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DESIGN ENGINEERING; PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT. Expert does research and consulting work to help companies improve their product development process. She has worked with several US design and manufacturing companies including ITT, Kodak, Chrysler, HP, Boeing, Polaroid, GM, Teradyne, and Ford. Her research has included work on customer requirement capture, design automation, launch processes, effective information transfer, integrated product and process design, supplier relations, and variation management. She is a member of the Center for Product Development funded by NSF as well as the Lean Aircraft Initiative.

COMPUTER-AIDED MECHANICAL DESIGN; MECHANICAL DESIGN AUTOMATION. Expert's PhD thesis (and a continuing research theme) focused on the development of tools and methods to computationally support the design of mechanical elements and assemblies. In addition, she studies existing commercial tools and their application in industry. Expert has a unique, two-part approach to the area of computational tools. First, her research focuses on the technical issues of developing and using these tools. She is involved with developing formal processes to automate and insert these tools into existing design processes. She is currently studying automation methods and implementation issues through an Agile Manufacturing research project and through a benchmarking study of best practices of Intel, Boeing, Alcoa, Ford, Kodak, and Polaroid. She has also consulted for Concentra Corp.

ROBUST DESIGN; KEY CHARACTERISTICS; CRITICAL PARAMETER MANAGEMENT. To solve the question of what small manageable set of characteristics are most sensitive to variation, the method of "Key Characteristics" (KCs) is being used by a variety of manufacturing organizations. Expert uses the methods to improve communication within an organization on product features that have significant impact on the product requirements; to reduce variation; and to focus resource allocation on the variation critical areas. Expert's research in the field includes the development of common definitions, methods for KC documentation, flowdown methodologies, and measurement plans. She has recently completed a best practices evaluation of 20 organizations. In addition, she organizes a yearly conference on the topic. Last year, 60 people from 14 organizations attended; companies represented included Chrysler, Ford, Boeing, ITT, Honeywell, and Kodak.

GENETIC ALGORITHM; NUMERICAL OPTIMIZATION; SIMULATED ANNEALING. Expert has developed applications of genetic algorithms and simulated annealing within the domain of mechanical engineering. Her research involves developing methods for using knowledge of the design space to guide and accelerate the use of GAs and SAs to find unique solutions.