DeMaMech: EU-Japan Collaboration in Higher Education Student Exchange Program

Offer of Research Topic

Offer from	University	Technical University of Berlin
	Faculty/Department/Institute	Dept. of Mechanical Engineering and Transport Systems
	Group Name	Engineering Design and Methodology Group/Systematic Product Development
Research Theme		Analysis and transformation of a native product into a global product
Brief Explanation		The increasing trend of globalization has led to the world-wide cooperation among product manufacturers. This can play an important role for design engineers if a product is developed globally. In this case, design engineers have to think ‘global’ in a product development process. This topic addresses this aspect. The task consists of 2 steps: 1. One common house-hold product (Japanese version) should be taken as example and analysed following the idea of Reverse Engineering for: - requirements analysis, which were meant to be fulfilled, - functional analysis and - study of principle solutions to find out what is characteristic here in terms of Japanese society. 2. The identified characteristics should be transferred to a solution which is suitable for European society (European version), and it should be demonstrated how this adapted solution would look like (along with the reasoning).
Research Steps		1. Literature survey (one month) 2. Analysis of selected product at functional level (one month) 3. To develop a solution for the adapted version (two months) 4. Reasoning and documentation (one month) Note: Steps 1 and 2 can be carried out parallel.
Period		5 months.
Necessary Background, Knowledge, Skills		- Fundamental knowledge of systematic Product Development - Interest in design methodology and analytical work - Good command of English Necessary reading: Engineering Design – a systematic approach by Pahl & Beitz; second edition, Springer Verlag 1996; ISBN: 962-430-066-6 If necessary, other references can be specified.
Further Information		http://friday.prz.tu-berlin.de/~www-kt/index_en.html
Contact Person		Dipl.-Ing. Vivek Gautam (vivek.gautam@ktem.tu-berlin.de)

European offers have to be 5 months, due to the EU requirement to Japanese students that they have to stay at two European Universities.