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Traceability of information provides the basis for assessing the credibility of engineering information, better understanding it, and making judgments about the appropriateness of its use for a particular design task. The presented research attempts to answer how the proposed traceability methodology and framework could help designers to improve communication, eventually create new channels of communication, and contribute to the creation of shared understanding in collaborative design processes. The discussion of these issues is based on a literature review, empirical research, observations of industrial practice, and feedback from initial implementation. The research is focused on information objects (IOs), archetypically represented in the engineering domain as technical documents that are often complex structures constituted of textual, numerical, and graphical fragments. The presented approach is based on an abstraction of IOs' relationships organized around specific contexts that are defined by a subset of product development ontology. Each IO could be repeatedly represented in various contexts that may contain different subsets of objects and their relationships. Such a representation also acts as a container in which the ontology concept instances are associated with IOs being developed and traced during the design episode. The usage of the proposed traceability methodology is discussed with examples of implementation and possible utilization situations. The paper is focused on explaining how the developed functionalities could help to resolve manifestations of inadequate information flow, which cause communication barriers in engineering companies. In addition, the proposed traceability methodology offers the possibility to record the detailed history of actions and events associated with IOs in the usage process of the product life cycle management systems. Based on the research findings, this paper argues that such a network of the traceability links and relationships may be viewed as a novel design communication channel.

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The computational design synthesis approach considered in this paper, proposes directed multigraph and graph grammar-based models of technical processes and technical process synthesis. The theory of technical systems, which is adopted as a theoretical foundation for this work, assumes a teleological viewpoint bringing together the purpose of technical systems and fulfilment of customer demands and societal needs. These demands and needs are met by means of a technical process inside which the operands are transformed with the assistance of a technical system to achieve a desired state. Formal models of technical processes and technical process synthesis establish the foundation for further application of search algorithms to support early engineering design. The engineering knowledge about technical processes is provided within a set of graph grammar rules. As the result of the proposed approach, the designer is enabled to consider different operand transformations in an expedient fashion with the possibility of the generation of novel alternatives. The proposed approach is illustrated through an example of the design of a stiffened panel assembly line involving welding and riveting as two basic principles.

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Original scientific paper The competitiveness of the economy to a large extent depends on its ability to innovate. There is a consensus between researchers and business practices on the high importance of innovation management process, particularly in the earliest stage when it is necessary to identify business opportunities and find the best possibilities for their realizations. In the process of innovation management, many authors emphasize the critical role of idea management and efficient ways of creating, gathering, evaluation, promotion, selection, and implementation of ideas. As part of the research project "Models and methods of knowledge management in product development", by the Croatian Ministry of science, education and sport, a survey was conducted on a sample of Croatian companies which have product development in their production process. The conducted survey attempted to determine the situation in the area of product innovation, as well as in the field of innovation and idea management in the economy and to compare data with best practices. The collected data show when and how the ideas are collected, which motives and purposes are drivers for the collection of ideas and how companies are organized and trained for this demanding job. This paper presents the results of the survey, which suggest ways to improve product development, and sources and methods of collecting ideas. Publication of the outcome of this and other research on product innovation aims to spread the knowledge about this very important but under-explored area. Keywords: front-end of innovation; idea management; idea evaluation and selection; innovation management; product development Upravljanje idejama u procesu inovacije proizvoda -rezultati empirijskog istraživanjaIzvorni znanstveni članak Konkurentnost gospodarstva u značajnoj mjeri ovisi o njegovoj sposobnosti da uvodi inovacije. Između istraživača i poslovne prakse postoji suglasnost o velikoj važnosti procesa upravljanja inovacijama, osobito u najranijoj fazi kada je potrebno prepoznati poslovne prilike i pronaći najbolje mogućnosti za njihovu realizaciju. U procesu upravljanja inovacijama, mnogi autori ističu presudnu ulogu upravljanja idejama, odnosno učinkovitog načina stvaranja, prikupljanja, vrednovanja, unapređenja, selekcije i implementacije ideja. U okviru znanstvenog projekta "Modeli i metode upravljanja znanjem u razvoju proizvoda", MZOS RH, provedena je anketa na uzorku hrvatskih tvrtki koje u svom proizvodnom programu imaju razvoj proizvoda. Provedenom anketom pokušalo se odrediti stanje na području inovacije proizvoda, te na području upravljanja inovacijama i upravljanja idejama u gospodarstvu i usporediti podatke s podacima najbolje prakse. Obradom prikupljenih podataka ustanovljeno je kako i kada se ideje prikupljaju, koji motivi i potrebe su pokretači za prikupljanje ideja te kako su tvrtke organizirane i osposobljene za taj zahtjevni posao. U ovom radu prikazani su rezultati provedene ankete, koji ukazuju na načine unapređenja i razvoja proizvoda, te izvor...

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This paper presents a genetic algorithm based approach for synthesis of truss structure designs. Genotype represented as a collection of binary encoded nodes is decoded into the phenotype by applying the NodeSort algorithm. A genotype extension to consider a cross-section as variable and variable length chromosomes to produce designs to successfully meet the boundary conditions are all being incorporated into the NodeSort to provide an efficient truss structures synthesis framework. The introduction of multi-objective optimisation using NSGA-II will help to address more real life engineering problems.