Impact Study

Executive Summary:

This report contains a filled-in questionnaire and other supporting documents meant to aid the impact assessment study conducted by the RID Bureau of the AICTE. The above project was sanctioned under the TAPTEC scheme of AICTE to support research in identified thrust areas in the field of engineering and technology. Our thrust area is Integrated Product and Process Development and the project is aimed to support activities of an interdisciplinary nature (see page15 for details). For administrative purposes, however, the project is listed under the subject discipline: Mechanical/Management. We are thankful to AICTE for giving us this start-up support for establishing the CAPPD laboratory for undertaking our research activities. To our knowledge no other business school in the country has yet launched an initiative like this one for supporting innovative product development strategies. So far small projects have been undertaken with the help of post-graduate students in management. We are now searching for candidates to take up doctoral work in two broad areas: (i) Integrated Product and Process Development (IPPD) and (ii) Supply Chain Management and Integration.

IPPD deals with successful product development, which involves various "Design for X" methodologies to assist the designers (either experienced or inexperienced) by addressing up-front all possible downstream concerns of a production and distribution process. Computer simulation of the downstream process is carried out to aid the design process where necessary. Researchers are investigating issues ranging from narrow ones like design for analysis to broader issues of design for environment. For most Indian companies, however, the product development process badly needs the state of the art computer support and know-how. Therefore, the Indian business environment provides a lot of opportunities and challenges where these concepts can be applied. IPPD, therefore, provides an interesting career path and doctoral students can pursue various projects relevant to the Indian industry for a more effective and experiential learning of the subject. Our research in this area, however, focuses on the development of more intelligent design systems for supporting advanced IPPD initiatives. We are currently exploring avenues for modeling intent. A conceptual framework has been developed for capturing the customer’s intent while preserving the designer’s (or domain expert) intent.

In the second area of investigation, the thrust of our research is on the product development function and its impact on the supply chain configuration. Thus, the research aims to address issues related to design for supply chains. The focus is on enhancing front-end capabilities for helping firms challenge more aggressive supply chain strategies, such as, Early Design Involvement of Suppliers, Supplier Development, and Inter-organizational cross-functional team participation. One major issue is that of inter-operability, which adds up to massive rework costs in supply chains. Our allied research efforts under IPPD aim to have a suitable front-end representation that can reduce such inter-operability problems. Interested doctoral students will be encouraged to pursue research related to design for logistics. The product design activity will be primarily supporting strategies, such as, postponement and mass customization. The domain test-beds currently identified are (a) the housing industry, (b) consumer durables and (c) handicrafts from rural India. An important objective here is to assist Industrial development by protecting environmental norms governed by the sound principles of design-for-environment.

The CAPPD platform will also provide support to manpower development, which in turn will lead to industrial development by enhancing their capability for adopting more challenging strategies. Efforts are on to attract the industry to use this platform. Currently awareness drives are on to help the local industry understand the desirability of such concepts. The knowledge dissemination is currently being done almost free of cost. Once the industry adopts such practices, customized applications may be developed and made available at a price. Our research efforts may also lead to the development of commercial applications. Proof-of-concept software developed as a part of our research efforts may be passed on to the industry for commercial development.

Reported on: 27^th September 2002 (sd/- Dr. Kaushik Sahu)__

Principal Investigator