ELICITING AND MANAGING INFORMATION FOR PRODUCT DEFINITION

In recent years there has been considerable research in understanding and automating the overall design process, with a common goal of impro ving the quality of the end product, This project describes the method ology and validation processes for eliciting and managing product info rmation for redesign of a whitewater cataraft frame. The customer info rmation elicited from two groups of users-commercial and recreational- provide the product specifications for the redesign. Two iterations of the cataraft frame are demonstrated via use of a design database and the improvements In product quality and design time is experimentally validated.