Product Development by Self-Organized Virtual Communities: An Emerging Frontier in Design Research
MIE Department Seminar
October 11, 2016
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Product Development by Self-Organized Virtual Communities: An Emerging Frontier in Design Research
Jitesh H. Panchal, Phd.
Mechanical Engineering, Purdue University
Abstract: Rapid developments in new web technologies and social media are resulting in a new paradigm of product realization where individuals self-organize into virtual communities to develop products. Examples of such virtual communities include open-source product development communities, maker communities, and communities within large organizations. Social collaboration, coupled the rapid growth in 3D printing technologies and easy to use design tools, has lowered the barrier to participation, thereby increasing the democratization of design innovation.
While self-organized communities have resulted in successful information-based products such as open-source software and open encyclopedias, there are still fundamental barriers in extending these ideas to physical products. The emerging paradigms are accompanied with many open research issues related to how individuals participate in the design process, how designs are validated, how online security is achieved at various levels of product information, how incentives are aligned, how trust is established, and how contributions of independent individuals on interdependent parts of a complex system are coordinated. These issues cannot be addressed by merely technical view of design. Instead, a holistic socio-technical view of design is necessary. In this seminar, some of the critical challenges and the efforts at the Design Engineering Lab at Purdue (DELP) towards addressing them will be discussed.
Bio: Dr. Jitesh H. Panchal is an Associate Professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University. He received his BTech (2000) from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati, and MS (2003) and PhD (2005) in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology. Dr. Panchal's research interests are in computational design of complex engineering systems with focus on three areas a) concurrent products and materials design, b) collective systems innovation, and c) cyber- physical systems for design and manufacturing. He is a co-author of the book titled Integrated Design of Multiscale, Multifunctional Materials and Products. He is a recipient of CAREER award from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Young Engineer Award and three best paper awards from ASME, and a university silver medal from IIT Guwahati. He is currently serving as an Associate Editor of ASME Journal of Computing and Information Science in Engineering (JCISE).
Date posted
Oct 14, 2021
Date updated
Oct 14, 2021