Distributed design theory and methodology

Design of a product progresses from description of needs and functions to detailed design of its components. The complexity and creativity associated with engineering design requires diverse problem-solving techniques and expertise. Above ail, the development, timely introduction 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 communication between these modules. First oi 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]. A methodology is then proposed and an application is introduced in the area of furniture industry as well as a demonstration of the methodology in the design of a simple mechanical device.