Title: System and method for streamlining the design processes

Authors: Hui Cheng; Xiaosong Wu; Xuening Chu

Addresses: School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China ' School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China ' School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China

Abstract: Nowadays there is a strong imbalance between the increasing product complexity and creativity and the limited time left to designers for the exploitation and creativity. Borrowed from the concept of the manufacturing stream line, product design stream line is proposed to minimise design waiting and waste and to balance design task flow. The definition of product design stream line and its feature is proposed. Based on the nature of product design, combining with semantic networks, the basic objects of design stream line and their relationship are modelled. The key technologies, including process breakdown, task analysis, resource skill definition, and line balance, are used to build the design stream line based on complex network theory, fuzzy logic and genetic algorithm. Finally, a prototype system verifies the feasibility of the concepts of design stream line.

Keywords: design stream line; product development; design process; product complexity; creativity; product design; modelling; process breakdown; task analysis; resource skills; line balancing; network theory; fuzzy logic; genetic algorithms; GAs.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSOI.2012.051404

International Journal of Services Operations and Informatics, 2012 Vol.7 No.2/3, pp.229 - 244

Received: 02 Jan 2012
Accepted: 22 Aug 2012
Published online: 27 Dec 2014 *

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