Nikola Bursac

Technische Universität Hamburg | TUHH · ISEM - Institute for Smart Engineering and Machine Elements

Current research has shown that a data-driven approach to identify customer usage patterns provides sufficient indication to cluster, predict and derive decisions. However, specific problems and questions arise due to the peculiarities of complex mechatronic systems. This research aims at the development of a process model to support a systematic r...

Development practice shows that it is currently almost impossible for developers themselves to actively use data of customer's use of machines to derive decisions in the context of the development of mechatronic systems. In the light of the steadily growing data volumes and the associated costs, it makes sense for companies to make this data access...

Model-based approaches such as Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) are widely regarded as a necessity to enable and support the development of ever more complex Systems of Systems (SoS). A key to the application of model-based development approaches in companies is the introduction of systems engineering architecture frameworks (SEAF) to structu...

This paper investigates which activities and success factors can be identified for the data-driven validation of functional requirements. For this purpose, a case study is conducted at a machine tool manufacturer. To validate functional requirements by analyzing data of reference products, these activities must be performed iteratively: basic work,...

Neglecting challenges of distributed collaboration can lead to significant efficiency and effectiveness losses in agile, distributed development teams. The EDiT method provides support for improving distributed collaboration of development teams. To ensure acceptance, applicability, and contribution to success in industrial development practice, it...

The crucial factor for a successful usage of modeling approaches of systems engineering is the interaction of language, method, and tool. For this, specific challenges arise for the application of MBSE in agile requirements engineering. From observations in agile development practice at a machine tool manufacturer, the challenges for model-based re...

Product developers are faced with the challenge of covering an ever-increasing external variety with as little internal variety as possible. Modular product architectures offer one way of resolving the challenge. They have an impact on all life phases and on economic targets. These effects are represented in the Impact Model of Modular Product Fami...

In the development of mechatronic systems, it is important to differentiate the products to be developed from those of the competitors, but also from the own product generations already available on the market. However, there are uncertainties regarding the correct features to be differentiated from the customer and user perspective and how these f...

Product development and the associated processes are always characterized by uncertainties , whereby a distinction can be made between technological and market uncertainties. These uncertainties cannot be avoided, which is why it is necessary to deal with them adequately in the context of product development. To enable this, however, it is first of...

Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) are products created with little effort, in which experienceable properties are made available to customers and users without the product having to be developed, thus enabling early validation in terms of customer and user benefit. Due to increasing uncertainties for developing companies and the fact that there is a d...

Anforderungen sind ein Kernbestandteil agiler Entwicklung und aufgrund der Charakteristika mechatronischer Systeme ist eine Bündelung von Anforderungen zur Realisierung von Entwicklungsgenerationen als Inkremente wirtschaftlich sinnvoll. Folglich ist ein Management der Anforderungen hinsichtlich ihrer Entwicklung, Verifizierung und Wiederverwendung...

Der systematische Umgang mit Unsicherheiten, die in Form von Wissens- und Definitionslücken vorliegen, stellt eine zentrale Aktivität der Produktentwicklung dar. Im Zuge der Zielsystementwicklung liegen Unsicherheiten insbesondere in Form von aus Kunden- und Anwendersicht nichtzutreffender und fehlender oder unvollständiger Ziele und Anforderungen...

With the aid of Engineering Simulators, laboratory environments are to be created which model engineering practice, enabling product developers to behave realistically. To be able to use Engineering Simulators for design support validation as a first step suitable attributes must be identified for modelling depending on the original and the purpose...

More and more companies are implementing agility in their organization. Therefore, it has to be considered that different organizational structures exist, each with different characteristics. Some of these characteristics favor the introduction of agility, while others make it difficult or even impossible. In the context of this contribution, essen...

The advantages of distributed development teams help companies to address megatrends like globalization and individualization. However, development teams are facing challenges according to increasing requirements on communication processes. This approach provides a methodology to identify and address improvement potentials in communication processe...

Pairwise comparison is basically used to prioritize alternatives and select a solution in product development. Decision errors can happen when the amount of processing information increases. This research proposes an assisted decision tool to prioritize alternatives by using the pairwise comparison technique and a Quicksort algorithm. This software...

Bei vielen Doktorarbeiten nehmen Literaturrecherche, Forschungsdesign, Datenerhebung und Auswertung deutlich mehr Zeit ein als das eigentliche Schreiben. Doch auch wenn es jetzt nur noch darum geht, die gesammelten Erkenntnisse zu Papier zu bringen, fällt dieser Teil oft ganz besonders schwer und nicht selten scheitern Doktorarbeiten in dieser Phas...

The Contact and Channel Approach (C&C²-Approach) integrates the relation of function and embodiment in a model and aims to support design engineers in activities of analysis and synthesis. Since its definition, this approach has been applied in different research and development projects. In order to provide links for further research work, this ar...

Modular design allows to reduce costs based on scaling effects. However, due to strong alternating effects between the resulting modules and products, methods and tools are required that enable engineers to use specific views in which the respective information can be linked and retrieved according to the situation. Within the scope of this paper,...

Research in modularization of product families reveals numerous individual cause and effect impacts of modularity on the firm. While many modularization methods are present in the literature, an overall combined picture of the interrelations of modular product structures on the firm is yet missing. This makes the construction of an economic busines...

The process of product development is a problem-solving process characterized by the continuous handling of uncertainties by development teams. For this reason, companies in the field of mechatronic system development implement agile approaches in their development processes in order to deal adequately with these uncertainties, which, however, reac...

More than ever before, innovations are transforming industries and people’s lives in ways that were previously unimaginable. Due to rapid technological changes and shifting market dynamics, the economic success and organizational survival of businesses are increasingly dependent upon forward-looking strategies and innovations. The effect is the inc...

During the process of product engineering, decisions with uncertain consequences have to be made about future development (Albers et al., 2017a). Customer, user and vendor requirements that are already known and those who are relevant for the future have to be recognized and transferred into consistent projects. Classical approaches like customer s...

Many activities in the new product development requires the decision making to find the final solution from multiple alternatives and make an evaluation. Even methods to support decision maker are available, the decision can go to the wrong direction because of heuristics. “Decoy effect” is a heuristic that appears in a comparison when 2 of 3 alter...

Modular kits make it possible to reuse components across different products, thereby exploiting synergy potential. On the other hand, they lead to an increase in complexity in development, as more subsystems interrelate and are to be used over longer periods of time. This causes a higher communication effort between different development teams, whi...

Modular kits make it possible to reuse components across different products, thereby exploiting synergy potential. On the other hand, they lead to an increase in complexity in development, as more subsystems interrelate and are to be used over longer periods of time. This causes a higher communication effort between different development teams, whi...

The process of product development is a problem-solving process characterized by the continuous handling of uncertainties by development teams. For this reason, companies in the field of mechatronic system development implement agile approaches in their development processes in order to deal adequately with these uncertainties, which, however, reac...

Perceived quality refers to customers’ cognitive and emotional responses to a particular design, often also associated with craftsmanship and customer satisfaction. Previous research defined a taxonomy of perceived quality and provided understanding about how engineering design decisions impact customer satisfaction. Furthermore, development of new...

Heuristic decisions are automatically made during the whole product development processes to find solutions, when information and time are limited. Heuristic decisions are a simple process and give a fast response. However, they can lead to decision-making errors because of heuristic traps such as social bias and representativeness. Thus, it is imp...

Produktentwicklung unterliegt immer einer technologischen und marktbedingten Unsicherheit. Es müssen Produktgenerationen geplant, und dabei Entscheidungen unter Unsicherheit getroffen werden. Ziel dieses Beitrags ist die Zusammenhänge von PGE-Produktgenerationsentwicklung und der Zukunftsvorausschau darzustellen. Dadurch wird ein Verständnis gescha...

The academic education of engineering students aims at qualifying for engineering practice. Hence courses in mechanical and mechatronic design in the early stage of engineering education include often project works, where the students themselves design technical systems. The task description usually includes a first system structure, functional and...

In the development of mechatronic systems and the associated product services and business models, the system of objectives contains all relevant objectives of various stakeholders, as well as requirements, boundary conditions and interdependencies between objectives. It serves as basis to define the solution area for the technical implementation o...

Products are developed in teams and based on knowledge gained in previous development projects. This makes knowledge transfer a key factor for the success of product development. In addition is the development time a crucial factor. Increasing the speed of knowledge transfer is hence of great importance for product development. The SECI model descr...

There can be no innovation without time and space for ideation and courage to endeavor new terrain. Approaching this terrain in a structured way whilst managing the risks linked to the uncertainty of the novel is a major advantage of agile process models such as Scrum. On the other hand, most companies in mechatronic product development organize th...

Against the background of globalization and digital change, large companies are increasingly creating internal innovation hubs whose task is the digital transformation of the entire company and especially its specialist areas as well as the fast development of innovation ideas. These innovation hubs are faced with the task of linking the different...

Autonomous driving, connectivity and the electrification of powertrains will not only have a great impact on future generations of cars, but will also change R&D at car manufacturers significantly in their efforts for innovations. The system of product development and especially its resource system will transform and adapt to new requirements of fu...

Products are developed over generations. This coherence is described by the PGE – Product Generation Engineering. Accordingly, a new product generation is based on reference products. Especially in the early phase of development projects there is still a need to further concretize this aspect and thereby not only increase customer benefits for a ne...

Decision-making is part of the entire process of product development and affects to the direction of the project. Due to the complexity of an organization and process, heuristic decisions, that are a part of intuitive decisions, are applied automatically. Therefore, understanding the decision-making processes especially heuristic decisions in produ...

This paper stresses the importance of collaborations to foster innovation and highlights the need for a shared understanding of innovation. To support successful collaboration we outline essential success factors and formulate hypotheses to improve collaborations focussing on SMEs. A model is introduced, allowing the identification of fields and me...

Derzeit stellen sich den deutschen Unternehmen durch die Volatilität der Märkte und Veränderungen Fragen, wie zukünftige Entwicklungsprozesse gestaltet werden können. Gängige Meinung ist, dass die Unternehmen im Silicon Valley für innovative und kreative Produkte stehen. Methoden und Schlag-worte wie Design Thinking, Scrum oder Agilität locken ganz...

An agile development approach is used nowadays in product engineering. Simultaneously the development process takes place at separate locations within heterogeneous teams. In methodical Product Engineering , a number of supporting measures exist. Often , they support the generation of objects by synthesis , which can be used for the validation. How...

Decision making is important in PGE-Product Generation Engineering. Selecting an option from a set of solutions is complex and impacts the subsequent development. Therefore, understanding and investigating concept decisions are an important factor to improve an organization. Decision heuristics are a part of intuitive decision making. Two studies a...

the full guideline is available via https://www.beuth.de/de/technische-regel/vdi-2221-blatt-2/311603776

the full guideline is available via https://www.beuth.de/de/technische-regel/vdi-2221-blatt-1/311603768

In this paper, a concept for a community innovation platform is introduced focusing on human behavior of motivation and barriers in the context of product generation development. Building on the state of the art, a three year case study in cooperation with Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG is at the core. In the first step of the study, a questionnaire a...

The teaching program IP - Integrated Product Development has been implemented annually with great success for 20 years, which means that this format has gained a high level of acceptance among companies from a wide range of industries. The participating students acquire professional skills in the area of PGE - Product Generation Engineering through...

Innovations-according to their definition-have always guaranteed market success for companies. As a result of a large number of dynamic boundary conditions in the markets, innovation processes are changing as well. Thus, agile development processes are increasingly finding their way into hardware development in order to counteract the high dynamic...

Due to globalisation and digitalization, locally distributed teams in product development became a matter of fact. In contrast to conventional teams, locally distributed teams in product development face additional technological, organisational and social challenges which result in non-transparent project courses and team performances. These condit...

Die hohe Komplexität bei der Entwicklung neuer Produktgenerationen ist heute eine der größten Herausforderungen im Produktentwicklungsprozess. Eine Lösung zur Unterstützung des Produktentwicklers ist der Einsatz von computergestützten Methoden. Um jedoch die starken Wechselwirkungen neuer Produktgenerationen vorherzusagen, müssen die unterschiedlic...

Developing design methods can be described as a process similar to product development processes. Following agile approaches is worthwhile in order to identify relevant requirements of potential users at early stages of method's maturity. Live-Labs, as a controllable research environment located between laboratory and field studies, provide an envi...

According to recent studies, early and clearly defined customer’s demands and provider’s demands are necessary elements for the future success of a product. Product profiles within the scope of ASD – Agile Systems Design describe these demands. As product characterizations in the early development phases, product profiles do not anticipate the tech...

One of the main challenges in product development processes nowadays is to consider the megatrend of individualisation and connectivity within products. Companies are increasingly forced to qualify their own products for integration into an existing system of other products – so called System-of-Systems. These products were initially developed inde...

The introduction of modular design increases complexity within product development and especially within Requirements Engineering. To handle this complexity, the approach of Model Based Systems Engineering is applied in this contribution. First, the origins of complexity in modular product development are introduced. Key challenges within Requireme...

Vor dem Hintergrund von Digitalisierung, kürzeren Produktlebenszyklen und verteilten Entwicklungsstandorten gewinnt die strategische Ausrichtung der Produktentwicklung mit Hilfe von Methoden des Zukunftsmanagements zunehmend an Bedeutung. Eine zentrale Methode ist hierbei die Szenario-Technik, die die methodische Ableitung alternativer Zukunftsszen...

Jüngere Studien belegen, dass die Baukastenentwicklung als kontinuierliche Aktivität im Produktentwicklungsprozess verstanden werden muss. Als Konsequenz hieraus ergibt sich das sowohl bei der initialen als auch fortlaufenden Strukturierung von Baukästen deren kontinuierliche Weiterentwicklung berücksichtigt werden muss. Basierend auf einer funktio...

Die intelligente Vernetzung zwischen Menschen, Maschinen und Methoden nimmt stetig zu. Dabei entstehen durch virtuelle Kollaboration völlig neue Geschäftsmodelle und Möglichkeiten der Methodenanwendung. Zum Nutzen dieses Potentials werden in dem folgenden Beitrag vier mögliche Szenarien der Methodenanwendung vorgestellt. Die Szenarien der Methodena...

Dem Megatrend Individualisierung folgend versuchen Unternehmen zunehmend den vielfältigen Kun-denwünschen mit einem variantenreichen Produktportfolio zu entsprechen. Die hohe Variantenanzahl erfor-dert einen steigenden strukturellen und organisatorischen Aufwand, dem die Unternehmen wiederum mit Hilfe eines systematischen Variantenmanagements zu be...