The design of complex new aerospace products requires wide and deep collaborations among firms and in many cases also with competitors collaborating and, at the same time, protecting the valuable knowledge assets. In this context, knowledge protection means defining which knowledge assets must be shared and introducing policies and systems to protect them. Framed in the above premises, this paper presents the preliminary results of an on-going innovative research project i-Design Foundation (iDF) aimed to develop methodologies and technologies to support collaborative product design in aerospace value networks. Findings suggest an integrated organisational and technological framework describing: a) the modelling of collaboration's scenarios of a network of companies involved in innovative projects; b) an architectural framework to protect the codified knowledge assets shared. The paper is of value for managers that can get insights in knowledge security mechanisms and technological solutions supporting the collaboration in wider innovative projects

Product lifecycle management (PLM) is a strategic and holistic approach for the management of information, processes, and resources supporting the entire product lifecycle from concept to disposal. Several systems are available to manage data and information during the lifecycle. A PLM system does not have to be considered as a unique solution, but as a set of software supporting different perspectives and activities related to the lifecycle management. A full comprehensive implementation of PLM systems is rare. Since PLM reflects the peculiarities of processes and data structures, implementation differences are evidently observable among companies. The design of methods and tools supporting an assessment of PLM implementation inside a company can enable a correct definition of PLM strategies and goals. Based on these premises, the paper aims to specify a methodology for carrying out a gap analysis of PLM with the scope of discovering existing technological and methodological gaps, and planning actions for improvement. The proposed methodology implements a visual and lean reference model, and an assessment questionnaire for data collection. Lesson learned and feedback from three industrial applications are also described and discussed.

Technology foresight has an important role for companies and institutions for make predictions and defines drivers to be leveraged and scenarios to be implemented. Foresight become more relevant in case of organizations working in the development of complex products. The Italian project KHIRA wants to innovate the product design processes using and customizing emerging technologies and providing a unique point of access to all the relevant knowledge for the designers. Several methodologies and technologies are developed in the project KHIRA included a foresight strategy. Based on this assumption, the paper proposes a technological foresight strategy suitable to merge contributions coming from the industrial and academic fields through a combinations of feedbacks and emerging trends. An application of the strategy has been performed to explore evolutions of PLM tools and systems. Reliability and Replication of the strategy are guaranteed trough a careful definition of each step.

The need to cut off lead times, to increase the products innovation, to respond to changing customer requirements and to integrate new technologies into business process pushes companies to increase the collaboration. In particular, collaboration, knowledge sharing and information exchange in the Aerospace Value Network, need to a clear definition and identification of competencies of several actors. Main contractors, stakeholders, customers, suppliers, partners, have different expertise and backgrounds and in this collaborative working environment are called to work together in projects, programs and process. To improve collaboration and support the knowledge sharing, a competencies definition methodology and the related dictionary result useful tools among actors within an extended supply chain. They can use the same terminology and be informed on the competencies available. It becomes easy to specify who knows to do required activities stimulating collaboration and improving communication. Based on an action research developed in the context of the iDesign Foundation project, the paper outlines a competency definition methodology and it presents examples from the implementation in Alenia Aeronautica company. A new definition of competency is suggested supporting by a new method to specify the structural relationship between competencies and activities of aeronautical processes.

In the ACARE’s “Flightpath 2050 - Europe’s Vision for Aviation”, a declared objective is the seamlessly operation of the European air transport system through interoperable and networked systems allowing manned and unmanned air vehicles to safely operate in the same airspace. One of the crucial aim is to develop technological advances in civil applications and unmanned systems, in a more “designed to cost” and “electric” way. According to the above-mentioned vision, “occurrence and impact of human error is significantly reduced through new designs, training processes, technologies that support decision- making“. In addition, CTNA is starting to move in this direction, in order to develop innovative technologies for unmanned airplanes. This paper proposes a technological architecture for innovation on UAS (Unmanned Air Systems) piloting systems. The design of a UAS adopting a Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) platform as repository for data-mining and decision support system is discussed; the vision is to manage the autonomous capabilities of the vehicle, based both on previously simulated scenario and on real-time calculation, to adapt the behavior of the vehicle on the real operational scenario. A further step could be the collaborative evaluation of the real operational scenario trough the integration of autonomous vehicles that interact and exchange own real behavior data. To manage this big amount of data, it is necessary to grant access to design data, through the access to the above-mentioned PLM platform. The advantages of this methodology is implicit in the point of view from which we approach the PLM data repository: the Product Data Record, that gathers data coming from all the phases of the life cycle of UAS, enables an on-time centralized data management. It allows companies to operate on a single, synchronized source for all product data, improving integrity and reliability and decreasing time and cost.

The product design requires the interaction of several disciplines and the use of a wide set of PLM tools. They are used both to design the product elements and also, to manage product data and information that are generated. For company working as ETO (Engineering To Order), the complexity increases. Generally, customers requires a certification of the design process and a clear and formalized workflow of approval and validation. The paper describes a methodology for evaluating the use of PLM tools in the design process of products. The proposed methodology aims to be an objective tool able to catch information of the impact of ICT directly from the processes using them. Techniques specific of the Business Process Management discipline have been used. Phases and indicators of the methodology can be applied to analyze the product design process in different context.

Often, the generic business processes representation shows many differences compared to the flow of the real activities executed in relation to specific products/programs developed within an enterprise. From one side Business Process Modeling (BPM) provides a general process perspective of the enterprise, without taking in consideration temporal issues. From the other side, the product life cycle modeling allows to model the flow of activities, from the conceptualization until the disposal phase of specific product/programs. Neither of those views alone is entirely satisfactory to represent the stakeholders’ needs and to achieve superior business performance. This paper aims to overcome this limit, proposing a unified product-process modeling approach useful to link the product life cycle and the general business process modeling, maintaining at the same time, the differences and the consistency between the two representations. Guidelines and constraints in the set of features for a unified approach are suggested. Finally, a practical application related to a design activity of an aerospace company is implemented using Aris Ids Scheer.

The development of a product requires the definition of its architecture and of its physical and functional elements that have to be assembled together to realize the new product. Functional elements are the set of operations and transformations necessary to reach the product performance while physical elements are related to parts, components and subassemblies and are established from the product concept or defined in the detailed design of the product. Functional elements are associated to one or more physical elements and together define the product architecture. [Ulrich and Eppinger 2008]. The design of the product architecture and of each physical elements is very critical in the development of a new product since a worst design will impact also on the product manufacturing and changes and stops in that phase requires higher costs for the companies. Therefore, accurately design the product, its physical elements and how to assembly them in the architecture, it’s a critical activity for the company. The product model including its architecture and physical elements, is realized in computer aided design (CAD) systems but also other systems (i.e. Computer Aided Technologies, CAX) are used to define engineering, manufacturing or testing data. In many companies, all the data generating by the CAD systems together with others product data (e.g. the bill of material - BOM) are integrated and available in PDM systems that store data and information about the product and its elements. They can be simple repository of information and the users manually search and access to the information required or can provide workflows and other tools to manage the product data. [Grieves 2006]. In the design of each physical element of a product, geometrical and dimensional values are established and for each value, the tolerance limits are forecasted and fixed. Tolerance limit are the upper and lower variation that a dimensional value can assume guarantying, however, a correct assembly of all the elements in the whole product. The tolerance limits depends from the type of materials or from the machines used to realize the product. Changes in a tolerance value have effect in the whole assembly generating a chain of changes. Therefore, the need to correctly define the tolerance limits is very high to guarantee yet in the design a correct assembly. The stack-up analysis is the technique used to evaluate the tolerance chain created joining the physical elements and it is used to verify if there are problems to realize the final assembly and therefore, if the elements could be joined in the desired product architecture. The geometrical and dimensional information are available on the product engineering drawings or in the model based definition (MBD) dataset of the product. The engineering drawings provide a 2D vision of the product with dimensional and geometrical information. MBD datasets have been developed to integrate in the 3D model the information available in the engineering drawings providing a complete file with both information. 400 DESIGN SUPPORT TOOLS The paper aims to describe the case of an Italian aerospace company, Avio S.p.A., and the stack-up tool realized to improve the whole tolerance analysis process. The company has met some problems in the management of the stack-up analysis due to the use of IT tools that have led to human errors in the calculus and further time for reaching the results. Based on ten-month activities of a team of university researchers and company engineers, a new stack-up tool has been developed, it is integrated in the company CAD (Siemens Nx) and PDM (Teamcenter Engineering) systems and it is currently used by the company designers. It has solved the company problems in the stack-up analysis providing a solution for the calculus of the stack-up analysis both from engineering drawings and MBD datasets. In the next

This paper presents a conceptual model to explore the knowledge integration (KI) practices of internal and external company actors involved in the New Product Development (NPD) process of the aerospace industry. The model is based on the linkage of elasticity principles, particularly Hooke’s Law, to Knowledge Management theory. KI practices are considered as a force pushing the NPD process and are metaphorically described as the spring addressed by Hooke’s law. The integration of the knowledge of internal and external company actors impacts NPD, reducing the dimensions of the whole process, in terms of phases, through the application of the concurrent engineering approach. The whole NPD process is improved in terms of the reduction of uncertainty and complexity, and with an ‘integrated energy’ that sustains the pressure of the fastchanging competitive environment. The model is explored to provide an interpretation of the conceptualisation phase of a new aerospace product development process. Qualitative data were collected and analysed. Insights regarding the applications of the model and the theoretical implications are also provided for applications in other industries.

Manufacturing companies need to acquire, analyze and share large amounts of information and data to sustain competitive advantage in complex environments. In the context of complex manufacturing, an increasing number of devices, sensors and people are connected to internal networks dramatically changing the ability to generate, communicate, share and access data. Therefore, the data volume has become so large that it cannot be processed using conventional methods. Many companies have dramatically boosted profits and have met consumer demands more proactively, by utilizing automated data collection to feed information into a big data analytics program. In the aerospace manufacturing sector, there is a growing need to consider Big Data solutions to add value to their business services and to optimize their internal production processes. Manufacturing data are an important source of knowledge that can be recorded from different data sources such as sensors and enterprise. The majority of this data are stream processed i.e., they are produced by analytics performed on “in-motion” data. A real-time predictive analysis can help detecting manufacturing anomalies thus improving the production processes and the quality of product. This paper aims to shortly describe the initial findings of an action research study performed in the aerospace industry pilot of the TOREADOR European project.

“Design for X” includes a set of techniques to realize the best product yet during the design avoiding re-works and loose of time and money. Among these, the design for assembly covers an important role and aims to design a product “thinking” to the physical assembling moment. Digital Mock-Up (DMU) is a process to enhance assembly feasibility and efficiency through specific design analysis and allow re-producing a product virtual assembling. Based on an action research based on a collaboration among company and university researchers, the paper aims to describe the development of a DMU application in a naval Italian aerospace company to improve a ship fuel system assembling. Technical features of the application are described.

Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) have been associated many times in recent literature and the possibilities for their integration or to be mutually used as a source of lesson learned has been envisaged. The paper proposes to analyze, through a systematic literature review approach, the existing state of art of previous studies that has already examined relations between BIM and PLM. The main objective of the paper is to understand the real nature of BIM-PLM association for better directing future research developments.

The aerospace industry is characterized by an intensive net of relationships and information in the supply chain. The small and medium enterprises (SMEs) working for this kind of industry needs to be innovative and adopt information and communication technologies (ICT) tools to work with bigger companies. This paper explore three networks of relations (i.e. complete, R&D, and production) inside an aerospace cluster of SMEs located in Italy with the aims to specify dynamics in the ICT adoption and innovation rising. The centrality in the R&D network emerges as key characteristics to explore innovation and ICT in such firms.

The global crisis and the fierce competition of emerging countries make companies struggling to stay ahead of competition. The number of companies that are enlarging their offer portfolio looking forward to new and increased sources of revenues is always increasing but the number of companies failing in successfully implementing servitization strategy is even more. One possible reason behind this is the lack of tools to support companies while dealing with services that by definition are characterized by high level of intangibility and perishability. In this context, the integration of product design in concurrent with the related service design is becoming very relevant in several industrial fields. This process is very customer-centered and lead to the development of a product-service specific methodology. Specially, lean design methodologies can be used to foster and improve the integrated product-service design process. Based on this premise, the paper presents the PSS Lean Design methodology developed in the DIVERSITY project and its relations and impact on the data and information management of a product-service lifecycle system. A description of relations and modules customization for the development and diffusion of a PSS lifecycle management system is provided in the paper for an extension also in other contexts. © IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2017.

Product lifecycle management (PLM) has become more important in companies providing technologies and methodologies to manage data, information, and knowledge along the whole product lifecycle. In recent years, several authors have argued about PLM using a managerial or a technological view. The paper analyses these studies and integrates different author's points of view using focus groups, blogs, and face-to-face meetings in a university community of practice. Three sets of features (i.e., managerial, technological, and collaborative ones) have been used to review the existing definitions shared between academic and industrial ones and to propose an extended PLM definition describing its key concepts. The paper is a useful reference for managers and academics who want to have a clear and critical understanding of PLM using a unique source to collect lines of evidence on several PLM definitions, features, and concepts.

Product lifecycle management has to be related to a business approach that requires IT solutions and also organizational changes in order to produce the desired effects. Different aspects (product data, people, processes, organization, IT technologies) needs to be integrated together for the achievement of a competitive advantage for the company. PLM needs of operational tools that can support the implementation of the theoretical principles. In particular, as extensively studied in the literature, company needs frameworks to refer for guiding the implementation of PLM initiatives and to support improvement actions. Based on an action research, the paper wants to describe the development and application of a PLM framework in Ansaldo Energia, an Italian leader energy company. The framework is product-centred and focused on processes and related IT systems. It allows to diffuse knowledge and culture on products lifecycle inside the company. Indications for the framework development in the ARIS Software AG are also provided.

The complexity in engineering processes of high technology companies needs to carefully and efficiently manage the human resources competences dedicated to the related activities. Focus on an Italian aerospace company, Alenia Aeronautica, the paper wants to illustrate the use of set theory in order to represent objects, rules and indexes of the competence management methodology. This mathematical formalism allows to easily represent the complexity of this context and to guide the implementation of a future competence management system (CMS). In addition, the use of an algebraic approach allows the implementation of a competence management information system that may be customized to any industrial context. In addition, this flexible structure can be easily modified to respond to a continuously changing competence scenario related to the business environment.

Improving processes in a company starts from a deep knowledge of the current context, of the needs of improvement and of the objectives to be satisfied. Sometimes, traditional processes can benefits from a techno-organizational innovation that change the way of work introducing new routines and solutions. A kind of business process not widely explored is the Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) that is performed using practice linked with the story of components involved. The new available technologies and the need for competitiveness can lead to transform and innovate this kind of process introducing changes in organizational and technological aspects. This paper aims to describe the experience of innovation in the flow of activities and information of the MRO process of aeronautical components. It is based on an action research involving University’s researchers and industrial engineers for a period of one year. The developed solutions, the applied approach together with benefits and expected impacts are described in the paper for leading future activities in the managerial and academia fields.

This paper presents a conceptual model supporting the need for improving the integration of knowledge from internal and external company’s actors during the process of development of new aerospace product. The model is based on the elasticity principles linked to the organizational theory. The knowledge integration practices are seen as a force pushing the NPD process. Starting from the Hooke's law, the force based on the integration of knowledge within and outside a company impacts on the NPD process represented with a spring that increases its energy and contracts by reducing the dimensions of the whole process . The extension of the spring impacts on the application of the concurrent engineering and can lead to process improvements, lead time reduction, product quality improvement and finally energy creation to afford the pressure of the competitive environment. The originality of the model consists in the integration of elastostatic and elastodynamic problems to the new product development and knowledge integration practices.

Research laboratories, universities and consulting firms undertake research activities for performances analysis, businesses, technologies, products and services developments, governments, and political and sociological systems developments. In the case of firms' studies, the key informants regarding any research are the firms' managers that are involved either through interviews, or ethnographies or questionnaires responses. The key informants provide many types of data for the development of research and their role is primordial in its on-going process. In the process of data collection, there can be some challenges and obstacles slowing down the move toward data analysis for the confirmation of the hypothesis of the research or the achievement of the research output. Thus, the aim of this paper is to investigate on the factors that can slow down the on-going process of any research while communicating with the managers for their research participation. The 'Deja Vu' research method derived from the research and used is based on the analysis of the interactions taking place among university's researchers and firms' managers in the automotive and aerospace industry. The initial purposes of these interactions were for action research for businesses analysis and development and case studies creation from the firms for action learning of an international master program students. The paper presents the 'Deja Vu' research method' and provides details and definitions of the factors' constraints with respect to the firm's managers research participation. We find out that both actions -research and learning-have common factors' constraints as the managers availability and managers' strategic position in the firms, and different factors regarding the implications as value-added to business development and financial funds, and the brand image and the financial support for learning, respectively. And according to the types of actions and based on the factors' constraints, we derive a brief methodology for researchers to enhance firms' managers participation in research.

Many differences exist between a generic process representation and the real flow of activities performed in relation to specific products/programs within an enterprise. The product life cycle modeling approach allows us to model the temporal flow of activities from conceptualization to disposal of specific product/program. In contrast, the business process modeling approach provides a general process perspective. The two views taken alone are not entirely satisfactory. This paper aims to propose a unified and integrated product–business process modeling approach, which overcomes the limitations inherent in adopting a single perspective, maintaining as much as possible, the essential characteristics and strengths of both modeling approaches. Design/methodology/approach: The conceptual model of the proposed unified approach is based on the review of existing process and product modeling theories and on an inductive perspective emerging from the observation of the organizational practices in a number of Italian aerospace companies. Findings: The proposed approach is expressed in eight guidelines, which describe a new unifying perspective to be adopted in different domains, which ensure thatmanagers identify the assets and activities that are associated with each product that an organization creates. Constraints are also suggested. Some practical applications and examples using the software, ARIS (IDS Scheer, Saarland, Germany) are also provided based on actual practices in an aerospace company. Originality/value: This paper describes a new unifying perspective for a combination of product/business process modeling view.

Organizations need to share and acquire new information to sustain competitive advantage in complex environment. They communicate through IT-based integrated systems to fasten communication and knowledge sharing for the creation of innovative products. Firms are, thus, extending their operations to integrate strategic knowledge from partners in the product development process. In this paper, we present a case study related to process innovation in an aerospace firm integrating its information systems with one of its partners to facilitate the design of the models of a complex product. We investigate on the strategy followed to integrate the information systems, the types of these latter, on their success factors and their impact on the product development. The case study provides important insights on the integration of information systems for product design outsourcing.

The extended enterprise create partnerships with its external environment in order to acquire strategic information and achieve competitive advantage. For that, it integrates its information systems with the partners for fast communication and new knowledge integration in the product development process. The integrated systems involved in the interorganizational collaboration have specific functions and features. In this paper, we present the case study related to an aerospace firm integrating its information systems with one of its partners for complex product design. We investigate on the types of systems integrated, on their success factors and their impact on the product design. The results of the study provide important insights on the integration of the information systems for product development outsourcing.

This paper aims at analyze the practice of knowledge integration in Collaborative New Product Development (Co-NPD) projects involving multiple partners in aerospace network. Based on a pragmatic approach, a multiple case study focusing on two Italian aerospace companies involved into a research project aimed to define methodologies and technologies for knowledge collaboration in NPD, is developed. Data are gathered with a triangulation techniques merging both official documents, open ended and close end interviews administered in the companies sites and involving managers, engineers and employees. Findings propose a systematic treatment of the knowledge integration practice describing the types of knowledge, strategies, barriers and intellectual property policies for knowledge integration at inter-organizational level. Findings provide insights to address NPD models for aerospace networks where the complexity and value of codified knowledge coming from external sources requires adequate treatments and security standard.

Knowledge work is performed in all occupations and across all industries. The level of similarity of knowledge work allows for designing supporting tools that can be widely used. In this paper an activity-based perspective towards knowledge work is taken. Based on findings from a previous ethnographically-informed study, we identified valuable activities to be supported in order to increase knowledge maturing inside companies. The goal of this paper is to contribute to which knowledge maturing activities are deemed important, so that they can be supported by IT services. Quantitative and qualitative data have been collected in 126 organisations of different size, sector and knowledge intensity. Important feedback and issues emerged and need to be managed in order to support success in the knowledge maturing activities that allow improvement of organisational learning through the dissemination and application of the most appropriate knowledge.

Purpose – This paper aims at analyze the practice of knowledge integration in Collaborative New Product Development (Co-NPD) projects involving multiple partners in aerospace network. Design/methodology/approach – We propose an approach based on a multiple case study focusing on two Italian aerospace companies involved into a research project aimed to define methodologies and technologies for knowledge collaboration in NPD. Originality/value –This methodology puts in evidence the types of knowledge, strategies, barriers and intellectual property policies for knowledge integration in an aerospace value network extending the literature on knowledge integration practices. Practical implications – The outcomes of the application provide insights to address NPD models for aerospace networks where the complexity and value of codified knowledge coming from external sources requires adequate treatments and security standard.

The need to cut off lead times, to increase the products innovation, to respond to changing customer requirements and to integrate new technologies into business process pushes companies to increase the collaboration. In particular, collaboration, knowledge sharing and information exchange in the Aerospace Value Network, need to a clear definition and identification of competencies of several actors. Main contractors, stakeholders, customers, suppliers, partners, have different expertise and backgrounds and in this collaborative working environment are called to work together in projects, programs and process. To improve collaboration and support the knowledge sharing, a competencies definition methodology and the related dictionary result useful tools among actors within an extended supply chain. They can use the same terminology and be informed on the competencies available. It becomes easy to specify who knows to do required activities stimulating collaboration and improving communication. Based on an action research developed in the context of the iDesign Foundation project, the paper outlines a competency definition methodology and it presents examples from the implementation in Alenia Aeronautica company. A new definition of competency is suggested supporting by a new method to specify the structural relationship between competencies and activities of aeronautical processes.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe the case of a leading Italian aerospace company which developed an integrated system aimed to optimize the management of engineering competencies within the Chief Technical Office function. Design/methodology/approach – The paper was based on a set of interviews to company referents and a one-year period of researcher’s observation at the company site to analyze competence management processes and the application on the field of the methodology and the tool. The approach adopted is to present a real practice following a pragmatic and illustrative approach. Findings – The integrated system provides an objective method to support critical evaluations related to the management of competencies and actors. The benefits achieved derive from a more effective and efficient monitoring of competencies available to perform given activities, and from the analysis of gaps, actor allocation, and job-rotation issues. Research limitations/implications – The application of the method and the tool is still quite “dependent” from the skills of their developers. Besides, the activities and competencies of those units which support new product development processes should be also integrated in the system. Practical implications – The case described can be a useful benchmark for organizations working in complex industries in the effort of improving the performance of engineering activities through an enhanced management of knowledge about people potential and expertise. Originality/value – The value of the paper may stay in a twofold process/project and people management perspective in the monitoring, development, and scouting of technical competencies.

The level of similarity of knowledge work across occupations and industries allows for the design of supportive information and communication technology (ICT) that can be widely used. In a previous ethnographically informed study, we identified activities that can be supported to increase knowledge maturing, conceptualized as goal-oriented learning on a collective level. The aim of this paper is to investigate the current state of support and success of these knowledge maturing activities and to contrast them with their perceived importance, to identify those which have the highest potential for being supported by ICT. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected through telephone interviews with representatives from 126 organizations throughout Europe in a sample stratified according to size, sector, and knowledge-intensity. The activities that appear to be most promising are "reflecting on and refining work practices and processes," "finding people with particular knowledge or expertise," as well as "assessing, verifying, and rating information." Rich empirical material about how these activities are performed and also the issues that emerged and need to be managed were collected. Three clusters of organizations were identified: best performing organizations, people- and awareness-oriented organizations, and hesitant formalists. It was found that a balanced knowledge strategy that leaned toward personalization outperformed a codification strategy.

The growing importance of different kind of services in urban and wider contexts highlights the need for integrated, designed and managed service systems. A methodological framework based on Product Service System, can aid in better understanding and organizing services, supporting the identification of strategic urban actions, and prescribing system design choices that respond to citizen needs. This approach can be strategic if applied to the management of services and products in the high complexity of a city, characterized by coping with different layers of digital data and integrated flows of people, economic and social information. This research aims to investigate and classify the literature on PSS for identifying applications of products and services for different scale of territorial planning. A PSS-based methodology is proposed that allows to respond to the complex need of the territorial and urban planning process and to guide stakeholders toward shared and transparent decision-making. The paper is a useful reference for policy makers and academics that want to have a clear and critical understanding of the use of PSS in urbanism and territorial governance.

La complessità del settore aerospaziale e dei suoi prodotti caratterizzano un ciclo di vita del prodotto altamente integrato sia fra le diverse fasi all’interno di una stessa azienda e sia fra diverse aziende con cui si collabora alla realizzazione del prodotto, condividendo talvolta rischi e investimenti. La progettazione è un processo fondamentale che integra diversi aspetti del ciclo di vita di un prodotto e in cui diverse discipline e funzioni devono collaborare insieme per soddisfare le specifiche performance richieste ai prodotti di questo settore. Tale processo è svolto utilizzando potenti tecnologie dell’informazione e comunicazione che ne abilitano le diverse attività e ne permettono la progettazione dei prodotti più performanti. L’articolo si pone l’obiettivo di illustrare le caratteristiche del processo di progettazione nelle aziende aerospaziali come elemento core per tutto il ciclo di vita di un prodotto e di illustrare alcune best practices osservate nel contesto aerospaziale italiano.

The problem and implications of community detection in networks have raised a huge attention, for its important applications in both natural and social sciences. A number of algorithms has been developed to solve this problem, addressing either speed optimization or the quality of the partitions calculated. In this paper we propose a multi-step procedure bridging the fastest, but less accurate algorithms (coarse clustering), with the slowest, most effective ones (refinement). By adopting heuristic ranking of the nodes, and classifying a fraction of them as `critical', a refinement step can be restricted to this subset of the network, thus saving computational time. Preliminary numerical results are discussed, showing improvement of the final partition.

Modern companies face immense market pressure to meet customers' demands while ensuring the sustainability of business. Consumers are now requesting highly customized products and services, i.e. demanding mass customization from manufacturing companies. The complete value chain needs to develop strategies enabling interaction with customers and consumers, supporting customization of features and services, and even co-design. This paper presents the DIVERSITY approach, which consists on a methodology and engineering environment supporting companies in using social media to realize a context sensitive lean design process of product service systems.

The aerospace industry is characterized by intensive collaborations among firms that work for the realization of complex aerospace products that require high risks and costs. Collaboration and risk sharing are needed at each supply chain level. For companies working in networks, in this period of market changes and crisis, it is needed to think and re-think about a networked business model highlighting the relevance of each collaborating actor in the value generation for new products. The paper aims to explore the business model features of companies working in aerospace networks and to highlight improvements actions. Evidences are collected through a survey and a case study. The research results suggest two new elements for business model frameworks: the value exchange strategy and the value enablers both necessary for an extended collaboration among all nodes of a business network. The introduction of these two elements is discussed and justified in the paper.

Collaborating to new product development (NPD) is became a common and diffused practices to share skills and resources and to better manage costs and risks. The important role of collaboration in network and its interrelated exchange of knowledge needs in–depth analysis to highlight their role in the organisational mechanisms of working. This paper describes a business model for companies working in network where the knowledge and its protection is relevant. It is as a conceptual paper and wants to highlight the relevant role of the knowledge exchanged in a value network of companies for developing a new product. These aspects are treated and discussed through the use of business model elements in order to point out the relevance of knowledge and its management also in the organisational operations definitions. The findings contribute to enlarge the proposition on business model and knowledge sharing for NPD.

Most business processes are today rooted into an informa-tion system recording operational events in log files. Process Mining algorithms exploit this information to discover and qualify differences between observed and modelled process. However, the output of these algorithms are not clearly con-nected with business properties. Our work faces these lim-itations by proposing an approach for calibrating Process Mining results based on the Business Rules adopted by an organisation. The general idea relates on applying Process Mining algorithms on subsequent refinements of the event log, flltering process executions based on Business Rules. This way we are able to associate these results with specific characterisations of the process, as entailed by the corre-sponding Business Rules. This approach is confronted to a real world scenario using data provided by an Italian man-ufacturing company.

The case study explores the use of ICT in the external and internal collaborations to design or re-design a product in an Italian aerospace company. The data have been analyzed with the content analysis and. triangulation techniques are also used. The main role of collaborations among organizational units and with the customers/partners is highlighted and insights in the managerial practice are based on the evaluation of the collaborations types during the product design.

The aerospace products are complex and require integration of complementary knowledge and risk sharing among several firms. The aerospace industry is, thus, characterized by an intensive net of collaborations among firms working on aerospace products' systems, sub-systems and components manufacturing and with Governments, public and private research centres and other actors. Furthermore, the product, process and organizational innovations are important to preserve and increase the firm competitiveness improving the excellences in specific fields and the productivity. A case study based on the innovation activities supported by inter-firm collaborations in an aerospace company is object of the paper and has been developed applying the content analysis on a set of interviews. Types of innovation activities and external relations emerge from the study and their integration is analyzed highlighting difference among innovation activities based on the type and quantity of external relations.

Currently, Virtual Reality (VR) systems give industries in different domains the possibility to interact with and work into a simulated environment in order to improve their processes, efficiency and effectiveness, fast introducing new products in the market in a cost effective way. The fundamental idea is to identify the main applications of Virtual Reality in the manufacturing domain and provide valuable insights for future research and trends concern the application of this technology along the whole product development process. This paper aims to propose a set of new emerging scenarios, composed of Virtual Reality technologies, tools and systems used in manufacturing industries with a focus on the aerospace sector. The proposed scenarios are based on projects and initiatives carried out for applying the VR to industries in order to optimize internal processes and the overall supply chain.