Distributed Product Design in Educational Programs: 28th CIRP Design Conference 2018, 23-25 May 2018, Nantes, France

In a collaborative setting between the Technical University Berlin and the University of Twente, a newly developed student project aims at distributed product design. In the course, four groups of ten students, with five students from each institute are given the assignment to develop a multidisciplinary product – in this case an electrical drive, autonomous scale model of a car. The course aims at addressing the ability to effectively collaborate using virtual methods by gaining knowledge and skills on collaborative technology, managing information exchange, effective and efficient storage of information, handling CAD co-development, managing and documenting different versions and variants and documenting design rationale. Additional learning goals focus on the development of project problem solving skills in an intercultural and multi-domain engineering team and furthermore the development of trust and conflict management in distributed teams. At the same time, the course exposes the students to industrial PLM and teamwork software. In this, different fields of expertise are combined, within the teams where members have different mind-sets, different point of views and working methods. In short, the course uses the development of the multi-disciplinary product preparing real-world working conditions. By positioning the groups as competing design bureaus, students pro-actively aim for the best product possible, thus the project aim as providing realistic circumstances.