A METHOD OF DESIGN USING AVAILABLE ASSETS - IDENTIFYING A FEASIBLE SYSTEM CONFIGURATION

In the early stages of the product realization process, if the functio nal requirements of a system to be designed can be partitioned and rep resented, concepts can be quickly explored to meet these functions. If methods and tools for partitioning and representing functional requir ements can be developed, it becomes possible to arrange functional com ponents rapidly to represent specific concepts, allowing designers to explore different system configurations at a high level of abstraction . Likewise, if component or component assemblies performing certain fu nctions are known to exist, a designer can determine the feasibility o f realizing the product specific functions for each feasible system co nfiguration using available parts. It is also possible that a product may often be realized through partial use of available assets while pa rt of the system is designed and manufactured.