Design of a product progresses from description of needs and functions
to detailed design of its components. The complexity and creativity a
ssociated with engineering design requires diverse problem-solving tec
hniques and expertise. Above ail, the development, timely introduction
and cost-effective product that meets diversified customers' needs ha
s become an important issue in today's competitive market. This paper
outlines a distributed design theory and methodology based on a connec
tionist approach in response to the above problem. In order to accompl
ish this task, we postulate a subdivision of the design problem into m
odules which are functional, structural and fabrication modules. Each
module has its own objective and its proper point of view of the globa
l problem. The outcome of the designed product results from the commun
ication between these modules. First oi all, these modules are present
ed with the data that need manipulated in each of them as well as the
treatment realised such that the required product can be produced. Mod
al logic is then employed to formalise the specific data of each of th
e above modules. While developing this architecture, an attempt is mad
e to incorporate various constraints such as manufacturability, qualit
y, 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 mechanic
al device.