EXPERIMENTAL-OBSERVATION OF ITERATION IN ENGINEERING DESIGN

This paper uses a laboratory experimental setting to make observations about the iteration process in engineering design. Iteration is an im portant and ubiquitous feature of engineering design. Previous reseal- ch has constructed prescriptive mathematical models of the iteration p rocess in an attempt to aid the design manager. in this paper, experim ental observations are made about design iteration in a group setting, and those observations are compared with the existing models of the i teration process. Some correspondence with existing models is noted, a lthough there are also significant differences. These differences coul d be used to improve the mathematical models of the iteration process.