Design with objects: an approach to object-oriented design

This paper is concerned with object-oriented design and aims to describe an object-oriented approach [called design-with-objects (DwO)] that encompass es both the fundamentals of object-oriented design and the use of object-or iented design in the development of design process models. The major design objects are described, together with their main structure, the message pas sing and inheritance involved, and the computability and exchangeability of the approach. The main potential advantages of such an approach are comput ability, in that a design process model obtained using DwO is not just a de scriptive model but a computable model; reusability, in that once a design object in DwO has been established, it can be used repeatedly; and exchange ability, in that objects with similar interfaces can be readily exchanged i n a modular manner. This paper reviews the background to design process mod els and object-oriented design and then describes the basis of DwO. Design models, DwO methods and an architecture for DwO are described together with an example design process model formalism that uses DwO, The implementatio n of this example DwO design process model formalism for the problem of ele ctronics assemblies components selection is overviewed. (C) 1998 Elsevier S cience Ltd. All rights reserved.