Högskolan i Skövde

Conventional research typically adheres to established disciplinary methodologies, whereas transdisciplinary research demands a more flexible and adaptable approach. This paper presents and discusses a work procedure developed and successfully implemented to support collaboration and progress in a large-scale 4-year research project. The work procedure integrates the overall principles from interactive research with the structure of the design research methodology (DRM) framework. The focus here is on the potential of the developed work procedure to support transdisciplinary engineering research. We specifically investigate to what degree the requirements of relevant transdisciplinary research processes are met, i.e., the ability to a) understand and manage complexity, b) incorporate diverse perspectives, c) link abstract and practice-oriented knowledge for implementation and d) develop descriptive, normative, and practical knowledge. Several principles essential to fulfilling the requirements and succeeding with transdisciplinary research were encouraged and supported. Therefore, integrating knowledge from collaborative research, industry-academia partnerships and engineering design could be a promising strategy to strengthen transdisciplinary engineering research. We propose that the suggested work procedure, together with the identified best practices, could serve as support in this context as a transdisciplinary engineering research framework.

Uncertainty in production system design poses challenges in ensuring adaptability and efficiency. This study explores the use of Discrete Event Simulation (DES) to conceptualize modular and reconfigurable automated assembly systems under uncertain conditions. A case study was conducted where a company faced unknown product designs and fluctuating volume demands, necessitating a novel simulation-driven approach. The iterative DES modeling process provided insights into process variation, task prioritization, and system balancing. Results show that simplified simulation models can support early design decisions and enhance platform-based co-development, evolving simulation from a validation tool into a strategic asset for production system design. 

Continuing Engineering Education (CEE) plays a vital role in equipping professionals with the skills needed to navigate technological advancements and sustainability transitions. However, the CEE ecosystem is complex, with multiple stakeholders, interdependent factors, and dynamic trade-offs that challenge effective decision-making. This study explores whether systems thinking, specifically causal loop diagrams (CLDs), can provide a structured approach to analysing these dynamics and informing policy and institutional strategies.

Using an inductive, qualitative approach, we developed a CLD to map the Swedish CEE ecosystem in the context of the Green Transition. The model highlights key reinforcing and balancing feedback loops that shape the system, including the interplay between competence development, industrial needs, labour marketdynamics, and educational adaptation. It reveals how upskilling can drive innovation and economic growth while simultaneously introducing tensions such as workforce turnover, recruitment challenges, and institutional inertia. The findings underscore that effective CEE policy requires system-wide coordination rather than isolated interventions.

This study demonstrates the utility of CLDs as a tool for visualising trade-offs, identifying leverage points, and fostering multi-stakeholder dialogue. While the model is exploratory, it serves as a foundation for future participatory validation and refinement. By applying systems thinking, this research contributes to a more integrated understanding of CEE and offers a methodological basis for strategic decision-making in education and workforce development.

Integrating product development and production development is a challenging task in the face of rapidly changing product introductions and sustainable processes. Considerable amounts of research and practical efforts have been devoted to achieve increased integration productivity, yet, many modern companies still struggle with this in their product realisation processes. The two prominent product-realisation approaches of product platforms and concurrent engineering focus on improving new product introduction by increased modularisation and improved overlap of activities across organisational boundaries. However, implementing these approaches increases several entanglements and requires efforts in the short-term to gain the desired effects in the long-term. To contribute to this quest, this paper aims to investigate the system behaviours relevant to support required long-term work in managing the industrial practice of product platforming. By applying systems thinking within the system dynamics methodology, specifically causal loop diagrams (CLDs) in a case study within an industrialised house-building company in the progress of implementing product platforming, the objectives were to better understand why the integration challenges are so persistent and if CLDs are suitable to reveal and visualise the barriers to and enablers of the integration of product and production co-development. Two comprehensive CLD models have been developed based on empirical data and model building to extract the mental models of a product manager and a production performance manager, each offering their unique perspectives on successfully managing product and production co-development. Analysing the CLDs provides management insights into co-development between the conflicting perspectives, indicating the suitability and value of the CLD approach despite its limitations. Using CLDs help both to narrate fragmented stories into their bigger pictures to resolve conflicting objectives between department silos and to pinpoint several development potentials for the company in their transition towards proactiveness.

This paper wrestles with how to manage prominent global transition challenges on local and regional scales to co-create a better world. It introduces an approach to managing navigation in wicked problems by expanding maneuverability to increase capacities to drive transformation in multi-actor decision spaces in the context of complex societal challenges. This demands a transdisciplinary engineering approach, where we propose using the concept of relational interfaces to enhance understanding across boundaries in shared problem spaces, providing a foundation for co-creation and collaboration over knowledge domains to enable transformational momentum and navigational capacity. A multiplicity of pressing issues on the global canvas urges action on local and regional scales. This paper draws on cases from regional healthcare system development, under demographic and resource-driven pressures in the Global North, and from regional energy transition planning, where diverse stakeholders require improved coordination for co-creation in the face of cultural, economic, and institutional disparities. Wicked problems often blind actors to their full scope unless addressed collaboratively. This paper emphasizes the need to surface the knowledge and experience of actors through visualizations and digital models, to foster openness and co-creation. Through enhanced understanding of how parts interact within the holistic system across silos, this is enabling actors to manage interfaces between contributions. The conclusions from the empirical cases show the potential of the identification and management of these interfaces to unlock profound change, fostering collaborative solutions to persistent societal challenges — a step toward co-creating a better world and a vital calling for future transdisciplinary engineers.

Efficient energy management is particularly significant for the automotive industry due to its high consumption in foundry operations. To satisfy ambitious environmental goals, it is imperative to develop tools and methods for optimizing energy consumption in such contexts. The foundry is currently equipped with sensors and data collection equipment, which presents equipment-specific graphs of energy consumption over time. Although these graphs can reveal patterns and trends in energy consumption by themselves, more systematic methods are needed to utilize this data to investigate and optimize improvements that reduce energy waste. This article investigates the use of Discrete Event Simulation as a tool for leveraging collected historical energy consumption data. The aim is to explore how such data can be collected and translated into simulation variables to generate insights that support improvement initiatives. A case study was conducted to explore this approach, demonstrating that tracking energy consumption data provides a valuable input for Discrete Event Simulation modeling. The findings suggest some methods for data collection of different equipment, its modelling, and that further investigation in this direction could reveal opportunities for optimized energy management in energy-intensive industries.

The main contribution of this paper is to support how to economically motivate reconfigurability in production systems development. One main issue isthe currently tendency to end up in dedicated production solutions unfit to future product features. By exploring the economic rationale for modularization concerning changeability in semi-automatic assembly systems using system dynamics simulation, we aim to advance sustainable practices in manufacturing industry. Currently, the traditional approach in product realization processes is to develop and industrialize one product at a time. However, this is becoming obsolete due to demands of more frequent product introductions, technological innovations, and sustainability requirements. Thereto, the trends of increasing variety and customization imply costly modifications during the production system lifecycle. To address the challenges, scholars advocate for using modular architectures in designing products and production systems, facilitated through product platforming. However, the economic rationale for product platforming encompassing production system lifecycle management is less reported. Using system dynamics simulation enables structuring several economic dependencies of reconfigurable modularization in the wider context of production system development, derived from empirical findings from four case studies. The results indicate considering long-term cost implications beyond the prevailing short-term economic frames is needed to nurture the industrial transformation towards sustainability.

In this paper, we aim to facilitate regional development through collaborative meta-governance processes, involving municipalities, energy companies and more actors. The case in point involves increased electrification through the development of local energy systems in a sub-region comprising 15 municipalities and 21 grid owners and is an exemplary case where a transdisciplinary engineering approach is not only suitable but the only path forward. The complex problem landscape comprises interdependencies across different roles, such as politicians, civil servants, and engineers at energy companies, where autonomous entities act independently. We employ a design science research approach to create artefacts to support the meta-governance mechanisms needed to accelerate social change processes. One artefact is a system dynamics simulation model to analyze scenarios considering the electrification of vehicles and implementing large wind and solar energy units to enable the establishment of new industries. We provide brief overviews of how three artefacts assist in visualizing 1) roles, 2) structures, and 3) scenarios to the decision-makers, to facilitate various transdisciplinary decision-making processes in regional development. In the discussion, we synthesize our learnings into a model to support mitigating powerlessness in this complex multi-stakeholder context. Finally, we lay out future research to further contribute to the social change and regional development we believe is necessary.

In this paper, a work procedure developed to support the collaboration and progress in the research project IDEAL – Integrated product and production platforms supporting agile and demand-driven industrial product realisation – is presented and its functionality discussed. The research project involved in total 13 researchers, five manufacturing companies and one software supplier. The research project was organised in four sub-projects, covering various aspects of a joint research question. The project started in April 2020 and ended in January 2024. The work procedure, called the ‘IDEAL work procedure’, was developed based on the overall principles from interactive research combined with the framework for design research methodology (DRM). The developed work procedure provided a structure for the project, connecting the four subprojects, and thereby supported fulfilment of the joint research question. During the research project, the functionality of the ‘IDEAL work procedure’ has been assessed in different ways, both in terms of how it was perceived and to what extent the planned results have been achieved. During the project we have carried out workshops to follow-up on the progress and the work procedure. In addition, follow-up interviews have been conducted with participants from involved companies. The results from the different assessment activities are synthesised and presented in this paper. To expand the applicability of the ‘IDEAL work procedure’, the potential of the procedure to support transdisciplinary research is elaborated on in this paper.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the economic sustainability implications of reconfigurable modularization and changeability in semi-automatic assembly systems using a system dynamics perspective. Through our applied research, using a multiple case study approach, we assess the potential and drawbacks of reconfigurable modularization to advance sustainable practices in the manufacturing industry with the purpose of improving overall long-term resource allocation in product realization processes. The traditional approach of developing and industrializing one product at a time is becoming obsolete due to factors such as more frequent product introductions, technological innovations, and sustainability requirements. This is due to the increasing trends of product variety and customization, which often necessitate costly modifications to production systems throughout their life cycles. To address these challenges, scholars advocate for the adoption of reconfigurable modular architectures in product and production system designs, facilitated through product platforming. However, when it comes to studies of the long-term economic impacts from the effects in operations, meaning the economic sustainability implications for the production system throughout its life cycle, there is limited research examining the economic rationale for this approach. Therefore, this paper proposes a systematic examination of the economic sustainability implications of reconfigurable modularization in semi-automatic assembly systems using a system dynamics perspective. By leveraging a system dynamics simulation, we structure and investigate the potential economic short- and long-term tradeoffs between the benefits and drawbacks of reconfigurable modularization derived from empirical findings across four case studies. The novelty of this study highlights not only the investment costs and related engineering implications and their costs but also the estimated operation costs encompassing multiple product introductions expected during the life cycle of a production system. We believe that such an approach offers valuable insights into how reconfigurable modularization can be useful from an economic sustainability viewpoint within semi-automatic assembly systems, thereby contributing to the ongoing industrial transformation towards sustainability.