In industrial practice, products are developed in generations. Innovation success with complex technical systems can only be achieved economically and with manageable risk by using existing solutions as references. These references come from predecessors, competitors, and even industry-external products or concepts from research. The model of PGE -Product Generation Engineering describes these relationships. In design research, multiple approaches such as TRIZ, technical inheritance, and evolution trees use analogies between biological evolution and product development to make knowledge from past product generations usable. The aim of this contribution is to analyze the potential of an evolutionary perspective on PGE to support product developers to develop products with high innovation potential. We first analyzed the analogies between biological evolution and innovation in the context of PGE. We then collected and clustered existing evolutionary approaches. In the next step, we evaluated the extent to which the analogies between biological evolution and PGE are already being used in the approaches from the state of the art. The existing approaches do not offer a complete evolutionary view so far. References are in some form core of the majority of the approaches but the linkage with variation operations and the influence of contextual factors are not consistently considered or explained. Existing approaches support developers in solving specific technical problems. What they do not offer is a fundamental theoretical understanding of the innovation success of products along the lines of the theory of evolution in biology and the latest results in the field of PGE. Further empirical research based on an evolutionary perspective on the model of PGE could explain relationships between innovation pressure from changing context factors and variation activities. This potential is based on the hypothesis that the evolution of technical systems can be formally described analogously to biological evolution by reference-based variation operators in the sense of PGE influenced by changing context factors.

In 2019, Dyson had to cancel its ambitious electric car project after having already 500 Million pounds spent. This example shows how difficult it is to assess the consequences of decisions on development targets as cost, risk, and innovation potential. Knowledge about references, variation types and their impact on development targets can help to increase the maturity of the decision basis. The model of PGE - product generation engineering describes these interrelations using the reference system. This contribution deals with the question of how knowledge about the impact of variation types and characteristics of reference system elements on new product generations can be made usable through modelling and visualization. Therefore, characteristics of reference system elements and their impacts on common development targets are collected through literature research. To process this knowledge base in technical information systems, an Entity-Relationship data model is developed. Through the implementation of a VR visualization, the data model is validated and a first visualisation approach is shown. The findings of this work can be used to systematise research on impact factors in PGE and to develop further digital methods.

The use of already validated systems as references for the development of solution concepts offers the potential to increase process efficiency. It is important to understand how the use of references impacts the development of solution concepts. Therefore, the representation of solution concepts in an engineering project of two student cohorts are analyzed and compared. The first cohort is provided with few and the second cohort with extensive references. The results of the study show that the increased use of references leads to a higher share of embodiment and specific challenges.

Die Entwicklung komplexer Systeme mit hohem Innovationspotenzial unter Einhaltung von Kosten- und Risikozielen kann nur durch die systematische Nutzung vorhandener unternehmensinterner und -externer Referenzen gelingen. Für Produktentwickelnde als Entscheidungsträger ist es jedoch schwierig einzuschätzen, welche Auswirkungen die gewählten Referenzen und Variationen auf Entwicklungszielgrößen wie Kosten, Risiko und Innovationspotenzial haben. Das Modell der PGE-Produktgenerationsentwicklung bietet hier das Potenzial, schon früh im Entwicklungsprozess mit Wissen über die Auswirkungen von Referenzen und Variationsarten auf Entwicklungszielgrößen die Entscheidungsgrundlage zu verbessern. Um das Wissen über diese Zusammenhänge dem Entwickelnden zur Verfügung zu stellen, werden in diesem Beitrag zwei Visualisierungsansätze entwickelt. Für einen Konzeptworkshop mit berufserfahrenen Studierenden wird ein diagrammbasierter Ansatz entwickelt, angewandt und evaluiert. Basierend auf den Ergebnissen des Workshops wird eine Virtual-Reality (VR) Visualisierungsumgebung entwickelt und initial in einem Forschungsgespräch validiert. Die VR-Umgebung veranschaulicht dem Nutzer intuitiv und systemspezifisch die Zusammenhänge zwischen dem Referenzsystem und der aktuellen Produktgeneration und deren Auswirkungen auf Entwicklungszielgrößen.

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