Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: Notesfiles $Revision: 1.7.0.10 $; site uiucme Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!uiucdcs!uiucme!keith From: keith@uiucme.UUCP Newsgroups: net.cog-eng Subject: Knowledge and Design Message-ID: <11800004@uiucme> Date: Mon, 3-Feb-86 14:26:00 EST Article-I.D.: uiucme.11800004 Posted: Mon Feb 3 14:26:00 1986 Date-Received: Fri, 7-Feb-86 20:58:44 EST Lines: 87 Nf-ID: #N:uiucme:11800004:000:4336 Nf-From: uiucme.UUCP!keith Feb 3 13:26:00 1986 A brief pause for philosophy. Fourth of a Series. In the last discussion I made an impassioned, if ill-documented, case for the importance of interactions in design. It is obvious that specialism will tend to make these interactions even more obscure. My earlier comments on the computer science understanding of the structure underlying design problems is based on the observation that in the formal procedure of structured analysis, attention is paid to the interactions (aka data flows) as well as to the individual functioning parts of the system. This simple thinking has (in my view) the CS version of design parsecs ahead of the mechanical design community. I stated that tomorrow's designers are being taught by specialists, thus missing an opportunity to learn about these interactions during their initial engineering education. This severely handicaps a designer as he begins learning his trade, since for four or more years he has been conditioned to ignore these interactions that will control many of the problems he will be asked to solve. Let us imagine that a suitable number of today's students, taught by specialists, go on to become professors (specialists) themselves. Since we are seeing a strong drop in the practical experience of professors, it is reasonable to assume that none of these specialists will accrue enough experience to begin appreciating the interactions between disciplines before they specialize. In the extreme it is possible to imagine the world's engineers actually losing net capability if specialism continues. Thus research into design methods is very important and has implications for education of new engineers just a grat as the potential effect on the practice of engineering. What is the difference between specialism and generalism that creates this situation? Lack of attention to interactions between disciplines. Specialism in general, and research in particular, is a depth-first, bottom-up way of thinking. Isolate a particular problem of interest, reach an understanding, then attempt to incorporate it into the greater body of knowledge. The problem is that the modern approach to research is "bottom-down". The general body of knowledge has grown complicated enough that incorporating new information takes considerable effort. That is the principal reason that new technologies are difficult to introduce to designers. Since the new concept is relatively isolated, it has no context, no connections to the knowledge the designers already are using. As a result political and management decisions are used to introduce technologies instead of technical decisions. The results can be disastrous ( a well-known British gas turbine manufacturer went bankrupt and reorganized as a result of management decisions to maximize use of plastics). To a certain extent, we have created the chaos in the general knowledge based ourselves, by not thinking about incorporating new discoveries into the general base. The situation will now grown exponentially, unless someone sits down and undertakes some housecleaning. This, basically, is the research I am involved in: demonstrating the idea of the general knowledge base for design. This incorporates two concepts: dealing with information at a more abstract level, to allow more abstract decision-making, and improving the coherence of the knowledge base. These two are hopelessly interrelated, since a great deal of the process of incorporation requires abstraction, and vice versa. Incorporating new knowledge also requires a good look at the interactions between the new information and what is "already known". These interactions between disciplines, according to my notions, are what's really important in design. My assertion is that innovation (which includes new uses of old knowledge and initial uses of new knowledge) requires a clear view of the interactions between disciplines, and requires very little understanding in depth of any individual discipline. next instalment: an abstract view of the issues in engineering keith U of Illinois Mech Eng seismo!ihnp4!uiucdcs!uiucme!keith Partial vindication: there may be a case for continuing research in design. At the ASME Winter Annual Meeting, a panel discussion mused over the problem, "Where will the next design teachers come from?"