Research on application of fuzzy sets to design and manufacturing integration

Abstract

Kevin N. Otto Robert N. Noyce Career Development Assistant Professor Engineering Design Research Laboratory Massachusetts Institute of Technology 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Room 3-449 Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139 December 1, 1995 The multi-disciplinary field of engineering design is undergoing an important transformation with the advent of new tools, structured product development methods and practices, and most importantly a newly developing active research community. Parametric feature-based CAD tools, genetic algorithms, and design-for-manufacture analysis methods are just a few of the recent advances spawned into practice from the design research community. Fundamental research continues in the general domain of automated and semi-automated design tools. Work by Prof. Erik Antonsson (at the California Institute of Technology) and I has included development of a structured, formal quantitative approach to design employing fuzzy sets, termed the Method of Imprecision [5, 11, 14, 16, 18, 19]. In this work, we not only developed methods and industrial case studies [10], we also clearly demonstrate that fuzzy sets are the only appropriate choice of uncertainty mathematics in many cases [17]. We also demonstrate the appropriateness of different mathematics for different uncertainty sources, from designer uncertainty in choice, environmental and production errors, and differences in the uncertain choices of downstream agents in the product life cycle [8]. It was a pleasure to note that Professor Terano, the Managing Director of Laboratory for International Fuzzy Engineering Research (LIFE) in Japan, also has now begun to note the importance of fuzzy sets in engineering design with his keynote address at the last IEEE conference on Fuzzy Systems in Yokohama [20]. Current work by my research group at MIT is focused upon integration issues in large system design and manufacturing, to which fuzzy mathematics offers a support mechanism. Many development projects today are characterized by large teams of designers and engineers who must create a large set of varied new parts and assemblies, and further must create the related manufacturing systems to fabricate and build these products. Currently there are very few formal information sharing tools for development teams, there are only informal methods such as group meetings. We have research underway to explore and develop technology and methods to allow design teams to quantitatively integrate manufacturing and design information during a product