such as Product-Service Systems, manufacturing organizations are obliged to collaborate across functional and organizational borders. Hence, companies are increasingly investigating how to leverage knowledge management practices to enhance their dynamic learning capabilities to achieve continuous process improvements. Manyresearchers assert that lessons learned practices are possible ways for organizational learning, which allows for continuous capturing and sharing of experiential knowledge across boundaries in order to learn both from mistakes and successes. However, many organizations fall short in capturing and sharing lessons from projects and applying them in new situations. The purpose of this paper is to propose a video-based approach and related guidelines for capturing and sharing lessons learned in a dynamic manner across functional and organizational boundaries. Based on laboratory experiments as well as validation activities conducted in collaboration with an aerospace manufacturer, this papercompares the video-based approach with a more traditional text-based approach of documenting lessons learned from projects. The paper describes the results of testing activities conducted with a video-based lessons learned prototype and the authors reflect on its implications for design practice management in the aerospace industry.

The results written in this document comes from a questionnaire that was sent out within the Interreg IV A Nord project Digital integrated Manufacturing. Partners in the project are CENTRIA Research and Development (Lead partner), Finland, Luleå University of Technology, Sweden and Narvik University College, Norway. The project is financed and supported by the European Commission via Europeiska regionala utvecklingsfonden, Länsstyrelsen Norrbotten, Luleå University of Technology, Lapin Liito, CENTRIA Research and Development, Innovasjon Norge, Troms fylkeskommune, Narvik University College and Nordland Fylkeskommune.The projects purpose is to increase the competence and skills of employees in manufacturing Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SME’s) so that they can improve their global competitiveness within their area of expertise. The project aims to approach this by demonstrating and using new technologies and methods throughout the entire business chain.The Projects primary target groups are the employees within the SME’s in the Interreg IV A Nord area which includes the following region in Norway, Finland and Sweden; Lapplands landskap, Mellersta Österbottens landskap, Norra Österbottens landskap, Norrbottens län, Västerbottens län (Skellefteå, Norsjö, Malå and Sorsele kommuner), Finnmark fylkeskommune, Troms fylkeskommune and Nordland fylkeskommuneThe project contained 4 work packages and this report contains the results from Work Package 1: Current status and upcoming DIM-needs amongst SME’s. One task within this work package was to conduct a questionnaire. The purpose with the questionnaire was to get fundamental knowledge and information from manufacturing companies within the Interreg IV A Nord region regarding the following topics:• General company information and current status• Products and Design and production process• Information and Communication Technologies• Business partner relationships• CompetitionSome conclusions from the questionnaire indicate that companies that answered the questionnaire want to maintain their business and make it grow. Regarding DIM technologies some companies have implemented certain methods, tools, machines to a larger extent than others. The companies state that they are more interested in employing personnel with technical skills (both professional and academic degrees) than personnel with economy skills. Robotics was seen as one area of improvement.

In manufacturing, metal parts can be joined using a laser as a welding tool, i.e. laser welding. Despite huge amount of research over the years, the process is neither sufficiently understood nor mathematically predictable. This study aims to holistically analyze the knowledge management issues occurring in laser welding. Emerging from observations and semi-structured interviews from industry and academy, the complexity and the criticalities of the process as well as the current knowledge transfers is explained and analyzed, using a knowledge lifecycle framework as a reference. Besides enhanced awareness of the limiting issues, information and knowledge visualization, e.g. knowledge maps, is identified as a key for progress in the community. The Matrix Flow Chart is suggested as an alternative descaled map of process changes.

Innovation is triggered by the cross-pollination of fields and disciplines. In product development, this means bringing together people with different expertise to develop breakthrough product and service offers. In spite of their great potential, cross-functional efforts are not yet adequately supported from a knowledge perspective, asking for a more open and bottom-up open approach to knowledge management. The paper aims to investigate how social technologies can enhance collaboration and knowledge sharing in complex, cross-functional and cross-organizational product development projects. It initially highlights the role of weak ties as enablers for more innovative design processes, especially when manufacturing companies move towards developing integrated offers mixing hardware, software and services. Emerging from data collected in two case studies conducted within the European aeronautical industry, it applies the Strength-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) framework to highlight how tools such as wikis, blogs, forum and microblogs can shorten and increase the quality of early design decisions. Furthermore it elaborates on how the design team can enhance its perception of the needs to be addressed and leverage its capability to develop solutions for the task at hand.

Today, a new knowledge economy and more service-based offerings are commonly mentioned as a challenge for manufacturing companies. This challenge addresses the companies’ knowledge base and the traditional engineering expertise areas. The report starts from an assumption that there are differences in how knowledge is managed, as well as differences in the intentions to why it is managed. Based on this assumption, the purpose in the report is two-folded. First, the purpose is to conceptualize different facets of knowledge within a framework of technical product development. Second, the purpose is that the report serves as a trigger for discussions and reflections on existing practices in industrial workshops. So, despite that the report does not provide the “right” answers to these questions; they still guide the work in our research:• What is actually managed in every-day engineering project work?• And, for what purposes?The work accounted for in the report comes from a literature review and our jointefforts in understanding the research area from a theoretical perspective. First general views on knowledge is presented, including its classification in different ways, compared to information and data, as well as its division into tacit and explicit knowledge, or practical skills and theoretical knowledge. Human factors, including how people search for information, is also presented. Then a more explicit focus on technical knowledge is presented, showing the shift from knowledge as an artefact to a social and personal perspective in recent years. This also encompasses discussing the capabilities and knowledge of an engineer. A contribution of this report is the conceptualization of different facets of engineering knowledge; especially the more social aspects of engineering knowledge have been highlighted.

Innovation is often measured based on how the product performs on the market. This makes it difficult to measure the performance of a team since the time to develop a product may take several years. In this paper we show the importance of creating a common ground and facilitation in a team, two aspects that is not easy measure, but should be assessed. We also discuss innovation on three interrelated organizational levels, the operational, which is the development team and in focus in this paper, the managerial and the strategic level. We found that companies need indicators to measure and/or assess performance on all three levels and thatmore research is needed to find the inter-links between the levels to prescribe measures and assessment points.