FuzzySTAR: Fuzzy set theory of axiomatic design review

Product development involves multiple phases. Design review (DR) is an essential activity formally conducted to ensure a smooth transition from one phase to another. Such a formal DR is usually a multicriteria decision problem, involving multiple disciplines. This paper proposes a systematic framework for DR using fuzzy set theory. This fuzzy approach to DR is considered particularly relevant for several reasons. First, information available at early design phases is often incomplete and imprecise. Second, the relationships between the product design parameters and the review criteria cannot usually be exactly expressed by mathematical functions due to the enormous complexity. Third, DR is frequently carried out using subjective expert judgments with some degree of uncertainty. The DR is defined as the reverse mapping between the design parameter domain and design requirement (review criterion) domain, as compared with Suh's theory of axiomatic design. Fuzzy sets are extensively introduced in the definitions of the domains and the mapping process to deal with imprecision, uncertainty, and incompleteness. A simple case study is used to demonstrate the resulting fuzzy set theory of axiomatic DR.published_or_final_versio

On the engineering of crucial software

The various aspects of the conventional software development cycle are examined. This cycle was the basis of the augmented approach contained in the original grant proposal. This cycle was found inadequate for crucial software development, and the justification for this opinion is presented. Several possible enhancements to the conventional software cycle are discussed. Software fault tolerance, a possible enhancement of major importance, is discussed separately. Formal verification using mathematical proof is considered. Automatic programming is a radical alternative to the conventional cycle and is discussed. Recommendations for a comprehensive approach are presented, and various experiments which could be conducted in AIRLAB are described

Function-Based Computer Aided Conceptual Design Support Tool

Conceptual design is considered as the most critical and important phase of design process. It is the stage where product’s fundamental features are determined, large proportion of the lifecycle cost of the product is committed, and other major decisions are made, which have significant impact on the downstream design and related manufacturing processes. It is a knowledge intensive process where diverse knowledge and several years of experience are put together to design quality and cost effective products. Unfortunately, computer support systems for this phase are lagging behind compared to the currently available commercial computer aided design (CAD) tools for the later stage of design to reduce the designers workload and product development time. The overall goal of this research is to provide designers with computational tool that support conceptual design process. To achieve this goal a methodology that integrates systematic design approach with knowledge-based system is proposed in this thesis. Accordingly, a framework of computer based computational tool known as conceptual design support tool (CDST) is developed using the proposed methodology. The tool assists designers in performing functional modeling by providing standard vocabularies of functions in the form of function library, generate concepts stored in the database from previous designs, display the generated concepts on the morphology chart, combine the concepts and evaluate the concepts variants. Concepts from subsea processing equipment design have been collected and saved in the database. The tool also accepts new concepts from the designer through its knowledge acquisition system to be saved in the database for future use. In doing so, it is possible to integrate human creativity with data handling capabilities of computers to perform conceptual design more efficiently than solely manual design. The tool can also be used as a knowledge management system to preserve expert’s knowledge and train novice designers. The applicability of the proposed methodology and developed tool is illustrated and validated by using a case study and validation test conducted by independent evaluators

A Hierarchical Core Reference Ontology for New Technology Insertion Design in Long Life Cycle, Complex Mission Critical Systems

Organizations, including government, commercial and others, face numerous challenges in maintaining and upgrading long life-cycle, complex, mission critical systems. Maintaining and upgrading these systems requires the insertion and integration of new technology to avoid obsolescence of hardware software, and human skills, to improve performance, to maintain and improve security, and to extend useful life. This is particularly true of information technology (IT) intensive systems. The lack of a coherent body of knowledge to organize new technology insertion theory and practice is a significant contributor to this difficulty. This research organized the existing design, technology road mapping, obsolescence, and sustainability literature into an ontology of theory and application as the foundation for a technology design and technology insertion design hierarchical core reference ontology and laid the foundation for body of knowledge that better integrates the new technology insertion problem into the technology design architecture

Towards customization : Evaluation of integrated sales, product, and production configuration

Acknowledgement We are grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments, which helped us improve both the quality and presentation of the paper.Peer reviewedPostprin