Key Definitions
Understand the foundational terminology shaping modern engineering and manufacturing.
These definitions align with industry best practices and our hands-on consulting experience.
LeanPDD
Lean Product and Process Development is the application of lean thinking in product design and development. It focuses on value creation, provision of knowledge environment, continuous improvement and SBCE process that encourage innovation. LeanPPD provides process model and its associate tools that consider entire product life cycle.
SBCE
Design participants practise Set-Based Concurrent Engineering by reasoning, developing and communicating about sets of solutions in parallel. As the design progresses, they gradually narrow their respective sets of solutions based on the knowledge gained. As they narrow, they commit to staying within the sets so that others can rely on their communication”.Critical design decisions are deliberately delayed until the last possible moment to ensure that customer expectations are fully understood and that the reached design meets the requirements of different functions (design, manufacturing, etc.).
Industry 4.0
is the next industrial revolution which involves the integration of the physical world and the digital world.
Digital Transformation
in manufacturing industry is the transformation of conventional design and manufacturing processes to smart processes by implementing and integrating various enabling technologies of Industry 4.0.
Artificial intelligence
(AI) is technology that enables computers and machines to simulate human learning, comprehension, problem solving, decision making, creativity and autonomy. AI could perform tasks include learning from data, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, language understanding, and decision-making. AI systems use algorithms and models—often based on machine learning and statistical methods—to analyse information, identify patterns, and make predictions or recommendations with minimal human intervention.
Machine learning
Machine learning is the subset of artificial intelligence (AI) focused on algorithms that can “learn” the patterns of training data and, subsequently, make accurate inferences about new data. This pattern recognition ability enables machine learning models to make decisions or predictions without being explicitly programmed for every possible scenario. In machine learning, systems identify patterns, relationships, and structures within data, then use those insights to make predictions, classifications, or decisions when presented with new data.
The Internet of things (IoT)
LoT describes physical objects that are embedded with sensors, processing ability, software, and other technologies that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet or other communication networks without requiring direct human intervention. These devices can monitor conditions, perform automated actions, and interact with other systems to improve efficiency, accuracy, and decision-making. The IoT encompasses electronics, communication, and computer science engineering.