Abstract
Keywords: physical effects, innovation, energy saving, energy management, multiple views
The pressure on companies to create innovation and to maintain short product development processes increases. Especially in the field of automotive, innovation is required to utilise energy saving potentials which becomes an increasing factor in this industry. Therefore, the objective of this research is to support the creation of energy saving solutions by developing an approach which allows fast retrieval of physical effects by providing multiple views. The creation of innovative solutions can be supported by methodical approaches. The chosen approach for this research supports the enhancement of creativity. It is based on the search for physical effects. In the context of this research, physical effects are gathered for utilising energy saving potentials. The list of effects is filled in a matrix which is structured by the two categories of source energy (lines) and target energy (columns). Physical effects which convert a certain form of dissipated energy (thermal, electrical or mechanical) into a form of target energy are stored in the corresponding cells of the matrix. Further useful information like principle solutions and existing applications is linked to these physical effects to provide sufficient knowledge about the further usage of an effect. The advantage of this structure is the possibility of a purpose oriented search for possible solutions. It allows multiple views on physical effects like e.g. the view on certain effects which convert thermal dissipated energy into a desired one (e.g. electrical energy).
The developed matrix can be seen as a special form of catalogues which are used to provide physical effects for designers to stimulate their creativity. Most of such catalogues are paper based, which are static, difficult to navigate in and can hardly be extended by additional physical effects. Though very useful variants of catalogues exist, their usage can potentially be improved by extending functionalities e.g. dynamic data management or re-use of data. Hence, the matrix is enhanced to a digital relational database during this research. This improves the access to the stored physical effects in comparison to the matrix. It allows an extension of the functionalities of existing catalogues by introducing a functional view. The realisation of the described demanded functionalities in a digital database facilitates comfortable navigation in the pool of physical effects, easy searching for effects by multiple views and a dynamic information management.
The digital database offers facilitated usage of the stored information by providing new search and multiple view functionalities. The benefit of this approach is the accelerated access to required information about physical effects and possible solutions as well as about different views dependent on the given task. The approach supports the creational phase of the development process by providing knowledge about the physical effects themselves and additional information about their possible application.