Baukasten:EN:100 Points - Technology Design Factors

100 Points - Technology Design Factors

Engineers play a central role in the decision making process concerning the requirements of a specific technology. However, whoever is able to influence the requirements in the design process cannot be easily identified. Many requirements are never explicitly named, but indirectly enter the technical artefacts and systems through habit, tradition and cultural habits. In this module, the participants will come up with various factors that they consider important for technology design and weigh them by distributing a total of 100 points. The participants will now have a clear image on the requirements needed for technology design. Based on this, a discussion will follow: a) Which requirements are currently applied to technology design and how are decisions made?; b) How can everyone concerned be involved in technology design?

Title

100 Points - Technology Design Factors

Topic

Identify, reflect and evaluate implicit and explicit requirements for technology design

Typ

Building block, basic building block in the berlin seminar

Tags

Technical assessment, Technical design and requirements

Learning Objectives

List four, five precicse learning objectives. What will the participant say after the course that they have learned?

Competences

Perspective acquisition, cooperation, coping with individual decision making, reflection on guiding principles, moral actions

Forms of Learning

Creative, cooperative, system oriented

Methods

List of the three to five major methods used in this building block, e.g. individual reflection, card game, sociometry

Group Size

5-500

Duration

15, 30, 45 Minutes

Material and Room

No special requirements. Available space for individual and group work.

Download

Online repository for the materials etc.

Quality

Very good. Basic building block in Berlin

Semester

Summer semester 2016. Previous version 2011.

Preparation

Preparation for the moderators

30 Minutes

Preparation for the participants

No preparation required

Schedule

Minute 00. - Management and E-learning

Each participant has to complete two writing tasks: 1. List the relevant requirements and factors that he/she believes should be taken into account in technology design. 2. Distribute a total of 100 points to the listed requirements / factors. The 100 points can be weighed differently.

Minute 05. - Group discussion

The participants discuss in small groups their requirements / factors with regard to similarities, differences and whether the respective requirements are relevant to their own engineering work. If there are differences within a group, the participants can explain and discuss the reason behind it.

Minute 12 - Spontaneous presentation

Method

A three minute spontaneous presentation.

Contents

Each participant will have a list with more than one factor and a distinction between implicit and explicit factors.

The factors of different participants can often conflict with each other. Even in small groups it is quite noticeable that each participant has listed his/her own requirements. How can we deal with the target value conflict?

Who are the people introducing the requirements into technology design? What are these values? ​​How are they reflected in the final products? How is the relationship among people who are involved in design, production, use and disposal? How is the relationship among decision-makers, users and stakeholders? How can everyone concerned be involved in technology design? - Some people and stakeholders who are directly and indirectly involved in technology, eg engineers, can only make a limited contribution due to the company hierarchy and value priority. This also applies for people who are directly and indirectly affected by a technology; for example, raw material extraction and disposal. For a real democracy, we need to consider new ways that will include everyone in the decision-making process.

Hints and Notes.

From the authors

As a mandatory module in the seminar, after a brief introduction on Blue Engineering and the schedule of the semester, this module is implemented. The module has been used several times at previous conferences where it has greatly contributed in creating a more relaxed atmosphere.

Possible extensions/additions

In the current version, the module’s length is set to 15 minutes. However, it could be potential expanded to 45 minutes or more. Participants try to rank their requirements and weight them together. During this process, they might uncover implicit requirements that they were not aware of. A discussion about solving target conflict in technology design can follow. Moreover, the VDI 3780 technology assessment can be used since it already identifies many essential requirements / factors for technology design.

Materials for implementation.

100 Points - Technology design factors - Task sheet

1. List the relevant factors that you believe should be taken into account for design.
2. Distribute a total of 100 points to the listed factors. You can weight the individual factors differently.

Literature references.

• VDI 3780 Technical evaluation
• Evaluation and collected data of the individual semesters at the Berlin seminar.