A Study on the Mechanisms of Change Propagation in Mechanical Design

Abstract

Design changes and change propagation have been recognised as ubiquitous in the engineering design process. But why are some design changes propagated while others are absorbed? This paper reports on a study to investigate the specific properties of a mechanical design that influence whether a change is either propagated or absorbed. Student participants in the study were asked to complete a well-defined mechanical design task and then to introduce several design changes. Analysis of the recorded design processes reveals new insight into the mechanisms of change propagation in terms of properties of the design. The insights suggest avenues for future research to make designs more tolerant to potential future change and to develop improved methods to predict change propagation.

Concepts of change propagation analysis in engineering design

“…Respecification of performance parameters has also been attributed to deficiencies in design behaviour Chen 2007, 2010). Since there is a many-to-many relationship between design parameters and performance parameters, when changing one design parameter others might also need to be adjusted to avoid deteriorating performance (Brahma and Wynn 2021).…”

“…Changes of different magnitudes can have different impacts (Rutka et al 2006;Lemmens et al 2007). Changes up to a certain magnitude may be tolerable and be absorbed, while changes above that magnitude may cause propagation (Hamraz et al 2013d;Brahma and Wynn 2021). If propagation occurs, the magnitude of the knock-on effects may be influenced by the magnitude of the initiating change (Wynn et al 2014).…”

“…The way a change propagates or gets absorbed depends on margins in a designed system, which can buffer such changes (Long and Ferguson 2019;Li et al 2021a;Brahma and Wynn 2021). The way designers allocate margin, therefore, has the capability to influence change propagation (Eckert et al 2004).…”