Technical systems are characterized by increasing interdisciplinarity, complexity and ever stronger interconnections. Product and supporting production system require cross-disciplinary multi-objective optimization. Due to the demand for sustainability and circularity, the complexity in engineering technical systems with mechanical structures increases even further. In these systems, on which the priority programme concentrates, sustainability is significantly shaped by the use of materials as well as operational energy consumption in production and product life.

Many of the requirements for such systems only become apparent later in product life: during product use, decommissioning, or material return. Technical systems must be designed to meet the requirements of future markets, but must also be designed for production, maintenance and recycling technologies. In such cases, the performance of established engineering methods, such as heuristics, methods, modelling and simulation, reaches its limits. The challenges of circularity, global dependencies and aspects of digital transformation force an increase in the performance of interdisciplinary product creation.

The existing performance limits can only be overcome by “hybrid decision support”, which means combining established engineering methods with methods of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (DS/AI) systematically including extreme data. Extreme data subsumes data with characteristics like increasing volume, speed and variety, high complexity, diversity and multilinguality, dispersed sources, sparse, missing and insufficient data, or extreme variations in values. Thereby, relevant aspects and correlations from product use or return of product components are mapped to the material cycle. New concepts are required in order to deal with extreme data in different formats in product and production system development and to prepare future data situations early.

The objective of the priority programme is basic research to gain insights into how processes and methods of DS/AI can be used in the future to complement human capabilities in conjunction with established heuristics, methods, modelling and simulation in order to increase the performance of product creation. Combined with established engineering methods, DS/AI shall be used for hybrid decision support.

In the meantime, there are clear tendencies as to which basic DS/AI algorithms, technologies, procedures and methods will reach a sufficient level of maturity. Within the framework of the priority programme, procedures and methods of DS/AI are adapted and applied, but not developed. The research includes content such as the training of models, the construction of neural networks or the generation of semantic networks.

On this basis, the priority programme aims at gaining insights into the achievable effect in product creation and the resulting changes in processes, methods, IT tools and information standards (PMTI). Combined with established engineering methods, DS/AI methods should be able to be used product-related in the sense of hybrid decision support. The core objective is to increase performance in product creation through hybrid decision support. A possible indicator of this is the reduction of the extent of unnecessary iterations by expanding the quality of decision-making without increasing the use of time/resources.

The focus is on the ability to take decisions in the analysis and synthesis of complex, technical systems in product and production engineering. One assumption is that people are relieved of routine activities. However, their capabilities cannot be completely replaced, and fully autonomous product creation is not possible. Following the fundamentals of problem solving and decision-making established in product creation, the priority programme covers three focus topics:

• The human-centred design of hybrid decision ­support aims at the interface between procedures and methods and the tasks to be supported in the decision-making situation. DS/AI are intended to make available problem-solving skills based on implicit knowledge­ in engineering applications.

• Analysis tasks, in terms of problem-related analysis, relate to the situation or, in terms of future-oriented analysis, to the consequences of a decision. Hybrid decision support is required in order to intuitively, purposefully and efficiently collect all the information required for a decision before starting the first functional and design executions in early phases (for instance, problem analysis, requirements elicitation and product planning).

• Synthesis tasks relate to the generation of alternative solutions and the reasoned formation of preferences. Activities such as the selection of conflictual restrictions, the consideration of Design-for-X and the objective safeguarding of design rules shall be supported. Additionally, hybrid decision support in synthesis is to ­be used to proactively generate work results such as the functional structure, basic solutions, etc.

The support is for engineers who systematically solve problems of cross-disciplinary and multi-objective optimization in relation to product and production system. Applicants classify their project within the priority programme into one or more of the aforementioned three focus topics.

The priority programme focuses on the early life cycle phases, i. e., product and supporting production system development. The coverage of all these early phases is to be ensured by an appropriate range of projects in both funding periods of the priority programme. Approaches that only work in the later life of the product are out of scope. Only technical systems with a mechanical load-bearing structure will be considered. The priority programme addresses scientists from the fields of mechanical engineering (engineering design, product development), production engineering and related areas of application-oriented computer science. It links the disciplinary foundations under the objective of hybrid decision support.

Applicants must anchor their respective project in a comprehensible manner in a relevant product engineering methodology. Such methodology needs to be adequate for the complexity of today's technical systems. Projects in the priority programme must address generalizable issues that can be transferred to different product types and branches of industry. Adaptation to company- and context-specific engineering processes is not part of the priority programme.

The aim is to increase performance of product creation, especially with regard to the complexity of the product life cycle and thus the requirements of sustainable engineering and recyclability, which will change over time. For this purpose, criteria for the interpretation and evaluation of the results must be identified. Effects on tasks and required competencies (qualification) from an engineering point of view are considered in research, also with regard to the interpretation of results of DS/AI procedures and methods.

Projects in the first funding period are based on data that are readily available from experimental preparatory work, industrial projects or field trials at the respective applicant. They are not blocked by third-party copyrights and can therefore be used in networking in the priority programme and in publications. Data sets shall aim at FAIR principles, so that they can be shared within the priority programme. In the proposal, they need to be described in sufficient depth. The possible generation or use of synthetic mass data must be justified in a comprehensible and plausible manner. In addition, digital development environments are a prerequisite for the research design planned in an individual proposal.

Due to the complex challenges, interdisciplinary cooperation is required. For this reason, collaborative projects from different disciplines are particularly encouraged to submit applications.

Proposals and CVs must be written in English and submitted to the DFG by 15 November 2023. Please note that proposals can only be submitted via elan, the DFG’s electronic proposal processing system.

To enter a new proposal (i.e. a project which has not been funded so far), go to Proposal Submission – New Project/Draft Proposal – Priority Programmes and select “SPP 2443 Hybrid Decision Support in Product Creation” from the current list of calls.

When preparing your proposal, please review the programme guidelines (DFG form 50.05 en, section B) and follow the proposal preparation instructions (DFG form 54.01 en). These forms can either be downloaded from our website or accessed through the elan portal. Please be aware that the forms have been updated since the last call in this priority programme and only proposals based on the current template will be accepted.

Applicants must be registered in elan prior to submitting a proposal to the DFG. If you already have an elan account you must not to register again. If you have not yet registered, please note that you must do so by 8 November 2023 to submit a proposal under this call; registration requests received after this time cannot be considered. You will normally receive confirmation of your registration by the next working day. Note that you will be asked to select the appropriate Priority Programme call during both the registration and the proposal process.

Participation by researchers based outside Germany is possible if their project is of added value to the Priority Programme at large. This must be explained in the proposal. Contacting the DFG head office (contact information see below) prior to proposal preparation is strongly recommended, if you plan to submit a proposal based outside Germany.

This text was published by the DFG at:

• https://www.dfg.de/foerderung/info_wissenschaft/2023/info_wissenschaft_23_61/index.html

The elan system can be accessed at:

• https://elan.dfg.de/en

DFG forms 50.05 and 54.01 can be downloaded at:

• www.dfg.de/formulare/50_05
• www.dfg.de/formulare/54_01

For scientific enquiries please contact the Priority Programme coordinator:

• Professor Dr.-Ing. Iris Gräßler
  Universität Paderborn, Heinz Nixdorf Institut
  Lehrstuhl für Produktentstehung
  Fürstenallee 11
  33102 Paderborn
  phone +49 5251 60 6275
  iris.graessler@hni.upb.de

Questions on the DFG proposal process can be directed to:

Programme contact:

• Dr.-Ing. Wieland Biedermann
  phone +49 228 885-2023
  wieland.biederman@dfg.de

Administrative contact:

• Bianca Becker
  phone +49 228 885-2489
  bianca.becker@dfg.de