The Cambridge Engineering Design Centre (EDC) (http://www-edc.eng.cam.ac.uk/) is seeking an applicant for a new PhD research project, which will investigate artefact-process model integration in the development of complex multi-discipline engineering systems.  Artefact in this context may refer to product and/or service.  The purpose of the research is to develop integrated artefact-process models that can capture functional and physical system interactions and provide a platform to improve the quality of decisions taken as part of the product development process.

Designers face challenges due to increasing product complexity, the tendency for divergence across multiple engineering disciplines and lack of consolidated system architecture models that can provide a unified perspective throughout the product lifecycle.  The creation of such models is made difficult by the "semantic mismatch" of design information between disciplines (which may represent an artefact at different levels of granularity) and the opaqueness of implicit process models (that may be transparent to higher level explicit "phase gate" processes).      

The central characteristic of applied research within the EDC is the development of deployable models for specific industrial partners via a process of - requirements capture, architecture mapping, model analysis, system simulation and behaviour visualization.  In this context, particular emphasis will be placed on the co-development of both process and artefact models that offer the promise of identifying optimal processes that can deliver adequate artefact.

Specific examples of artefact and process architecture models will be examined with key industrial partners from the automotive, aerospace, telecommunications and construction sectors:

• In automotive, the elicitation (using data mining techniques) and modelling of the virtual vehicle design task to generate  rules to resolve conflicts in the process and data flows in the decision stages of simulation-driven design
• In aerospace, the modelling of  different power plant and wing assembly configurations (using dependency structure matrices) and optimization of the integration process to maximize component reuse, minimize physical testing and improve turnaround of virtual design iterations
• In telecommunications, the development of an analysis framework and simulation approach to identify the internal information flows that an organization needs to adapt to changing conditions, thus making itself more robust to changes in the marketplace
• In construction, the analysis and development of integrated product-process models to support the design of resilient products tailored to site-specific requirements.  

From the above investigations, one or more solution approaches for artefact-process model integration, simulation and visualization will be identified, analysed and prototyped to demonstrate the potential improvements over the existing state of the art       

Applicants should have (or expect to obtain by the start date) at least a good 2.1 degree (and preferably a Masters degree) in an Engineering or Computer Science related subject.

Due to funding restrictions, only UK students are eligible for a full scholarship for 3.5 years. EU students may be eligible for university fees only. Further information about EPSRC icase is available at:http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/skills/students/coll/icase/intro/.  

Initial informal enquiries about this post may be addressed to Professor John Clarkson (email:mjh94<στο>cam.ac.uk), www-edc.eng.cam.ac.uk/  

Applications should be made on-line via the Cambridge Graduate Admissions Office before the deadline: http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/students/gradadmissions/prospec/apply/

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