Search

Converting customer needs into specific forms and providing consumers with services are crucial in product design. Currently, conversion is no longer difficult due to the development of modern technology, and various measures can be applied for product realization, thus increasing the complexity of analysis and evaluation in the design process. The focus of the design process has thus shifted from problem solving to minimizing the total amount of information content. This paper presents a New Hybrid Axiomatic Design (AD) Methodology based on iteratively matching and merging design parameters that meet the independence axiom and attribute constraints by applying trimming technology, the ideal final results, and technology evolution theory. The proposed method minimizes the total amount of information content and improves the design quality. Finally, a case study of a rehabilitation robot design for hemiplegic patients is presented. The results indicate that the iterative matching and merging of related attributes can minimize the total amount of information content, reduce the cost, and improve design efficiency. Additionally, evolutionary technology prediction can ensure product novelty and improve market competitiveness. The methodology provides an excellent way to design a new (or improved) product.

In the traditional Axiomatic Design (AD) theory, the mapping from the functional domain to the physical domain is based on the designers’ own knowledge and experience, and there is no systematical approach including the design resources provided outside the designers themselves’ access. Thus, the raw materials for the design process are largely limited, which means they can hardly support the designers’ increasingly creative and innovative conceptions. To help AD theory better support the design process, this paper proposes a computer-aided approach for the mapping from the functional domain to the physical domain within a distributed design resource environment, which consists of numerous design resources offered on the Internet by the providers widely distributed in different locations, institutes, and disciplines. To prove the feasibility of this proposed approach, a software prototype is established, and a natural leisure hotel is designed as an implementation case.

The design of a manufacturing system involves multiple technical disciplines consisting primarily of mechanical, electrical, instrumentation, and control engineers. A function modeling methodology in conceptual design ensures that the various disciplines work toward a common design intent. A systematic approach in efficiently capturing the design intent promotes interdisciplinary communication, clarity, and early systematic determination of a functional design that fulfills customer needs. This paper proposes a model-based systems engineering approach that combines the advantages of axiomatic design, design structure matrix, and integrated function modeling.

In product design, the initial design stage is being increasingly emphasized because it significantly influences the successive product development and production stages. However, for larger and more complex products, it is very difficult to accurately predict product reliability in the initial design stage. Various design methodologies have been proposed to resolve this issue, but maintaining reliability while exploring design alternatives is yet to be achieved. Therefore, this paper proposes a methodology for conceptual design considering reliability issues that may arise in the successive detailed design stages. The methodology integrates the independency of axiomatic design and the hierarchical structure of failure mode, effects, and criticality analysis (FMECA), which is a technique widely used to analyze product reliability. We applied the proposed methodology to a liquefied natural gas fuel gas supply system to verify its effectiveness in the reliability improvement of the design process. Keywords: Axiomatic design, Failure mode, effects, and criticality analysis (FMECA), Reliability, LNG fuel gas supply system

Function integration is the way used commonly to achieve the lightweight design system. To realize the design successfully by combing two systems multifaceted issues in need to be considered. The potential functional conflicts between the existing systems are the major unfavorable factors limiting the design. In order to complete the better design, the functional and physical relationships in the systems should be figured out. This paper proposes the approach, by which the function integration process is expressed using the axiomatic design. In the design process, the mutual relationships of design parameters in the systems are investigated by means of design matrices. The design concepts are compared and evaluated by the method combining the axiomatic design and design structure matrix.

This paper proposes a method for applying engineering design principles to a type of energy system called a smart local energy system. Axiomatic design theory is used to develop a series of knowledge domains about a demonstrator energy system, the knowledge domains describing the different facets of customer, functional, solution and construction elements that make up the system as a whole. An aspect of axiomatic design theory called large flexible system theory is applied to a small subset of the demonstrator system to create a knowledge base about the operational modes of the system. The knowledge base ensures that an operational schedule for the system can be produced that maintains the integrity of the system design.

This work shows how to teach axiomatic design (AD) of manufacturing processes and systems in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to achieve long-term sustainability in the introduction of Industry 4.0. This is about how to develop profitable and ethical design solutions by exploiting emerging technologies, especially for companies with limited resources. Suh’s axiomatic approach to design selects the best solution among plausible candidates early in the design process so that resources can be focused most effectively. It is important that engineers know how to develop ethical design solutions efficiently and effectively. Sustainability rests on three pillars, economic, ecological and social. Therefore, ethical design can be achieved, with responsible use of natural resources and protection of the environment, meeting the needs of people and society as well as profitability to ensure long-term prosperity for all. Literature on Industry 4.0 shows several approaches on how Industry 4.0 can be sustainable and human-centered. However, few works focus on SMEs and there is little on teaching. Here, AD is used to create a program for teaching how to apply AD to design problems in the context of Industry 4.0 for SMEs. AD theory states that the best design solutions are those that, 1- maintain the independence of the functional elements, and 2- minimize the information content, i.e., maximize the probability of success. In AD, needs of customers and other stake holders are considered first, so that the right problems are addressed. Then top-down, parallel, functional-physical decompositions, are followed by physical integrations, all guided by Suh’s axioms to select the right solutions. In order to test new technologies in a practice-oriented way in advance of introduction for SMEs, learning factory laboratories are used.

The basic concepts and the framework of Axiomatic Design (AD) provide powerful tools in the design of products and product families, especially for visualizing the design goals and improving the design process. When learning how to apply AD, however, nearly a half of the uninitiated designers like students may need to devote much effort to advance a sufficient number of different design concepts in terms of functional requirements (FRs) and/or design parameters (DPs), which is often done in abstract phrases like the first step in AD. The instructors must encourage them to think freely and squeeze out all the FRs and DPs they have in their minds and must guide them to integrate FRs functionally and DPs physically to obtain the desired design matrix.

The industrial product-service system (iPSS) is a kind of system engineering methodology, integration scheme, and business model to realize service value by adding intangible services in the whole life cycle. However, the design of the system involves many difficulties such as uncertain customer demands, strong subjectivity of the experience design, and long debugging times. Methods for solving upper problems are therefore essential. This paper presents a design model that integrates an improved affinity propagation (AP) clustering algorithm, quality function development (QFD), and axiomatic design (AD). The entire process of designing an iPSS can be split into three steps. First, uncertain customer demands is determined and standardized. Second, the functions of the product-service system are investigated. Finally, the structures of the system are determined. This paper examines the example of the control service of an iPSS for a water heater tank capping press. An improved AP clustering algorithm is used to determine standardized customer demands, the proposed QFD, and an AD integration model to initially establish a mapping between the customer demands domain and the function domain and clarify the design focus. Next, a QFD- and AD-integrated model is constructed to establish a mapping between the function domain and the structure domain and optimize the control scheme through the quality of its risk prediction. Finally the paper verifies that the upper process and methods can guide the design process effectively in production applications.

Many different product development approaches are taught and used in engineering and management disciplines. These formalized design methods, processes, and environments differ in the types of projects for which they are relevant, the project components they include, and the support they provide users. This paper details a review of sixteen well-established product development approaches, the development of a decision support system to help designers and managers navigate these approaches, and the administration of a survey to gather subjective assessments and feedback from design experts. The included approaches&mdash, design thinking, systems thinking, total quality management, agile development, waterfall process, engineering design, spiral model, vee model, axiomatic design, value-driven design, decision-based design, lean manufacturing, six sigma, theory of constraints, scrum, and extreme programming&mdash, are categorized based on six criteria: complexity, guidance, phase, hardware or software applicability, values, and users. A decision support system referred to as the Product Development Approach Advisor (PD Advisor) is developed to aid designers in navigating these approaches and selecting an appropriate approach based on specific project needs. Next, a survey is conducted with design experts to gather feedback on the support system and the categorization of approaches and criteria. The survey results are compared to the original classification of approaches by the authors to validate and provide feedback on the PD Advisor. The findings highlight the value and limitations of the PD Advisor for product development practice and education, as well as the opportunities for future work.

Science is about looking for simple constructs that describe underlying, unifying compact nature of the universe. Engineering is about design, creating plans, and descriptions of things the safety, health, and welfare of the public. Science and engineering both rely on the scientific method and design processes. Scientific disciplines are based on a few, self-consistent underlying rules that explain a broad range of phenomena. It is much easier to learn and apply a scientific discipline than a discipline that relies primarily on experience and best practices. The discovery and articulation of design axioms made engineering design a scientific discipline. The axioms clearly distinguish axiomatic design from other design theories and methods.

In the early phase of product design and development cycle, the customer needs are transformed in terms of functional requirements. At the conceptual design stage, the designers conceive a design concept by developing design parameters to satisfy the given functional requirements. The relationships between the set of functional requirements and the set of design parameters are represented in a design matrix. However, the design concept often has off-diagonal element(s) in the design matrix. These elements consequently create coupling terms that increase the complexity of the design concept. In the Axiomatic Design framework, eliminating an off-diagonal element from a design matrix will increase the flexibility design interaction structure, therefore reducing the design complexity. This paper presents a method to reduce the complexity in engineering design and technical systems. It helps support the designer identifying which coupling term(s) should be eliminated to decouple a coupled design, also to decrease the complexity of a decoupled design.

Topology optimization is a tool that supports the creativity of structural-designers and is used in various industries, from automotive to aeronautics, to reduce design iterations towards obtaining the optimal structure layout. However, this tool requires both time and experience to interpret the results into manufacturable and reliable structure layout. To improve this aspect, an interpretation support tool is being developed by our research team based on industrial knowledge and axiomatic design principles. This design tool will be very useful for aircraft structure development, for instance, as it aims to help the structural designer in the conception of stiffened panels. The tool has been divided into three modules: feature recognition, feature analysis and design support. This paper presents the first of the three modules that identifies the trusses of the optimized topology in terms of truss recognition algorithms. The purpose of the truss recognition algorithm is to translate the densities of the element of the optimized topology (low-level abstraction) to a skeletal structure (high-level abstraction) that contains nodes and branches that describe the same topology as the optimized topology. It should also ensure that the structural skeleton retains connectivity with loads and boundary conditions. The information may then be used by the design support tool for analysis, comparison, decision-making, design and optimization purposes. To do so, a novel image-based method using a binary skeleton is proposed. For this work, we identified multiple limitations existing in similar solutions and we mitigated them. Therefore, a new skeletonization method is proposed, which is specifically designed for truss recognition in the optimized topology. The capabilities of the skeletonization method are demonstrated by comparing it with existing methods, and the truss recognition algorithm is used with a test case exhibiting the algorithm’s capabilities on an airplane wing box rib.

Complex market dynamics force enterprises to face new challenges. A manufacturing or assembly system has to create products based on customer requirements at the lowest possible price and to react rapidly to external changes such as market or political trends. In this regard, flexible and rapid changeable manufacturing and assembly systems are promising solutions to overcome these issues. In the past, small and medium-sized enterprises were less affected by unstable market dynamics thanks to their smaller and more manageable structures. This feature allowed to readapt the industrial facilities in a short time. The current market volatility also forces small and medium-sized enterprises to pursue innovative approaches. This work shows how an Axiomatic Design based approach could be successfully used to achieve these purposes by defining guidelines for the design of flexible and agile manufacturing and assembly systems, with a special focus on small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Using the Axiomatic Design approach and the software Acclaro DFFS, customer needs and functional requirements were defined and translated into a set of design guidelines for flexible and agile manufacturing and assembly systems for SMEs. This approach helps designers to optimize their designs at a very early stage before making costly decisions or performing effortful simulations or computer-aided engineering analyses.

The Taguchi method is widely employed in several fields to manage and improve processes. It is interesting that it could be used during product development, considering it as the basic element to quantify the uncertainty of the device performance prediction. During product design, when many design aspects still must be understood by the design team, it is necessary to apply interactive approaches in order to simulate the behaviour of the device, employing CAx tools. Basically it is important to identify the most suitable “loss function” that can be associated with the characteristic function. In order to plane the investigation, the device under development ought to be described in term of the Design Matrix of Axiomatic Design, allowing the designer to characterize the relationship among the functional requirements and the corresponding design parameters. The nature of this relationship, generally not known a priori, can be revealed by the employment of the Taguchi method, once a suitable Objective Function has been chosen and the noise factors are identified. Analysing the performance of a device in a simulation of its behaviour in several operational conditions allows designers to discover whether there are correspondences or contradictions among design parameters. This can be synthetically said a robust design process. In order to enhance these aspects a design of experiment must be planned. The weak point of the procedure consists in the correct choice of the function that characterizes the device behaviour. Considering the wide academic debate on this point, the paper proposes a unique Noise Reduction function to be used in conjunction with all types of “loss function”. The Design Matrix can be checked and its nature can suggest the validity of the product under development and discover contradiction. The paper discusses an interactive procedure able to integrate the Taguchi method and the axiomatic approach.

To determine the overall trustworthiness of a complex Cyber Physical System (CPS), it is critical to consider several methods of engineering design. Traditionally, translating a customer needs into requirements, through physical realization and into an operation leans on processes that are largely dependent upon functional requirements. There are, however, no strict rules in design that dictate the use of functionality as the fundamental approach. Since no strict rules exist, non-functional requirements will be used contrary to the traditional use of functional requirements. In particular, trustworthiness is a relatively defined term relying on face-validity methods from a multitude of non-functional requirements identified in related research. A limited-design method with Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), Axiomatic Design (AD) and Design of Experiments (DOE) is tested using this nonfunctional requirement of trustworthiness. The aggregated measurement is used to determine where it is best to focus design efforts in the concept stage.

Modern modular construction demands high quality, cost-effective, and efficient production of components. These requirements have led to the emergence of offsite construction manufacturing, which necessitates the use of automated machines. Compared to traditional onsite methods, offsite modular construction has a positive impact on quality, safety, cost, and productivity. Methodologies exist in the design of automated modular construction machines. This automation consists of not only the machines but also the supportive electrical and pneumatic systems, which, regardless of the design approaches used for automated machines, can be applied to the design of their associated systems. To avoid costly design changes, there is a clear need for a systematic and iterative design methodology at the conceptual design stage. For the control panel, the conceptual design method introduced in this paper facilitates the subsequent computer-aided design to be performed at the detailed design stage. Integrated function modeling, combined with axiomatic design and design structure matrix, constitutes the conceptual design approach for the control panel. In this work, linear time complex algorithm is developed for automating the layout of the electrical devices and wiring connections in order to facilitate computer-aided design implementation in the detailed design phase. Furthermore, the control panel guidelines and standards that constitute the prior knowledge of the design process are embedded in the algorithm.

Axiomatic design (AD) theory is a general framework for system design process based on mapping between several domains. In the AD theory, only the functional requirements (system functions) are considered in the design process, since the mapping between requirements and design parameters in AD does not include nonfunctional requirements (system attributes). This paper introduces an extended view of the system design process based on AD theory framework to incorporate nonfunctional requirements into the mapping between the problem domain and the solution domain. A systematic way of including nonfunctional requirements in the design process is presented, and an extended design matrix is introduced, which includes the mapping between a complete set of requirements (functional and nonfunctional) and corresponding design parameters (physical domain). We also present an approach to decide between solutions that satisfy nonfunctional requirements to a varying degree through the employment of the analytical hierarchy process. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

The building design community is currently experiencing a shift towards generating more resilient and sustainable designs that are also safe and economic. Integrating these broad, often conflicting, factors into design causes the design process to become more complex, the decisions more difficult, and a need for higher fidelity (and more expensive) modeling efforts to gain insight to resolve these tradeoffs. Set-based design is a promising alternative to traditional point-based design for such complex design problems because many design concepts are generated, refined and carefully eliminated throughout the process thereby maintaining significant freedom in the early stages of design. There is an emerging concept of closely coupling set-based design with model-based simulation to systematically contract the design space through a sequence of modeling efforts in which bounding models are constructed to guarantee the antecedent model only eliminates design alternatives that are dominated when analyzed using a subsequent higher fidelity model. In this paper, the concept of the sequential decision process is explored for the system-level design of seismic-resisting structural frames using nonlinear static analysis. Bounding models are derived for this design problem that are sufficiently general for various types of structural frames. The merit of the novel approach lies in giving designers the ability to search the tradespace exhaustively, arriving at the global minimum with a reduced cost by comparison to a full evaluation using the highest fidelity model while also providing the freedom to retain dominated and non-dominated solutions.

This paper presents a generic functional design modelling methodology applied in the computer-aided design (CAD) environment to associate functional considerations and physical models of the design. Function concept modelling represents the engineering design purposes of the product elements and is usually considered to be interdependent from the detailed geometric solutions. Although CAD is prevailing in modelling geometry of the design artefacts, functional considerations, or design intents, are often not represented systematically and explicitly. The gaps between functional and geometrical representations of the design models require an extensive research to unveil their associations and interactions. Functional feature, and the corresponding semantic representation with the built-in mechanisms, is proposed in this paper to support a CAD methodology that models the interrelations between functional and physical considerations of the design and drives the design through functional perspective. A...

Efforts are made to improve the design process of Axiomatic Design (AD) in this paper. Rooted in logic and rational thought, AD provides systemic tools that helps facilitate design process. However, the mapping process and operability of AD remain to be clearly defined. The research on AD theory shows that AD lacked the description of elements in domains and the specific method during mapping process, which could lead to confusions of the designers. To remedy the issue, the Extenics theory is integrated with AD to provide improved guidance for design activity. The integration of the two theories are established in the form of mathematical expression and flow chart. Examples are presented to illustrate the integration of the two theories. The resulted mapping of the decomposition process is shown to be properly guided.

The reed-type valve is a key component of reciprocating compressors affecting the efficiency and reliability of compressors. The convention design of such valve components focused on the study of the individual elements of the system, which loses the opportunity of reaching the global optima. This paper proposes a scientific guide for the system design, based on which the reed valve system was optimized, in which the reed, the plate, the orifice and valve stop were analyzed systematically, design conflict of valve lift and valve life were indentified in the early design stage. In order to decouple the conflict, the valve lift was formulated into standard parameters. Finally, the design process was simplified. All the design parameters gear to each other. An industrial case is introduced to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed design approach.

This paper proposes a user-centred approach to design Transport In-terchange Hubs (TIH). It is based on a literature review of existing information related to TIHs outside the domain of transport engineering, so the focus is on the building and the usage of it by its main customers: the travellers. A literature review is used to extract high level information on travellers’ needs, technical and functional requirements of TIHs, constraints and design parameters. A prod-uct development approach is used to classify and combine this data so a proper set of design specifications to better address users’ needs is proposed. The method is illustrated through an example in the Russian Arctic, an area with un-der-developed transport facilities for travellers which would benefit from high-level design specifications to address complex needs, requirements and parame-ters involved in designing for extreme climate conditions. A proof of concept, using Axiomatic Design, to develop design specifications and manage constraints is applied and discussed considering major needs involved in building in the Rus-sian Arctic including how different types of simulation tools, essential to assess performance of complex buildings, can be integrated in the early stages of the design workflow. Robust specifications, despite being part of parametric design methods, are underexplored in the architecture design domain, meaning this work can contribute to further research in how to define common design targets and objectives for different stakeholders as well as to manage the collaborative work of consultants involved in designing complex buildings.

How to transform Functional Requirements (FRs) into Design Parameters (DPs) plays a key role in using the Axiomatic Design (AD) theory. However, the AD theory does not provide such an approach to support the transformation from FRs to DPs. As the meantime, there is a trend to use internet-based knowledge service in a distributed resource environment to efficiently generate a design concept. The authors aim at developing an improved axiomatic design approach. This approach consists of two parts, part 1 built a new model for the transformation from FRs to DPs in a distributed resource environment; part 2 proposed an achieving algorithm for the generation of Function unit chain sets (FUCSs). The studies are based on a hypothesis that almost all of the FRs can be met by a function unit set. The DPs of each Function Unit (FU) are provided by knowledge service suppliers. In such a distributed resource environment, designers only need to search function units via their inputs and outputs and integrate them into a concept solution to meet a functional requirement. This paper firstly defined the basic definitions of Functional Requirements (FRs), Functions (Fs), Function Units (FUs), Function unit sets (FUSs), Function unit chain sets (FUCSs) and Design Parameters (DPs), then described the transformation process in detail, thirdly, proposed principle forms for calculating the outputs in FUSs, finally, used a case study to illustrate the proposed approach by analyzing the design process of a friction-abrasion testing machine.

In order to standardize the design process of complex products and improve customer satisfaction and intelligence of specific design scheme, a design case of Lower Limb Exoskeleton Rehabilitation Robot (LLERR) is presented in this paper. Under the precondition that walk assistance and rehabilitation training functions are achieved, higher demands for LLERR from psychological and physiological needs of users are proposed. Based on the research status and market demands of rehabilitation robots, a conceptual design of LLERR with the character of customized gait and customized exoskeleton is presented. The mapping process from functional requirement (FR) domain to design parameter (DP) domain of customized design scheme is analyzed according to Axiomatic Design (AD) theory. Then, an overall design matrix of 11×11, a triangular matrix, is obtained, revealing that the customized design scheme of LLERR is a decoupled design with great reliability. Lastly, the design scheme is optimized through constrains analysis. The correctness and practicality of this design scheme are verified. The paper's work can provide guidance for the design of the same type products.

To unify the design process of complex products to meet higher function and performance demands, a practical implementation for a new heavy load high voltage circuit breaker is presented. This paper analyzes the function and performance of a new heavy load high voltage circuit breaker, and addressed needs of being quick, accurate and stable. The superiority of the physical functional basis description method over the traditional functional basis model was demonstrated. The axiomatic design theory is described systematically and in detail using the function decomposition of the high voltage circuit breaker as an example. The concept of functional aggregation unit as the extension and expansion of axiomatic design theory is presented. This aggregation unit extracts essential characteristics of function and performance separately from their concrete structures, avoiding limits of the spring operating mechanism structure caused by reliance on a conventional structure. This function aggregation design method is presented for the design of a transmission unit. These results are of great theoretical significance to guide product innovation based on functional aggregation in axiomatic design theory.

This paper integrates nonlinear deep knowledge with an axiomatic design method for supercritical rotor dynamics in order to overcome the limitation of rotor dynamic design for supercritical rotating machineries. Design methods based on linear theory usually lead to shafting failures in engineering practice, since nonlinear theory has not been well incorporated into rotor dynamic design. This method realizes a four-level decomposition of the functional requirements and mapping of the corresponding design parameters in nonlinear dynamic design for a supercritical rotor-bearing system. In total, 20 design parameters are integrated into the system. A 20×20 axiomatic design matrix is then developed, which is used to obtain a dynamic design flowchart of the system. Under the guidance of the design flowchart, a single span flexible symmetric rotor-bearing system with a single disk is dynamically designed and analyzed. The results show that the axiomatic design method for supercritical rotor dynamics optimizes the design process, the design efficiency and the design results.

The general increase of products’ customization, the reduction of product life cycle spans and dynamically changing markets challenge manufacturers today. Flexible and changeable production equipment addresses these challenges. It is thus necessary to evaluate the flexibility and changeability of alternative production equipment design solutions during the design process. The paper focusses on an appropriate adaption of Axiomatic Design's information axiom. The concept of changeability and the use of Axiomatic Design when designing production equipment are first introduced. Second, design-solution-specific barriers to flexibility and changeability are described. Finally, a detailed presentation of the information axiom adaption follows. The paper concludes with a validation case of an automotive body-in-white gripper system design.

As a novel product design method, axiomatic design provides momentous theoretical and practical significance in engineering design, quality engineering, and complexity science fields. Based on the axiomatic design and TRIZ theory, this paper proposes the research of the reciprocating yarn-guiding system. First, the function-structure mapping is established by the Z-shaped rule of axiomatic design, then the original design matrix is formed. The independent axiom analyses the original matrix and verifies its coupling. It also was used to analyse the coupling elements, and the 'rotating motor and ball screw' reciprocating yarn guide system was proposed. Then, in order to improve the defects of the 'rotary motor and ball screw' reciprocating yarn-guiding system, we put forward the scheme of a magnetic reciprocating yarn-guiding system. Finally, the motion of the linear magnetic reciprocating yarn-guiding system was simulated by ADAMS software simulation, which verified the feasibility of the system.

International audience; Assuring functional safety and IT security is rapidly becoming an essential key challenge to the design of any connected smart product and industrial manufacturing system. This paper proposes an architectural approach to the integrated consideration of functional safety and IT security requirements in the design process of smart products and the (Industrial) Internet of Things (IIoT). Based on Axiomatic Design and Signal Flow Analysis, it shows that such requirements have related impacts on system architectural design choices rendering integrated design necessary to meet the desired risk reduction levels effectively and efficiently. A case study in the automotive domain is presented in order to illustrate and validate the proposed approach. Assuring functional safety and IT security is rapidly becoming an essential key challenge to the design of any connected smart product and industrial manufacturing system. This paper proposes an architectural approach to the integrated consideration of functional safety and IT security requirements in the design process of smart products and the (Industrial) Internet of Things (IIoT). Based on Axiomatic Design and Signal Flow Analysis, it shows that such requirements have related impacts on system architectural design choices rendering integrated design necessary to meet the desired risk reduction levels effectively and efficiently. A case study in the automotive domain is presented in order to illustrate and validate the proposed approach.

This study presents a set of definitions and properties that characterize the Ideal Design Process and the resources consumed during this process. As an application of both characterizations, the impact of preliminary decision-making tools in the consumption of resources and its uncertainty is introduced, deriving the conditions that a preliminary decision-making tool needs to satisfy to improve the design process. It is assumed the design process improves when the best design is obtained with a lower consumption of resources (time and money) and with a lower uncertainty, both concepts related to the acquired complexity and the risk. Axiomatic design is studied under this framework, showing evidences that indicate it satisfies this set of properties. Design scenarios where the preliminary decision-making tool deteriorates the design process are also found.

Computing the information content of coupled designs is seldom discussed in the literature, probably because the Axiomatic Design (AD) practitioners know that coupled design solutions should be avoided. On the other hand, Suh's theorem 7 states, “the information contents of coupled and decoupled designs depend on the sequence by which the DPs are changed to satisfy the given set of FRs”. From this theorem, one couldbe temptedto conclude that the information contents of coupled designs cannot be computed, because theyhave not a “right” sequence for changing the values of the DPs in order to satisfy the given FRs. This misunderstandingcould then be used to stress that AD is not useful as a decision-making approach for coupled designs. Yet, coupled designs do exist, they are many timesunavoidableand their information contents can be computed, although this is oftenhard to perform. This paper presents the computation of the information content for the simple case of a 2-FR, 2-DP coupled design and illustrateshow this topic is related to Suh's theorem 8 on independence and tolerance.

Corporations within the automotive sector are faced with major challengescaused among othersby high volatile demand fluctuations. An answer to this problem is given by flexible and changeable production systems which allow reactingefficiently to these fluctuations in demand. To achieve this aim, so called enablers for changeability have to be considered already during the design process of single production units within a whole production system. Furthermore the complexity of production units has to be reduced in order to obtain changeable and reliable manufacturing systems. In the presented paper an approach is proposed with the aim to consider enablers of changeability in Axiomatic Design (AD). Moreover it is outlined which different interest groups within a single corporation have a direct or indirect influence on production unit design. Frequently complexity originates from many different attributes demanded by the single groups. On this basis, it is demonstrated how AD can help to enter into dialogue with the mentioned groups with the aim to lower the requirements of the production unit and to reduce complexity of the resulting design. This is done by using the design matrix which illustrates the dependencies between functional requirements (FRs) and design parameters (DPs) as a basis for discussion.

The Iterative and Participative Axiomatic Design Process (IPADeP) deals with the early conceptual design stage of complex mechanical assemblies. It provides a systematic approach based on the theory of Axiomatic Product Development Lifecycle and aims to minimize the risks related to the uncertainty and incompleteness of the requirements, considering that the requirements will be refined and completed during the process. IPADeP has an iterative nature and is focused on the experience of the people involved in the design process. The functional requirements and the design parameters are conceived through brainstorming sessions and the concept selection is performed involving several experts through a Multi Criteria Decision Making technique. IPADeP has been adopted as methodology to address the early conceptual design stage of a subsystem of the DEMOnstration fusion power plant: the divertor cassette-to-vacuum vessel locking system. A first iteration was performed, resulting in the selection of a "high level" rough solution. According with IPADeP this paper presents an improvement of this solution, performing a new iteration of the process, since the system is ripe to proceed with the decomposition and zigzagging to the second level and new requirements are coming in from the development of the interfaced systems. © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.

One of the major features of product-service systems (PSS) design is a variety of design elements. This makes its design process complex and obscure. This study aims to develop a method for analysing how the design process influences the features of design solutions in the conceptual design of PSS. In this study, protocol analysis is applied to plural PSS design sessions. Simultaneously, their design solutions are evaluated relatively based on several aspects. Their design processes are analysed in connection with the above evaluation results. The findings obtained by using the proposed method will contribute to creating practical design guidelines for superior PSS development.

Today the design of a new product has become a very challenging process, due to the growing number of aspects that a product needs to deal with during his life cycle. Like: regulations from authorities, expectations from costumers, company's capabilities and more. To cope with this growing complexity, the field of design theories and methodologies is full of tools and methodologies that were developed to structure the design process. Axiomatic design is one those design methods that was built in the perspective of setting a rational framework where the design process must go through. The general idea of axiomatic design is to divide the design process into four domains: costumer, functional, physical and process domains. In this framework the designer needs to structure his design by mapping between those domains while in the same time respecting two fundamental axioms. (a) The independence axiom, (b) the information axiom. The zigzagging process for the transition between functional and physical domains starts by defining the functional requirement, from which the design parameters are driven and end up by selecting the physical solution. In this work a methodology for storing and retrieving physical solution for a given design parameters is proposed. The physical solutions are stored based on their level of attainment in regard to a number of predefined criteria. Most of those criteria can be derived from Design for X tools. Then using morphological analysis method, suitable physical solution is retrieved in regard to the level of attainment that we can reach in the predefined criteria. For illustrative purpose a program was designed to reflect the benefit of this method. This program was developed using Python programming language and his graphical user interface Tkinter.

The housing market is urgently demanding customized quality buildings at affordable costs. Housing prefabrication represents a suitable strategy as long as it is combined with cost-effective personalization through mass customization. Designs need to be easily customizable to foster the mass customization of prefabricated housing. Decisive requirements are design robustness and flexibility. Crucial decisions for the achievement of these requirements are made in the conceptual design phase, but this stage is not adequately supported, and tools for addressing decisions during this phase are not provided. In engineering design, axiomatic design (AD) has been shown to be able to support the analysis of existing ideas in terms of aptitude for customization and the generation of robust and flexible solutions that are easier to customize. Thus, the current study applied AD to the analysis of well-known prefabricated houses and the design development of a new prefabricated housing system to show the potential benefits of this approach for the building industry. Results show that AD has the ability to support the analysis of ideas for identifying problems linked with customization and the ability to address the conceptual development of robust and flexible designs for providing easily customizable solutions.

Axiomatic design (AD) is a prescriptive engineering design theory that provides a systematic and scientific basis for making design decisions. In AD, two axioms give design teams a solid basis for formalizing design problems, conceptualizing solution alternatives, eliminating bad design ideas during the conceptual stages, choosing the best design among those proposed, and improving existing designs.

Ever increasing functionality and complexity of products and systems challenge development companies in achieving high and consistent quality. A model-based approach is used to investigate the relationship between system complexity and system robustness. The measure for complexity is based on the degree of functional coupling and the level of contradiction in the couplings. Whilst Suh’s independence axiom states that functional independence (uncoupled designs) produces more robust designs, this study proves this not to be the case for max-/min-is-best requirements, and only to be true in the general sense for nominal-is-best requirements. In specific cases, the independence axiom has exceptions as illustrated with a machining example, showing how a coupled solution is more robust than its uncoupled counterpart. This study also shows with statistical significance, that for max- and min-is-best requirements, the robustness is most affected by the level of contradiction between coupled functional requirements (p = 1.4e−36). In practice, the results imply that if the main influencing factors for each function in a system are known in the concept phase, an evaluation of the contradiction level can be used to evaluate concept robustness., Novo Nordisk Foundation

Engineering design and concept analysis are examined here. The chapter focuses on inferential engineering designs, concept-knowledge designs, axiomatic design, relational concept analysis and model driven architectures . The inferential design theory is a framework for the integration of multiple conceptual design methods. For different engineering design theories, the dual graded graphs structure is outlined. Relational analysis is presented as a higher level formal concept analysis . Connections of context analysis with Meta-Meta -Model architectures are discussed.

This paper presents the pre-conceptual design activities conducted for the European DEMO divertor, focusing on cassette design and Plasma Facing Components (PFC) integration. Following the systems engineering principles, a systematic design method, the Iterative and Participative Axiomatic Design Process (IPADeP), has been adopted. Basing on Axiomatic Design, IPADeP supports the early conceptual design of complex systems. The work moved from the geometrical and interface constraints imposed by the 2015 DEMO configuration model. Then, since different materials will be used for cassette and PFCs, the divertor geometry has been developed taking into account the cooling parameters of the cassette Eurofer steel and the integration of PFCs cooling system. Accordingly, the design process led to a double wall cassette structure with internal reinforcing ribs to withstand cassette coolant pressure and three different kinds of piping schemes for PFCs with dual circuits. These three solutions differs in the feeding pipes layouts and target manifold protection and they have been proposed and evaluated considering heat flux issues, shielding problems, interface requirements with blanket and vacuum vessel and remote maintenance needs. A cassette parametric shell model has been used to perform first structural analyses of the cassette body against coolant pressure. Taking advantages of the parametric surface modelling and its linkage with Finite Element (FE) code, the cassette ribs layout and thickness has been evaluated and optimized, considering at the same time the structural strength needed to withstand the coolant parameters and the maximum stiffness required for cassette preloading and locking needs.

This paper introduced the definition of modern design method at first. Then the paper analyzed some typical modern design method such as optimization design, green design, man-machine engineering design, innovative design, industrial molding design, concurrent design, reliability design, finite-element method, robust design method and so on. The paper not only analyzed on the characteristics of them but also analyzed their applicability at the same time, at last the paper analyzed the application of those modem design methods in the design and develop process of mechanical product.

Transportation systems represent a critical infrastructure upon which nations' economies and national security depend. As infrastructure systems, they must be planned and operated to accommodate the uncertain and continually evolving needs of their passengers and freight. New roads are planned or existing roads are closed for maintenance or due to operational breakdowns. Reconfigurable transportation systems are those which adapt to these changes quickly and efficiently. They are not overdesigned with capabilities that may be left unused; instead, capabilities are added only when needed, thus supporting the need for resilient infrastructure. An axiomatic-design-for-large-flexible-systems approach is chosen as a methodology for its deep roots in engineering design. It addresses systems where the functionality not only evolves over time, but also can be fulfilled by one or more system resources, and is used here to enumerate passenger itineraries. This paper builds upon a recent work in which axiomatic design was used to develop a theory of degrees of freedom in transportation systems for their reconfigurable design and operation. The methodological developments are then demonstrated on a small subsection of the Mexico City transportation system to demonstrate its wide-ranging utility in reconfigurability decision-making at the planning and operation timescales. In addition, further comparisons of axiomatic design to traditional graph theory are made, indicating the mathematical basis of the former in the latter.

In this paper, the engineering design process is modeled as an optimization problem over the system design space, where the goals, desired outcomes, and trade-off preferences of the customer define measurable objective functions. In this formulation, customer requirements become constraints that define the feasible region of all potential system designs. This paper proposes an implementation of a requirement management process that is based on the aforementioned reformulation of the design process. The ultimate goals of such a reformulation are to provide a way of viewing the requirements that better communicates customer wishes to the design team, to increase customer participation in the system definition process, improve adherence to customer wishes when conflicts and trade-off situations arise, and to allow for integration of decision making techniques and rationales with the requirements discovery and management processes. After describing the proposed requirements management model, this paper describes some potential methods of solving non-linear optimization problems that may be applied to this formulation of the design process, and under what conditions those methods apply. Further case studies are suggested to evaluate this methodology's performance against traditional requirements management systems in relation to the metrics described above.

There are many benefits of a modular product including reduced cost, rapid product development and reduced production time. The modular design of products has been increasingly popularized in modern engineering design activity. A new design method is proposed to design a modular product based on relationships among functional requirements of the product to overcome the difficulty of modular design. Axiomatic design, the function-based design method and design structure matrix are efficiently combined in the proposed method. Functional requirements and design parameters are defined based on the independence Axiom of axiomatic design and the zigzagging process of axiomatic design is employed for the decomposition of functional requirements and design parameters. The function-based design method is utilized for the decomposition of functional requirements and the design structure matrix is used to modularize the design parameters of the bottom level of the zigzagging process. Three design examples are demonstrated to validate the proposed method. The results are discussed and the usefulness of the proposed method is presented.

The performance of the product and the design time are influenced by the design process. Therefore, it is very important to advance the design in an appropriate design process. However, the design process generally relies on the experiences of the designer and it is difficult to examine their characteristics. In this study, design process of ship principal particulars is optimized by using the optimization technique. Moreover, the features of the optimized design processes are examined. Characteristics of this paper are following points; (1) The optimum design process is generated by using the Wildcard Genetic Algorithm which can deal with the uncertainty of product information. (2) By executing the optimization, two kinds of design processes are generated i.e. performance valuing process and feasibility valuing process. (3) Characteristics of the optimized design processes are analyzed by using the design support system in which dependency of the information and changes in the variation range of constraints and objective functions according to the progress of the design are visualized. In this paper, optimization method of design process and the results of the optimization are shown. Moreover, overview of the design support system and features of the optimized design process are discussed. As a result, effectiveness of the proposed system is confirmed.

This study developed a new product development planning framework for small and medium enterprise (SME) in creative industry sector to increase the business competitiveness. The development process referred to the stages of design science research. The development stage adapted the first two stages of the modular function deployment (MFD), those are the description stage of consumer need through the house of quality, and functional decomposition. The study explained that the application of MFD adaptation is effective and adequate to the creative SME condition. The technical concepts were able to be screened and scored by using pugh selection matrix. However, every technical concepts could not be described into detailed domain functions and means. Therefore, the addition of methods applied in parallel was carried out, that is the concept decomposition with the function means tree, and the technical solution synthesis with the axiomatic design so that the design process is easier to handle. It’s recommended to eliminate the zigzagging process in axiomatic design, since it has been done on the function means tree and the use of customer relationship management data base to support voice of customer.

Supply chain management and agility are combined sources of competitiveness in the business world. There existed a need to apply axiomatic design principles of agility in supply chains. In this context, this paper reports an axiomatic model of agile system in supply chains design using process variables. A hierarchical structure has been developed to model the design process of agility in supply chains composed of functional requirements, design parameters, process variables. In the theory of axiomatic design, process variables are created by mapping the design parameters in the process domain. This article serves as an efficient guideline for the design process to clarify the tools, methods and resources of designing agility system in supply chains of an Indian relays manufacturing organisation.

In common speech, the term redundant is used to label superfluous repetitions that as a rule should be avoided. Nevertheless, redundancy is a linguistic tool that can play a remarkable role in the communication of complex thoughts in both the vernacular and the erudite talking or writing, which includes the field of engineering design. In the Axiomatic Design (AD) point of view, redundancy may increase the complexity of the design solutions (which is measured through their information content), but does not necessarily entail the breach of the ADs independence axiom. Hence, redundant solutions should not be excluded in a regular basis, since the ones that comply with the independence axiom are considered good design. According to this line of reasoning, the pertinence of redundant solutions should be assessed in the onset of the designing processes, bearing in mind the virtues of the likely higher simplicity of the non-redundant solutions. This paper deals with some basic concepts related to redundant design and it should be seen as a contribution to bring more insight on a subject that is not thoroughly reviewed in the known literature. Different forms of redundancy are considered, specifically the reliability motivated active and passive types, and the functionality-related alternative and augmentative kinds. The means to perceive intrinsic redundancy through the examination of the design equations are also provided, as well as some illustrative examples. The implicit conclusions are that redundant designs are much more usual that one can think at a first glance, and that the study of their peculiarities might deserve further attention.

Cyberphysical system design automation utilizing knowledge based engineering techniques with globally networked knowledge bases can tremendously improve the design process for emerging systems. Our goal is to develop a comprehensive architectural framework to improve the design process for cyberphysical systems (CPS) and implement a case study with Axiomatic Design Solutions Inc. to develop next generation toolsets utilizing knowledge-based engineering (KBE) systems adapted to multiple domains in the field of CPS design automation. The Cyberphysical System Design Automation Framework (CPSDAF) will be based on advances in CPS design theory based on current research and knowledge collected from global sources automatically via Semantic Web Services. A case study utilizing STEM students is discussed.