Towards Rapid Redesign: Pattern-Based Design Diagnostics for Large-Scale and Complex Redesign Problems Available to Purchase

This paper presents our continued research efforts towards developing a decomposition-based solution approach for rapid computational redesign to support agile manufacturing of evolutionary products. By analogy to the practices used for physical machines, the proposed approach involves two general steps: diagnosis and repair. This paper focuses on the diagnosis step. for which a two-phase decomposition method is developed. The first phase, called design dependency analysis, systematizes and reorganizes the intrinsic coupling structure of the existing design model by analyzing and reordering the design dependency matrix (DDM) used to represent the functional dependence and couplings inherent in the design model. The second phase, called redesign partitioning analysis, uses this result to generate alternative redesign pattern solutions through a three-stage procedure. Each pattern solution delimits the portions of the design model that need to be re-computed. An example problem concerning the redesign of an automobile powertrain is used for method illustration. Our seed paper has presented a method for selecting the optimal redesign pattern solution from the alternatives generated through redesign partitioning analysis, and a sequel paper will discuss how to generate a corresponding re-computation strategy and redesign plan (redesign shortcut roadmap).