A network-based four-phase routing approach of multisource design change propagation on complex products

Abstract

Purpose The development of complex products and systems is a continuously iterative process from customer requirements to a mature design. Design changes derived from multisources occur frequently during the design process. Furthermore, change propagation will impose impacts on design costs and lead times. In view of this, how to predict and control the propagation of multisource design change to reduce the changes impact is an urgent issue in the development of complex product. Design/methodology/approach In this paper, a new four-phase routing approach based on weighted and directed complex networks is proposed for multisource design change propagation. Phase I: as the foundation of this research, a product network model is established to quantify describe the complex product. Phase II: the hub nodes are identified based on the LeaderRank algorithm, which can be regarded as multisource nodes of design changes. Phase III: a calculation method for change propagation intensity is proposed, which improves the systematicness and accuracy of the evaluation results. In this paper, change propagation intensity is defined by four assessment factors: importance degree of parts, execution time of design tasks, coupling strength between parts and propagation likelihood. Phase IV: a routing method of multisource design change propagation and ant colony optimization algorithm are proposed in this paper, which can solve the coupling conflicts among change propagation paths and improve the search efficiency by using the parallel search strategy. Findings The proposed method and another method are used to search the optimal propagation path of multisource design change of a motorcycle engine; the results indicate that this method designed in this study has a positive effect on reducing the change impact, market response time and product design costs when design change occurs in the products design process. Originality/value The authors find a new method (a network-based four-phase routing approach) to search the optimal propagation path of multisource design change in complex products design.

Concepts of change propagation analysis in engineering design

“…The width and height of each rectangle indicates the impact and likelihood of change propagating between the pair of components, accounting for both direct and indirect propagation paths. Other researchers use a similar matrix with minor variations (Hamraz et al 2012(Hamraz et al , 2013aPasqual and de Weck 2012;Zhang et al 2020;Chen and Whyte 2021;Romli et al 2018;Ren et al 2021). An advantage of this visualisation is that it presents propagation effects for all possible change-initiating elements in a single static image; however, it does not show the reasons for the assessments (such as propagation paths that are involved) and cannot depict the outcome if multiple elements are changed at once.…”

Research on Importance Evaluation of Complex Product Parts Based on Multilayer Complex Network

“…Zhang et al [19] proposed a novel HEO modelling method based on complex networks' theory. Zhang et al [20] proposed a new four-phase routing approach based on weighted and directed complex networks for multisource design change propagation.…”

Multi‐objective particle swarm optimisation of complex product change plan considering service performance

“…Design change is an inevitable part of the product development process [1][2][3]. In real production, some product parts often need to be redesigned or reselected due to subjective/objective reasons, such as product iteration, supply chain disruption, blockage, and change in laws and regulations [4,5]. More importantly, changing a critical part can propagate and affect other related parts in a product [6,7].…”