Understanding Abstraction in Design: A Comparison of Three Functional Analysis Methods for Product Dissection

Booth, Joran W.; Reid, Tahira; Ramani, Karthik

doi:10.1115/detc2013-13130

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Guidance on how best to derive and formulate design requirements, especially for so-called wicked problems typified by multiple users with different roles, needs and wants that interact and at times conflict with each other, is less well developed (Agouridas et al 2008). In the engineering design-research community, affordancebased design is becoming established as a means of relating customer needs with design requirements (Wu, Ciavola, and Gershenson 2013;Booth, Reid, and Ramani 2013;Lewis et al 2013;Li and Tate 2013). Given a collection of design requirements, functional requirements and structures are derived.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There has been less work on systematic approaches to the definition of the design structures that feed into these approaches. For example, Booth, Reid, and Ramani (2013) highlight difficulties in diagramming methods. Alternatively, the rules in generative design systems may be regarded as a form of design structure, where the arcs between rules record the sequence of transformations from one design to another.…”

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Principles for the definition of design structures

McKay

Stiny

Pennington

2015

International Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacturing

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Different kinds of design structure are created and used in engineering design and development processes. Function structures, design grammars and bills of materials are common examples. However, there is a lack of clarity regarding distinctions and similarities between different kinds of structure and systematic ways to articulate them. This paper brings together research on product structuring and shape computation to inform the specification of principles for the definition of design structures. The principles draw together findings reported in the computational geometry and product definition literature with research from a range of companies and industry sectors that encompasses enterprise and process structures. The potential value of the principles to computer-integrated manufacturing and through-life support is demonstrated through application to four case studies.Keywords: engineering design; design informatics; bill of materials; function structure Introduction Engineering design is an important early stage of the innovation processes that deliver new products to markets where societal challenges are addressed and wealth generated. High-quality engineering design information is critical to the effective and efficient manufacture, production and through-life support of such products. The emerging discipline of engineering design informatics brings together ICT (Information and Communications Technology) and engineering design to support the creation of well-founded engineering information support systems. However the current state-of-the-art is characterised by experience-based frameworks and approaches from engineering design coupled with general purpose ICT frameworks (such as SYSML) which provide wideranging functionalities but require substantial effort and scarce expertise to create even demonstrator solutions. These problems can be attributed, in part, to shortcomings in the cognate body of knowledge that underpins the discipline of engineering design which result in slow incremental progress based on a series of ad hoc solutions with few if any high-impact breakthroughs. The importance of the discipline of engineering design informatics is growing for CIM because digital information is becoming a key input to and platform for manufacturing systems. These systems have a direct impact on the effectiveness and efficiency of manufacturing operations and, as a result, deficiencies in the information that drive them are likely to become a limiting factor in system performance. In addition, design information provides new opportunities as a critical underpinning to enable the closing of loops between manufacturing and design, so offering the potential for design to be better informed by manufacturing practices and experiences.The goal of this paper is to contribute requirements for an underlying theoretical framework for the representation and structuring of design and manufacturing information that will address these issues and contribute to the creation of affordable, efficient and effective ways to s...

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

Principles for the definition of design structures

McKay

Stiny

Pennington

2015

International Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacturing

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“…While doing so, the virtual lens shows additional information explaining the device. The devices are typical household devices such as a hair dryer, whose functional decomposition have eluded people in past studies [5] [36] [37]. A tablet computer was determined as the best means for representing the virtual lens and the AR application.…”

Section: Application Design Conceptsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tangible augmented reality intervention for a product dissection task

Mcpherson

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Evaluating the effectiveness of functional decomposition in early-stage design: development and application of problem space exploration metrics

She,

Belanger,

Bartels

2024

Res Eng Design

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This paper aims to explore metrics for evaluating the effectiveness of functional decomposition methods regarding problem space exploration at the early design stage. Functional decomposition involves breaking down the main purpose of a complex problem or system into a set of more manageable sub-functions, leading to a clearer understanding of the problem space and its various aspects. While various metrics have been used to evaluate functional decomposition outcomes, little literature has focused on assessing its effectiveness in problem space exploration. To address the gap, this research introduces three metrics for problem space evaluation defined by functional models: quantity of unique functions (M1), breadth and depth of the hierarchical structure (M2), and relative semantic coverage ratio of the problem space (M3). An example study is conducted to illustrate the evaluation process, comparing functional analysis with and without explicit human-centric considerations using a power screwdriver as a case product. The analysis in the example study reveals that the breadth of the hierarchical structure (part of M2) is marginally larger in the condition with explicit human-centric considerations (Condition A) compared to the condition without such considerations (Condition B). However, no significant differences are observed in terms of other metrics. The qualitative analysis based on semantic comparisons suggests that Condition A facilitates participants in generating a diverse set of functions supporting user safety requirements more effectively than Condition B. Overall, the example study demonstrates the evaluation process for each metric and discusses their nuances and limitations. By proposing these metrics, this research contributes to benchmarking and evaluating the effectiveness of different methods in promoting functional analysis in engineering design. The metrics provide valuable insights into problem space exploration, offering designers a better understanding of the efficacy of their functional decomposition methods in early design stages. This, in turn, fosters more informed decision-making and contributes to the advancement of functional analysis methodologies in engineering design practices.

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Understanding Abstraction in Design: A Comparison of Three Functional Analysis Methods for Product Dissection

Cited by 5 publications

References 33 publications

Principles for the definition of design structures

Principles for the definition of design structures

Tangible augmented reality intervention for a product dissection task

Evaluating the effectiveness of functional decomposition in early-stage design: development and application of problem space exploration metrics

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