THE DFX SHELL - A GENERIC FRAMEWORK FOR APPLYING DESIGN FOR X (DFX) TOOLS

The 'Design for X' (DFX) shell is a generic platform which can be easi ly extended or tailored to develop a variety of DFX tools quickly and consistently. Resulting DFX tools share a high degree of commonality a nd consistence essential for rapid implementation, integration and tra de-off analysis. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how DFX tools basically work through a general procedure. Seven steps are in involv ed, each corresponding to a major DFX function and addressing associat ed important issues. This DFX procedure is then placed in a wider cont ext of Business Process Reengineering (BPR) to maximize its effectiven ess in transforming product development from a problem-prone sequentia l engineering environment to a problem-free concurrent engineering env ironment.