Circle of Design Workshop

March 29, 2016

The Clemson Engineering Design, Applications and Research (CEDAR) group under the direction of Drs. Fadel, Mocko and Summers, hosted an NSF sponsored workshop at the Madren Conference Center of Clemson University in Clemson, South Carolina from November 14-17, 2015.  The workshop was entitled “THE CIRCLE OF DESIGN”. The aims of the workshop were twofold:  one, to strengthen the relations between the participants, get them to interact socially together, and two, to bring together two communities, namely the Engineering Design (ESD) and the Systems Engineering (SYS) communities and have them in common address, discuss, and identify challenges and opportunities in three topics of interest to the NSF:

• Research Landscape Development, focusing on directions and needs for systems engineering and design theory and tools.  Formulating strategic recommendations for systems Engineering and design research in general, and ESD, SYS in particular
• Workshop on systems engineering and design research methodologies, developing guidelines for rigor, evidence based best practices, validation, and dissemination of approaches, commonalities, and differences in other domains
• Workshop on Systems engineering and design education, its focus, desired impact, evidence of success, including organizing industry workshops in various locations to train industry practitioners on modern systems engineering and design methods and tools.

One hundred and twenty participants from all over the US converged on Clemson and spent three days interacting socially and discussing these topics.  The CEDAR students provided logistics support and captured the discussions. Two staff members, Corbin Kolehmainen and Gwen Dockins arranged all the web support, the financial and catering aspects as well as the printing of the relevant material.  The meeting was such a success that another group of researchers in design offered to host a similar meeting next year in Corvallis Oregon and NSF agreed to continue supporting it.

As part of this workshop, an NSF grantees poster presentation was organized.  The posters presented along with short two minute elevator pitches as well as the report being prepared will be available on the Circle of Design web site at: http://www.clemson.edu/centers-institutes/design/workshop/index.html).