Design Concept Selection Research Articles

Interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy multi-criteria model for design concept selection

This paper presents a new approach for design concept selection by using an integrated Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (FAHP) and an Interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy modified TOP-SIS (IVIF-modified TOPSIS) model. The integrated model which uses the improved score func-tion and a weighted normalized Euclidean distance method for the calculation of the separation measures of alternatives from the positive and negative intuitionistic ideal solutions provides a new approach for the computation of intuitionistic fuzzy ideal solutions. The results of the two approaches are integrated using a reflection defuzzification integration formula. To ensure the feasibility and the rationality of the integrated model, the method is successfully applied for evaluating and selecting some design related problems including a real-life case study for the selection of the best concept design for a new printed-circuit-board (PCB) and for a hypothetical example. The model which provides a novel alternative, has been compared with similar com-putational methods in the literature.

An enterprise based decision support system for engineering aggregate selection: a case study

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework that would help manufacturers to select the design concept that provides optimal solutions to the entire value chain involving multiple functional teams such as product design, development, planning, sourcing, service and marketing. The selection of an optimal design concept is based on the highest value index of a design concept. This is derived from quality function deployment (QFD) and a functional analysis system using customer requirement, quality deployment, development and design constraint as inputs. The framework systematically considers different alternatives to converge at an optimal solution. Design/methodology/approach All high-level product requirements from customer and market analysis are translated into different engineering parameters using QFD. Thereafter, the functional analysis system technique (FAST) is employed to determine the range of functions and identify components that would achieve different functionalities. The relative importance of each function is determined by functional cost analyses, enabling us to generate different design concepts. Thereafter, business parameters are extracted from the business objective of each functional area. These business parameters are compared with different design concepts using the analytical hierarchical process (AHP), thus evolving the enterprise value index (EVI) for each design concept. Findings The design concepts are evaluated with different business parameters using the AHP methodology to form EVI. The design concept 2 with highest enterprise EVI (4.549) is selected for further development. To validate the consistency of the business parameters, the consistency ratio (CR) has been calculated using Saaty’s Eigenvector method. The value of CR is 8.4 per cent, which indicates that the judgment made in this paper as far as populating the business parameters weight matrix is concerned is quite reasonable. This framework would enable an enterprise’s dealing in the area of complex engineering systems/aggregates to choose the design concept that would maximize the value of the enterprise. Originality/value This research develops an integrated methodology for design concept selection from an enterprise point of view. Major functional agencies and their respective attributes are considered for the development of the framework and subsequent selection. An enterprise’s mission and vision framework function as the primary input for the extraction of related attributes of the functional agency.

Product Development using QFD, MCDM and the Combination of these Two Methods

Product development (PD) consists of several activities and one of early stage in PD is conceptual design stage which is the most crucial stage in developing a new product. Incorrect design concept and material selection in conceptual stage will lead to product failure and increase the cost. Nevertheless, if the conceptual design stage is properly executed important parameters such as the time and cost can be minimized. The quality of the product also has a tremendous improvement. This paper mainly discuss on tooling medium used for material selection and design concept. It covers Quality Function Deployment (QFD), Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) including Analytical Network Process (ANP) and Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP).

Assessing sustainability and value of manufacturing processes: a case in the aerospace industry

In spite of the growing awareness and significance of accounting for sustainability aspects in product development, design decision support is still immature in this end compared to other decision support areas, such as product performance and manufacturability. This paper proposes a novel decision support method that combines qualitative sustainability assessment techniques with a quantitative analysis, without losing transparency and still covering a full sustainability perspective. The aim is to contribute to an understanding for how to enable value assessment of sustainability issues already in early product development situations. The method, named Sustainability Assessment and Value Evaluation, combines two qualitative sustainability assessment techniques with a quantitative Net Present Value analysis based on alternative future scenarios. A case study, related to the development of a new high-temperature aero-engine component, illustrates both how the sustainability assessment identifies hotspots and clarifies potential sustainability consequences for a new product technology, and how Net Present Value is used to assess alternative solution strategies based on the hotspot, to facilitate early stage decision-making in design. The paper argues that the method serves two main purposes: i) to make sustainability consequences more concrete and understandable during design concept selection activities, rather than to have an exact measurement, and ii) to simplify and prioritize, systematically asking what is important in the sustainability analysis, rather than to reduce the sustainability problem. The method allows undertaking the sustainability assessment in a more structured way than what happens today in preliminary design, through scenario building based on socio-ecological assessments, including back-casting to cover the longer time perspective. In addition, the Sustainability Assessment and Value Evaluation-method provided the design team of a means for displaying sustainability consequences on an equal basis with other decision support tool results.

Gamification in Concept Design: Applying Market Mechanisms to Enhance Innovation and Predict Concept Performance

Abstract Predicting the success of a potential breakthrough innovative business opportunity in New Product Development (NPD) is notoriously difficult and is synonymous with high market and technology risk. As a consequence, NPD organizations favour concurrent exploration of multiple concepts where the most promising concepts are evaluated and selected at each stage-gate. The two challenges associated with this approach are ensuring a sufficiently wide exploration of the market–technology space, followed by assessing the potential of breakthrough innovations. Individual designers usually conduct early exploration independently or within design teams, applying an organic and analogous search approach. In contrast, the project team members collectively make decisions for early design concept selection, applying a non-analytical and unstructured decision-making process. The combination of grounded exploratory study and hypothesis-driven study examines the use of gamification and, in particular, how gamification can assist in promoting the exploration of breakthrough innovative concepts in the early design concept phase, combined with concurrent and early identification of the most promising candidates. Studies conducted consisted of a pilot study at Copenhagen Business School where we identified migration of risk in the business phase and two other studies conducted in the Design Technology and Innovation Management project courses at Hanyang University in Seoul, South Korea. The last two studies were a baseline study and an experimentation study, where we observed and collected teams’ market and technology risk-preferences, teams’ and external panel’s grading as well as Design Quality Criteria scoring. In the second study, we established the baseline for risk-­preference migration and in the third study we implemented eight weeks of gamification, applying the Prediction Market approach. The findings showed that gamification promotes extended risk-taking, can assess team-confidence and decision-making ability and acts as an early indicator of the performance of the final concepts. Suggestions for future studies include testing of gamification on industry projects and making it operational by adapting the approach to the NPD culture, organizational structures and project decision-making processes.

The Application of Rapid Prototyping Technology and Quality Functional Deployment (QFD) approach in enhancing the Endotracheal Tube Holder Model in Medical Application

This paper presents a development of a current design the Endotracheal tube holding device. At present, the medical teams have faced a lot of problems when doing the endotracheal intubation. Misplacement of endotracheal tube into the esophagus and extubation due to patient’s movement are among the problems by surgeons during medical treatment. This is important as the successful management of the potential risk can reduce the number of patients who suffer a serious consequence of endtracheal tube therapy such as a potential risk to patient safety, with associated risks varying from minor complications to death. This paper presents a product design specification for endotracheal tube-holding device is translated from user’s requirements by employing Quality Functional Deployment (QFD). Several design concepts are generated by using CATIA software to be evaluated by endotracheal tube-holding device users for concept selection. Selection of design concept was done in two phases which are concept screening and concept scoring. For selecting the design concept for further development, a prototype of endotracheal tube was fabricated by using Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM).

A novel weight allocation and decision making method for space launch vehicle design concept selection

One of the most important issues in multi–attribute decision making is the determination of the criteria weights. Traditionally, criteria weights are allocated as per the expert's judgement or are objectively determined using mathematical models. While the weights allocated as per the expert's judgement are criticised for its subjectivity, the objective weights lack the ability to include the decision maker's preferences. To overcome these difficulties, a new integrated weight allocation approach has been proposed which has the ability to accept both subjective and objective information. A novel way of eliciting decision maker's subjective information has been presented. Moreover, a new multiple attribute decision making method is proposed in which the performance index of alternatives is used as a basis for ranking and decision making. The usefulness of the proposed weight allocation and decision making approach has been demonstrated with its successful application to the practical problem of space launch vehicle design concept selection.

Research on Conceptual Design Selection Based on Engineering Science

Engineering Science (ES) is bridge between basic science and engineering applications. It’s an important academic guidance for conceptual design selection of a large, complicated engineering project. Traditional plan selection depends largely on qualitative information and is subject to subjective factors. Using System Engineering (SE) methodology combined qualitative and quantitative information, this paper applies theory of ES to plan selection and decision making process Analysis on objectives, quantitative modeling and expert knowledge of complicated engineering project is conducted, in order to support a more objective, science-based decision making during conceptual design phase.

The Application of Green Materials in Product Packaging Design

Packaging requirements for products are increasingly high as society advances , the development of logistics. This paper revolves around the green material, through the selection of green materials and design concepts, analyzed the application of green materials in product design and its development trend. Through the knowledge of advanced materials, the better product design that meet market needs could be created, the value of the material could be unfolded, the Green Life period, the new style and new material of design could be created.

Designing Highly Loaded Connections in a Composite Fuselage

The increased use of composites in airframe structures creates some very challenging design problems where the need for low weight and low, or at least acceptable, cost dictate very careful selection of design concepts and fabrication processes. Typical examples of challenging structural details are highly loaded connections with parts meeting at an angle. Usually, optimizing the individual components of the joint yields relatively low weight savings. Only by redesigning the adjacent structure and optimizing load transfer and redistribution can one benefit from the use of composites to the fullest and generate highly weight-efficient structures. The case of the floor–skin attachment for a transport fuselage with skins made with grid-stiffened structure is used as the example in this study. Finite elements and local analysis methods are combined for the design iterations. It is shown that, by incorporating the floor substructure and the skin into the design problem and redistributing the load between the different joining members, low-cost low-weight structures can be generated.

Study of mechanical architectures of large deployable space antenna apertures: from design to tests

The technical assessment of large deployable reflector structures covering a diameter range from 4 to 50 m and RF frequencies up to Ka-Band is presented from the conceptual designs to the tests. Parametric FEM analysis tools of the concepts have been developed to study their static, modal and buckling behaviors. According to the selected conceptual design and acquired analysis results two complete breadboards with diameters of 1.6 m and 4 m based on a peripheral ring structure have been designed, manufactured and tested. Test results of both breadboards fulfilling the requirements on deployment repeatability and accuracy as well as scalability demonstrate the successful selection of a deployable ring design and large deployable antenna concept in whole.

New Technique for Conceptual Selection of Manufacturing Process and Material, Case Study: Metal Matrix Composite Component

This article introduces a new technique involving concurrent engineering (CE) strategy and analytical network process (ANP) technique to form a ranking methodology as a part of the conceptual design selection (CS). The proposed method is referred as concurrent network (CN). The objective of this study is to simultaneously consider of all features of product elements by implementing CE strategy. Furthermore, CN enables interdependence and interrelationship analysis between product elements by application of ANP. In this study, CN is utilized for a conceptual design of metal matrix composite (MMC) component. The results show that by using CN, all important product parameters can be considered simultaneously during the CDS and the importance weights of manufacturing process parameters and material parameters which are related to MMC component performance are attained.

New Technique for Conceptual Selection of Manufacturing Process and Material, Case Study: Metal Matrix Composite Component

This article introduces a new technique involving concurrent engineering (CE) strategy and analytical network process (ANP) technique to form a ranking methodology as a part of the conceptual design selection (CS). The proposed method is referred as concurrent network (CN). The objective of this study is to simultaneously consider of all features of product elements by implementing CE strategy. Furthermore, CN enables interdependence and interrelationship analysis between product elements by application of ANP. In this study, CN is utilized for a conceptual design of metal matrix composite (MMC) component. The results show that by using CN, all important product parameters can be considered simultaneously during the CDS and the importance weights of manufacturing process parameters and material parameters which are related to MMC component performance are attained.

A conceptual design selection model considering conflict resolution

Complexity of selecting a design at the conceptual design (CD) stage in the product development can be increased by imprecise and uncertain product requirements. For many companies, mitigating the decision complexity at the CD stage can result in succeeding in the competitive market. Therefore, having a robust decision-making tool embedded with conflict resolution to valuing potential new product investments to justify their development strategy becomes important. However, limitations, such as uncertainty and inability to provide the information on the compatibility between design concepts, remain as challenges for the concept selection method. Therefore, this study reports a multi-layer graph model that not only resolves the conflict of experts’ opinion but also aggregates the layers corresponding to decision criteria into a single graph. This graph is used to evaluate the CD alternatives to find the best alternative. An illustrative example is demonstrated to present the application of the model.

New evaluation methods for conceptual design selection using computational intelligence techniques

The conceptual design selection, which aims at choosing the best or most desirable design scheme among several candidates for the subsequent detailed design stage, oftentimes requires a set of tools to conduct design evaluation. Using computational intelligence techniques, such as fuzzy logic, neural network, genetic algorithm, and physical programming, several design evaluation methods are put forth in this paper to realize the conceptual design selection under different scenarios. Depending on whether an evaluation criterion can be quantified or not, the linear physical programming (LPP) model and the RAOGA-based fuzzy neural network (FNN) model can be utilized to evaluate design alternatives in conceptual design stage. Furthermore, on the basis of Vanegas and Labib’s work, a multi-level conceptual design evaluation model based on the new fuzzy weighted average (NFWA) and the fuzzy compromise decision-making method is developed to solve the design evaluation problem consisting of many hierarchical criteria. The effectiveness of the proposed methods is demonstrated via several illustrative examples.

A New Concurrent Engineering – Multi Criteria Decision Making Technique for Conceptual Design Selection

Product development process involves conceptual design selection, which is an activity engaging with numerous types of data including technical-customer specifications and current design developments. This paper presents a conceptual design selection which employs a new technique which accommodates Concurrent Engineering (CE) – Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) strategies. This new technique combines Concurrent Network (CE-ANP), Quality Function Deployment (QFD) and Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), referred as CoNQA. To illustrate this technique, a case study is presented involving aerospace application which is the selection of wing spar material. The result shows that the proposed new technique proved to be a sound method which considers product performance, product specification, technical specifications and selection of the best alternative in the selection process. This new method should be a useful aid for designers in collaboration with engineers to perform systematic and parallel technique involving early consideration of technical-customer requirements during conceptual design, hence to establish good product design and increase product competitiveness.

Design Concept Evaluation and Selection: A Decision Making Approach

This study proposes a multi-attribute decision making based approach for product design concept evaluation and selection. The technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) is combined with fuzzy sets and information entropy. While the fuzzy sets theory is employed to capture the associated vagueness in the expert judgment, the combination of information entropy method with multi-attribute decision making makes the approach computationally efficient. We present the results of the evaluation of design concepts which demonstrate the feasibility and practicability of the approach. The proposed approach will result in considerable time and cost saving by identifying the most promising product design concepts and short-listing for further design and development activities.

A Fuzzy Conceptual Design Selection Model Considering Conflict Resolution

A Fuzzy Conceptual Design Selection Model Considering Conflict Resolution

Effects of 2D Online and 3D Virtual World Meeting Spaces on the Performance of a Concept Selection Task by Engineering Design Teams

This research investigates engineering design teams’ performance of a concept selection task in three meeting spaces: face-to-face, 2D online and 3D virtual world. Cisco Systems’ WebEx and Sun Microsystems’ Wonderland were used as the 2D online meeting space and the 3D virtual world, respectively. Twenty-four two-person design teams were formed and randomly assigned to one of the three meeting spaces. The teams performed a cell-phone concept selection task in the meeting space to which they were assigned. Four dependent variables were measured: task completion time, team satisfaction, self-evaluated process quality and expert-evaluated process quality. Following data collection, one-way ANOVA was used to analyze each variable to determine the differences, if any, among the meeting spaces. ANOVA results did not support rejection of the null hypothesis for any variable. These results suggest that 3D virtual worlds support design concept selection as well as 2D online meeting spaces and that both of these te...

A COMPARISON OF CONCEPT SELECTION IN CONCEPT SCORING AND AXIOMATIC DESIGN METHODS

The appropriate selection of design concepts has a strong influence on product cost, durability, robustness and functionality. Effective tools to identify good design concepts are critical. Different design methodologies have different objectives to aid in making the right decision. Some design methods are complementary, whereas others may provide contradictory results. In this study, two design methods, concept scoring and axiomatic design, are compared for their ability to obtain good design concepts. Conceptual designs of micro-pumps, which provide pressure gradients to actuate the flow of liquids and gas, are used to evaluate the design methods. Metrics are used to compare these two design methodologies’ abilities to achieve objective evaluations. The concept scoring method is easy to use, especially when comparing different designs. The axiomatic design method provides a structured and mathematical design evaluation; however, achieving good design through the uncoupling or decoupling of matrices is challenging. Further study is required to integrate these two design methods.