Centre for Innovative Product Development
Introduction
The Centre for Innovative Product Development (CIPD) was established in September 2006, in recognition of the expanding and increasingly important areas of innovation, knowledge management and new product development. The main research themes of the Centre include the development of methodologies and information frameworks to:
- model and improve product development, manufacturing and service/maintenance processes;
- enable effective communication and information sharing across an enterprise and its global suppliers;
- capture, represent and reuse engineering knowledge including design, project planning, manufacturing capability and service knowledge;
- manage and enable the product innovation process, including requirements and market analysis, ideas and concept development, design evaluation, validation, and optimisation in terms of economic, social and environmental constraints; and
- integrate advanced ICT tools and systems including CAD/CAM/CAE, Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), computer-aided process planning, knowledge-based systems, feature recognition, reverse engineering and rapid prototyping.
Members Of The Research Team
- Prof James Gao, Medway Chair of Manufacturing Engineering
- Dr Dele Owodunni, senior lecturer
- Barry Piorkowski, PhD Researcher (consultant to the EPSRC/ BAE Systems Project)
- Ross Eadie, PhD researcher (lead designer, Edwards Vacuum)
- Genyuan Fei, PhD researcher
- Amanda Jian, PhD researcher
- Mehdi Tavakoli, PhD researcher (CarGlass project)
- Tony Zhang, PhD researcher
- Ahmed Elfituri, PhD researcher
- Syed Hasan, PhD researcher
- Taoyuan Zhang, PhD researcher
- Haihua Zhu, associate PhD researcher
- Richard Evans, (manager of the EPSRC/ BAE Systems Project)
- Muni Prasad Giddaluru, PhD researcher (manager of Cummins project)
Excellent Environment For Postgraduate Studies
The centre provides an excellent environment for PhD and MSc studies. We welcome sponsorships for PhD and MSc students, particularly by industry and overseas governments. Advanced CAD, CAM, CAE and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) software tools are available for research and consultancy projects in the School of Engineering. We have recently won a major grant from the Higher Education Funding Council for a five-axis computer numerical control (CNC) machining centre, obtained an advanced rapid prototyping centre with significant funding and support from Delphi, and established a Renishaw Productivity Centre advanced manufacturing control and simulation system.
Research Projects
The Centre receives funding for strategic and applied research from the UK Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC), Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and leading UK and international manufacturing companies. Examples of current and recent projects are shown in the following links:
Current Projects
- Semantic Web-Based Rich Media Groupware for Collaborative Product Development
- A knowledge framework to support rapid prototyping in the automotive supply chain
- A Knowledge Search Methodology for New Product Development
- Requirements Driven Knowledge System Design for Product Development Using Enterprise Architecture Methodologies
- A Model-Driven and Knowledge-Based Methodology for Product Concept Development and Optimisation
- A Mechanical Tolerance Optimisation System for the Design Environment
- An Integrated Approach to Product Lifecycle Management
- A Knowledge-based Product Service System with a Product Lifecycle Management Framework
- Product Development in Extended Supply Chains
- A Computer Aided Sustainable Manufacturing Strategy Based on Energy Efficiency
Completed Projects
- Unification of Design, Manufacturing Capability and Service Knowledge in Collaborative Product Development
- Distributed & Collaborative Product Development and Manufacturing Knowledge Management
- Facilitation of Knowledge Sharing in the Product Innovation Process
- A PDM-Integrated Assembly Planning Environment for Automotive Suppliers Industry
- A Manufacturing Evaluation System To Support Progressive Design Incorporating STEP AP224
- Knowledge Representation and Reuse for Predictive Design and Manufacturing Evaluation