scholarly journals Exploring the Application of Network Analytics in Characterizing a Conceptual Design Space

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1953-1962 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua T. Gyory ◽  
Kosa Goucher-Lambert ◽  
Kenneth Kotovsky ◽  
Jonathan Cagan
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Design ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Design Space ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Assessment Method ◽  
Design Decision ◽  
Support Tool ◽  
Design Concepts ◽  
Network Analytics ◽  
Early Stage Design

AbstractThe ability to effectively analyse design concepts is essential for making early stage design decisions. Human evaluations, the most common assessment method, describe individual design concepts on a variety of ideation metrics. However, this approach falls short in creating a holistic representation of the design space as a whole that informs the underlying relations between concepts. Motivated by this shortcoming, this work leverages network theory to visualize and characterize features of a conceptual design space. To illustrate the utility of network theory for these purposes, a network composed of a corpus of solutions to a design problem and their semantic similarity is derived, and its design properties (e.g., uniqueness and innovation potential) are studied. This network-based approach not only characterizes features of individual designs themselves, but also uncovers more nuanced properties of the design space through studying emerging clusters of concepts. Overall, this work expands on developing research in design, demonstrating the value in applying network analytics to a conceptual design space as an engineering support tool to aid design decision-making.

Assessing Product Lifecycle Sustainability Using Uncertain Design Information at Conceptual Stage

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Q. Z. Yang ◽  
B. Song
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Design ◽  
Product Information ◽  
Sustainability Assessment ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Evaluation Model ◽  
Evaluation Criteria ◽  
Design Decision ◽  
Fuzzy Evaluation ◽  
Product Lifecycle ◽  
Selection Of

This paper presents a hierarchical fuzzy evaluation approach to product lifecycle sustainability assessment at conceptual design stages. The purpose is to advocate the emerging use of lifecycle engineering methods in support of evaluation and selection of design alternatives for sustainable product development. A fuzzy evaluation model is developed with a hierarchical criteria structure to represent different sustainability considerations in the technical, economic and environmental dimensions. Using the imprecise and uncertain early-stage product information, each design option is assessed by the model with respect to the hierarchical evaluation criteria. Lifecycle engineering methods, such as lifecycle assessment and lifecycle costing analysis, are applied to the generation of the evaluation criteria. This would provide designers with a more complete lifecycle view about the product’s sustainability potentials to support decision-making in evaluation and selection of conceptual designs. The proposed approach has been implemented in a sustainable design decision-support software prototype. Illustrative examples are discussed in the paper to demonstrate the use of the approach and the prototype in conceptual design selection of a consumer product.

Creating space and time for innovation - a methodology for building adaptation design appraisal using physics-based simulation tools and interactive multi-objective optimization

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheida Shahi ◽  
Philip Beesley ◽  
Carl Thomas Haas
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Design Decision ◽  
Stage Design ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Simulation Tools ◽  
Building Adaptation ◽  
Early Stage Design ◽  
Physics Based Simulation ◽  
Practical Implications

PurposeIt is crucial to consider the multitude of possible building adaptation design strategies for improving the existing conditions of building stock as an alternative to demolition.Design/methodology/approachIntegration of physics-based simulation tools and decision-making tools such as Multi-Attribute Utility (MAU) and Interactive Multi-objective Optimization (IMO) in the design process enable optimized design decision-making for high-performing buildings. A methodology is presented for improving building adaptation design decision making, specifically in the early-stage design feasibility analysis. Ten residential building adaptation strategies are selected and applied to one primary building system for eight performance metrics using physics-based simulation tools. These measures include energy use, thermal comfort, daylighting, natural ventilation, systems performance, life cycle, cost-benefit and constructability. The results are processed using MAU and IMO analysis and are validated through sensitivity analysis by testing one design strategy on three building systems.FindingsQuantifiable comparison of building adaptation strategies based on multiple metrics derived from physics-based simulations can assist in the evaluation of overall environmental performance and economic feasibility for building adaptation projects.Research limitations/implicationsThe current methodology presented is limited to the analysis of one decision-maker at a time. It can be improved to include multiple decision-makers and capture varying perspectives to reflect common practices in the industry.Practical implicationsThe methodology presented supports affordable generation and analysis of a large number of design options for early-stage design optimization.Originality/valueGiven the practical implications, more space and time is created for exploration and innovation, resulting in potential for improved benefits.

scholarly journals Representation in Early Stage Design: An Analysis of the Influence of Sketching and Prototyping in Design Projects

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Elsen ◽  
Anders Häggman ◽  
Tomonori Honda ◽  
Maria C. Yang
Keyword(s):  
Design Process ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Design Tools ◽  
Quality Of Information ◽  
Stage Design ◽  
Design Concepts ◽  
Design Projects ◽  
Early Stage Design ◽  
Team Design

Sketching and prototyping of design concepts have long been valued as tools to support productive early stage design. This study investigates previous findings about the interplay between the use and timing of use of such design tools. This study evaluates such tools in the context of team design projects. General trends and statistically significant results about “sketchstorming” and prototyping suggest that, in certain constrained contexts, the focus should be on the quality of information rather than on the quantity of information generated, and that prototyping should begin as soon as possible during the design process. Ramifications of these findings are discussed in the context of educating future designers on the efficient use of design tools.

scholarly journals The Role of Sketch Finish and Style in User Responses to Early Stage Design Concepts

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryan Macomber ◽  
Maria Yang
Keyword(s):  
Early Stage ◽  
End Users ◽  
Stage Design ◽  
Design Concepts ◽  
Design Time ◽  
Design Alternatives ◽  
Early Stage Design ◽  
Time Required

Conceptual sketches of design alternatives are often employed as a tool for eliciting feedback from design stakeholders, including potential end-users. However, such sketches can vary widely in their level of finish and style, thus potentially affecting how users respond to a concept. This paper presents a study of user responses to three objects drawn in styles ranging from rough hand sketches to CAD drawings. This study also considers the amount of design time required to create the sketches. Results show that respondents generally ranked realistic, “clean” hand sketches the highest over other types of sketches, particularly “rough” sketches. These types of sketches took longer than other types of hand sketches to create, but were still much faster than CAD renderings. Results also suggest that the complexity and familiarity of an object can influence how users respond to a sketch.

scholarly journals Effects of Robust Convex Optimization on Early-Stage Design Space Exploratory Behavior

2020 ◽  
Vol 142 (12) ◽  
Author(s):  
Priya P. Pillai ◽  
Edward Burnell ◽  
Xiqing Wang ◽  
Maria C. Yang
Keyword(s):  
Robust Optimization ◽  
Design Space Exploration ◽  
Design Space ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Pareto Frontier ◽  
Design Parameters ◽  
Safety Factors ◽  
Worst Case ◽  
Robust Convex Optimization ◽  
Early Stage Design

Abstract Engineers design for an inherently uncertain world. In the early stages of design processes, they commonly account for such uncertainty either by manually choosing a specific worst-case and multiplying uncertain parameters with safety factors or by using Monte Carlo simulations to estimate the probabilistic boundaries in which their design is feasible. The safety factors of this first practice are determined by industry and organizational standards, providing a limited account of uncertainty; the second practice is time intensive, requiring the development of separate testing infrastructure. In theory, robust optimization provides an alternative, allowing set-based conceptualizations of uncertainty to be represented during model development as optimizable design parameters. How these theoretical benefits translate to design practice has not previously been studied. In this work, we analyzed the present use of geometric programs as design models in the aerospace industry to determine the current state-of-the-art, then conducted a human-subjects experiment to investigate how various mathematical representations of uncertainty affect design space exploration. We found that robust optimization led to far more efficient explorations of possible designs with only small differences in an experimental participant’s understanding of their model. Specifically, the Pareto frontier of a typical participant using robust optimization left less performance “on the table” across various levels of risk than the very best frontiers of participants using industry-standard practices.

A Plug-and-Contract Mechanism for a Robust Assessment of Design Concepts

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernard Yannou ◽  
Roy Awedikian
Keyword(s):  
Design Space ◽  
Truss Structures ◽  
Space Representation ◽  
Design Decision ◽  
Functional Requirements ◽  
Design Concepts ◽  
Design Variables ◽  
Variable Domains ◽  
Parameterized Model ◽  
Relative Potential

Starting from a need and a set of functional requirements (FRs), a designer is often perplexed to assess the potential of a given concept to fit these requirements. He is even more perplexed when several concepts are candidates. This paper proposes a definition of a concept in a practical way as a parameterized model linking a set of design variables (DVs) to a set of performance variables (PVs). This set of PVs is supposed to be the same for any concept candidate to fulfill a need. This is why our model propose to “plug” a card of FRs into candidate concepts in order to lead concurrent reasonings on competing concepts until one or several of them appear to be of poor interest. The plugging mechanism is implemented by constraint programming techniques (evolved interval arithmetics) that immediately contract the performance and design variable domains to provide an outer approximation of the solution (or design) space. Two sets of comparison operators between solution spaces are proposed: operators for comparing the relative potential of two concepts submitted to the same FRs, and operators for comparing two successive stages of solution spaces of a given concept. These last operators provide the way to tackle the robustness of design decision making under uncertainty. All the mentioned features: plugging mechanism, contraction of domains and design space representation, comparison operators and robustness considerations have been experimented on an example of a pair of candidate concepts of truss structures.

Creating a Design for Inspectability Framework: Investigating DfAM Heuristics for Inspection Technologies

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias Mahan ◽  
Micaela Stover ◽  
Andrea Arguelles ◽  
Jessica Menold
Keyword(s):  
Quality Control ◽  
Quality Assurance ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Manufacturing Method ◽  
Design Concepts ◽  
Manufacturing Techniques ◽  
Early Stage Design ◽  
End Use ◽  
Traditional Manufacturing ◽  
And Control

Abstract Design heuristics created for additive manufacturing (AM) help designers increase manufacturability, reduce waste, and create novel geometries that are generally impossible to create with traditional manufacturing techniques. However, this new manufacturing method has come with its own challenges, specifically for inspection and quality assurance end use parts. Current methods for quality assurance and control are not capable of assessing quality of complex geometries or may be prohibitively expensive for AM produced components. By considering inspection early in the design process, designers can reduce the cost of quality control and prevent expensive redesign associated with non-inspectable components. The Design for Inspectability (DfI) worksheet proposed in the current work serves as a first step towards integrating quality control and quality assurance considerations into early stage design, specifically in the context of AM. The DfI worksheet can be used to assess if a part can be inspected for quality after production and can inform future iterations of design concepts. To determine if the worksheet assists designers in creating a component that can be assessed for quality, a controlled laboratory study was conducted. Findings suggest the worksheet effects design outcomes.

The Role of Idea Fluency and Timing on Highly Innovative Design Concepts

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yakira Mirabito ◽  
Kosa Goucher-Lambert
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Design Research ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Deep Understanding ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Stage Design ◽  
Single Measure ◽  
Design Concepts ◽  
Early Stage Design ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Ongoing work within the engineering design research community seeks to develop automated design methods and tools that enhance the natural capabilities of designers in developing highly innovative concepts. Central to this vision is the ability to first obtain a deep understanding of the underlying behavior and process dynamics that predict successful performance in early-stage concept generation. The objective of this research is to better understand the predictive factors that lead to improved performance during concept generation. In particular, this work focuses on the impact of idea fluency and timing of early-stage design concepts, and their effect on overall measures of ideation session success. To accomplish this, we leverage an existing large-scale dataset containing hundreds of early-stage design concepts; each concept contains detailed ratings regarding its overall feasibility, usefulness, and novelty, as well as the completion time of each idea. Surprisingly, results indicate that there is no effect of idea fluency or timing on the quality of the output when using a holistic evaluation mechanism, such as the innovation measure, instead of a single measure such as novelty. Thus, exceptional concepts can be achieved by all generator segments independent of idea fluency. Furthermore, in early-stage concept generation sessions, highest-rated concepts have an equal probability of occurring early and late in a session. Taken together, these findings can be used to improve performance in ideation by effectively determining when and which types of design interventions future design tools might suggest.

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