Data crystallization applied for designing new products

It is only the observable part of the real world that can be stored in data. For such incomplete and ill-structured data, data crystallizing aims at presenting the hidden structure among events including unobservable events. This is realized by data crystallization, where dummy items, corresponding to potential existence of unobservable events, are inserted to the given data. These dummy items and their relations with observable events are visualized by applying KeyGraph to the data with dummy items, like the crystallization of snow where dusts are involved in the formation of crystallization of water molecules. For tuning the granularity level of structure to be visualized, the tool of data crystallization is integrated with human’s process of understanding significant scenarios in the real world. This basic method is expected to be applicable for various real world domains where previous methods of chance-discovery lead human to successful decision making. In this paper, we apply the data crystallization with human-interactive annealing (DCHA) to the design of products in a real company. The results show its effect to industrial decision making. Kenichi Horie received M.S. degrees in Business administration from the University of Tsukuba. He is a graduate student at Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo. He has worked for Nagase & Co., Ltd. His research interests lie in chance discovery, human recognition, design, and technology innovation. He is a member of JSQC, IEIEC, JASMIN, JCS, KMSJ and JASVE. Yoshiharu Maeno received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in physics from The University of Tokyo. He is a graduate student at Graduate School of System Management, University of Tsukuba. He has worked for NEC Corporation. His research interests are in chance discovery, human recognition, and design and technology innovation. He is a member of IEEE, IEICE and JSAI. He received Young Researchers Award from IEICE in 1999. Yukio Ohsawa is an associate professor in the School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo. He moved from Graduate School of Business Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Tokyo, Japan in 2005. He received a Ph.D. in Communication and Information Engineering from The University of Tokyo. He initiated the research area of Chance Discovery as well as a series of international meetings (conference sessions and workshops), e.g., the fallsymposium of the American Association of Artificial Intelligence (2001). He edited the first book on Chance Discovery published by Springer Verlag and special issues in international and Japanese domestic journals. Chance discovery is growing: Journal issues have been published from the international journal on New Mathematics and Natural Computing, and new books are appearing.