Defining a Research Agenda in Value Driven Design: Questions That Need to be Asked

Value driven design is an innovative design process that utilizes the optimization of a system level value function to determine the best possible design. This contrasts with more traditional systems engineering techniques, which rely on satisfying requirements to determine the design solution. While ‘design for value’ is intuitively acceptable, the transformation of value driven design concepts into practical tools and methods for its application is challenging. This, coupled with the growing popularity of value-centric design philosophies, has led to a proposed research agenda in value driven design. This research agenda asks fundamental questions about the design philosophy and attempts to identify areas of significant challenge. The research agenda is meant to stimulate discussion in the field, as well as prompt research that will lead to the development of tools and methodologies that will facilitate the application of value driven design and further the state of the art.

An Analytical Study of Surplus Value using a Value Driven Design Methodology

People are now becoming more environmentally aware and as a consequence of this, industries such as the aviation industry are striving to design more environmentally friendly products. To achieve this, the current design methodologies must be modified to ensure these issues are considered from product conception through to disposal. This paper discusses the environmental problems in relation to the aviation industry and highlights some logic for making the change from the traditional Systems Engineering approach to the recent design paradigm known as Value Driven Design. Preliminary studies have been undertaken to aid in the understanding of this methodology and the existing surplus value objective function. The main results from the work demonstrate that surplus value works well bringing disparate issues such as manufacture and green taxes together to aid decision making. Further, to date studies on surplus value have used simple sensitivity analysis, but deeper consideration shows non-linear interactions between some of the variables and further work will be needed to fully account for complex issues such as environmental impact and taxes.

Reciprocal value propositions in practice: Constraints in digital markets

The value proposition concept, while forming a central foundational premise of service-dominant (S-D) logic, has nevertheless been treated somewhat ambiguously. Recent work in attempting to address this has focused through a S-D logic lens on the reciprocal nature of value propositions. Important to this work has been a focus on communicative interactions and resource integration between network suppliers and customers. Overall, value proposition thinking has not studied in detail their adoption and use in practice. Considering the compelling notion of reciprocity, there have been recent calls for research to consider reciprocal value propositions in practice. The overall aim of this paper, therefore, was to explore how reciprocal value propositions are developed (or not) in practice at the network level. The study was set in the mobile television (TV) sector, which, as an internet-driven sector, is viewed as particularly pertinent. To conduct the study an S-D logic and Industrial Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) Group framework are integrated for the first time. A key finding is that while the reciprocal value proposition concept is theoretically intuitive, it is by no means inevitable in practice. Reciprocal value propositions were found to be simultaneously constrained, and, potentially enabled by these constraints in practice. At an overall level this paper contributes to the ongoing collaborative process, which aims to move S-D logic from a framework to a theory. More specifically, we provide new insights into the development of reciprocal value propositions in practice.

Functional Complexity: The source of value in biodiversity.

Biodiversity may be seen as a scientific measure of the complexity of a biological system, implying an information basis. Complexity cannot be directly valued, so economists have tried to define the services it provides, though often just valuing the services of 'key' species. Here we provide a new definition of biodiversity as a measure of functional information, arguing that complexity embodies meaningful information as Gregory Bateson defined it. We argue that functional information content (FIC) is the potentially valuable component of total (algorithmic) information content (AIC), as it alone determines biological fitness and supports ecosystem services. Inspired by recent extensions to the Noah's Ark problem, we show how FIC/AIC can be calculated to measure the degree of substitutability within an ecological community. Establishing substitutability is an essential foundation for valuation. From it, we derive a way to rank whole communities by Indirect Use Value, through quantifying the relation between system complexity and the production rate of ecosystem services. Understanding biodiversity as information evidently serves as a practical interface between economics and ecological science. © 2012 Elsevier B.V.

A Novel Method to Enable Trade-offs Across the Whole Product Life of an Aircraft Using Value Driven Design

The increasing need to understand complex products and systems with long life spans, presents a significant challenge to designers who increasingly require a broader understanding of the operational aspects of the system. This demands an evolution in current design practice, as designers are often constrained to provide a subsystem solution without full knowledge of the global system operation. Recently there has been a push to consider value centric approaches which should facilitate better or more rapid convergence to design solutions with predictable completion schedules. Value Driven Design is one such approach, in which value is used as the system top level objective function. This provides a broader view of the system and enables all sub-systems and components to be designed with a view to the effect on project value. It also has the capacity to include value expressions for more qualitative aspects, such as environmental impact. However, application of the method to date has been restricted to comparing value in a programme where the lifespan is fixed and known a priori. This paper takes a novel view of value driven design through the surplus value objective function, and shows how it can be used to identify key sensitivities to guide designers in design trade-off decisions. By considering a new time based approach it can be used to identify optimum programme life-span and hence allow trade-offs over the whole product life.