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 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.