Distributed Design Theory and Methodology

Abstract

Design of a product progresses from description of needs and functions to detailed design of its components The complexity and cre ativity associated with engineering design requires diverse problem-solving techniques and expertise Above all, the development, timely intro duction and cost-effective product that meets diversified customers' needs has become an important issue in today's competitive market This paper outlines a distributed design theory and methodology based on a connectionist approach in response to the above problem In order to accomplish this task, we postulate a subdivision of the design problem into modules which are functional, structural and fabrication modules Each module has its own objective and its proper point of view of the global problem The outcome of the designed product results from the com munication between these modules First of all, these modules are presented with the data that need manipulated in each of them as well as the treatment realised such that the required product can be produced Modal logic is then employed to formalise the specific data of each of the above modules While developing this architecture, an attempt is made to incorporate various constraints such as manufacturability, quality, reliability etc in the early stage of design under the context of concurrent engineering [15,16]