Virtual Organization for Innovative Conceptual Engineering Design (VOICED) is a virtual organization that promotes innovation in engineering design. This project is the collaborative work of researchers at five universities across the United States, and is funded by the National Science Foundation. The goal of this virtual organization is to facilitate the sharing of design information between often geographically dispersed engineers and designers through the use of a robust and sophisticated design repository. Additionally, functional data can be mapped to historical failure data [1] and possible components [2] to create a conceptual design.
The end goal is to turn VOICED into a tool that allows engineers to create conceptual designs based on archived designs and detect failures in those design through an open design repository (Tumer & Stone, n.d.). VOICED is a fairly new organization, being about 3–4 years old, however the concepts that underlie the organization have been under development for much longer. [3]
Collaborative Research: VOICED - A Virtual Organization for Innovative Conceptual Engineering Design
Systems engineering is an interdisciplinary field of engineering and engineering management that focuses on how to design, integrate, and manage complex systems over their life cycles. At its core, systems engineering utilizes systems thinking principles to organize this body of knowledge. The individual outcome of such efforts, an engineered system, can be defined as a combination of components that work in synergy to collectively perform a useful function.
An application-specific integrated circuit is an integrated circuit (IC) chip customized for a particular use, rather than intended for general-purpose use. For example, a chip designed to run in a digital voice recorder or a high-efficiency video codec is an ASIC. Application-specific standard product (ASSP) chips are intermediate between ASICs and industry standard integrated circuits like the 7400 series or the 4000 series. ASIC chips are typically fabricated using metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) technology, as MOS integrated circuit chips.
Intel Architecture Labs (IAL) was the personal-computer system research-and-development arm of Intel during the 1990s.
The open-design movement involves the development of physical products, machines and systems through use of publicly shared design information. This includes the making of both free and open-source software (FOSS) as well as open-source hardware. The process is generally facilitated by the Internet and often performed without monetary compensation. The goals and philosophy of the movement are identical to that of the open-source movement, but are implemented for the development of physical products rather than software. Open design is a form of co-creation, where the final product is designed by the users, rather than an external stakeholder such as a private company.
Concurrent engineering (CE) is a work methodology emphasizing the parallelization of tasks, which is sometimes called simultaneous engineering or integrated product development (IPD) using an integrated product team approach. It refers to an approach used in product development in which functions of design engineering, manufacturing engineering, and other functions are integrated to reduce the time required to bring a new product to market.
Open-source hardware (OSH) consists of physical artifacts of technology designed and offered by the open-design movement. Both free and open-source software (FOSS) and open-source hardware are created by this open-source culture movement and apply a like concept to a variety of components. It is sometimes, thus, referred to as FOSH. The term usually means that information about the hardware is easily discerned so that others can make it – coupling it closely to the maker movement. Hardware design, in addition to the software that drives the hardware, are all released under free/libre terms. The original sharer gains feedback and potentially improvements on the design from the FOSH community. There is now significant evidence that such sharing can drive a high return on investment for the scientific community.
Reliability engineering is a sub-discipline of systems engineering that emphasizes the ability of equipment to function without failure. Reliability describes the ability of a system or component to function under stated conditions for a specified period of time. Reliability is closely related to availability, which is typically described as the ability of a component or system to function at a specified moment or interval of time.
A system architecture is the conceptual model that defines the structure, behavior, and more views of a system. An architecture description is a formal description and representation of a system, organized in a way that supports reasoning about the structures and behaviors of the system.
Enterprise modelling is the abstract representation, description and definition of the structure, processes, information and resources of an identifiable business, government body, or other large organization.
The Center for Advanced Engineering Environments (CAEE) is a department center of the Frank Batten College of Engineering and Technology at Old Dominion University. The center was created in 2001 to serve as a focal point for research activities pertaining to Collaborative distributed Knowledge discovery and exploitation, Interactive visual simulations, Intelligent synthesis, and advanced learning/training technologies and environments, and their application to future complex engineering systems.
The George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) was created by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to improve infrastructure design and construction practices to prevent or minimize damage during an earthquake or tsunami. Its headquarters were at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana as part of cooperative agreement #CMMI-0927178, and it ran from 2009 till 2014. The mission of NEES is to accelerate improvements in seismic design and performance by serving as a collaboratory for discovery and innovation.
The Edward E. Whitacre Jr. College of Engineering is the college of engineering at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. The engineering program has existed at Texas Tech University since 1925. Additionally, the Whitacre College of Engineering administers graduate engineering degree programs at the university's campus in Amarillo, Texas. Many of the college's degree programs are accredited by ABET. The Whitacre College of Engineering is the first and, presently, only school in the world to offer a doctor of philosophy degree in wind science and engineering.
Digital Prototyping gives conceptual design, engineering, manufacturing, and sales and marketing departments the ability to virtually explore a complete product before it's built. Industrial designers, manufacturers, and engineers use Digital Prototyping to design, iterate, optimize, validate, and visualize their products digitally throughout the product development process. Innovative digital prototypes can be created via CAutoD through intelligent and near-optimal iterations, meeting multiple design objectives, identifying multiple figures of merit, and reducing development gearing and time-to-market. Marketers also use Digital Prototyping to create photorealistic renderings and animations of products prior to manufacturing. Companies often adopt Digital Prototyping with the goal of improving communication between product development stakeholders, getting products to market faster, and facilitating product innovation.
A view model or viewpoints framework in systems engineering, software engineering, and enterprise engineering is a framework which defines a coherent set of views to be used in the construction of a system architecture, software architecture, or enterprise architecture. A view is a representation of a whole system from the perspective of a related set of concerns.
There is a large body of knowledge that designers call upon and use during the design process to match the ever-increasing complexity of design problems. Design knowledge can be classified into two categories: product knowledge and design process knowledge.
In computer engineering, computer architecture is a set of rules and methods that describe the functionality, organization, and implementation of computer systems. The architecture of a system refers to its structure in terms of separately specified components of that system and their interrelationships.
Open-source architecture is an emerging paradigm that advocates new procedures in imagination and formation of virtual and real spaces within a universal infrastructure. Drawing from references as diverse as open-source culture, modular design, avant-garde architectural, science fiction, language theory, and neuro-surgery, it adopts an inclusive approach as per spatial design towards a collaborative use of design and design tools by professionals and ordinary citizen users. The umbrella term citizen-centered design harnesses the notion of open-source architecture, which in itself involves the non-building architecture of computer networks, and goes beyond it to the movement that encompass the building design professions, as a whole.
Predictive engineering analytics (PEA) is a development approach for the manufacturing industry that helps with the design of complex products. It concerns the introduction of new software tools, the integration between those, and a refinement of simulation and testing processes to improve collaboration between analysis teams that handle different applications. This is combined with intelligent reporting and data analytics. The objective is to let simulation drive the design, to predict product behavior rather than to react on issues which may arise, and to install a process that lets design continue after product delivery.
Irem Y. Tumer is a mechanical engineer. She is Oregon State University’s vice president for research. She has served as the associate dean for research and economic development at the College of Engineering at Oregon State University. Tumer worked at the Ames Research Center from 1998 to 2006 as a research scientist and group lead of programs including intelligent systems, engineering for complex systems, aviation safety, and constellation programs. She completed her college degrees at University of Texas at Austin. She obtained a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering in 1991. She earned a Master of Science in Engineering in mechanical engineering in 1995. Tumer completed a Doctor of Philosophy in mechanical engineering in May 1998.
Ada-Rhodes Short is a Canadian mechanical engineer, roboticist, and transgender rights activist. She is the co-host of the podcast Totally Trans: Searching for the Trans Canon alongside writer Henry Giardina. She is a co-founder of Baylor University's first LGBTQ student group. She is a co-creator of Osé, a hands-free device for blended orgasms, which won a 2019 CES Innovation Award in the robotics and drones category. Short may have been the first out trans woman to complete a PhD in mechanical engineering but the claim has not been verified.