It is my aim to understand the intellectual activity involved in the design of material artifacts that are eventually manufactured, sold and used by society. At present my research is focused on understanding the interface between the conceptual phase of an artifact's development and its eventual commercialization. This interface is called the Concurrent Engineering problem, the study of design processes that yield products that are easily manufactured, marketed, used, and disposed of or recycled. Design by Hindsight and Green Engineering. Design by Hindsight.
Human designers use previous designs extensively in the process of producing a new design.
Designers reason analogically from previous cases to avoid earlier mistakes and to re-use previous approaches. The research represents a modest breakthrough in conceptual design research. By re-using cases we have avoided the problem of having to make the elusive, and almost magical, 'leap' from function to structure. Green Engineering is an approach to product and process design that achieves environmental friendliness without compromising the product's quality or its commercial viability. The aim is to identify, develop, and exploit new technologies that can bolster productivity without costing the environment.