A Conceptual Design Tool With Error Warning

Collecting design error or failure information in a database (FKDB: Failure Knowledge Database) gives an organization an effective place for designers to study and learn past events so they will not repeat the same mistakes in their own design. When a designer makes an error, however, he had not foreseen the mistake at all. Once made, the error may seem trivial and even predictable, however, at the time of design, the problem and facts that surround the error are completely concealed from the designers mind. The designer, therefore, has no intention to look at past failure information that relate to the error he is repeating at the time of his design. This often makes the FKDB, despite of all the efforts in collecting the information it holds, a mere collection of past failure cases waiting for its passive use; the designer may occasionally look it up for the purpose of general study. A group of people including one of the authors, in the past, developed a conceptual design tool, Creative Design Engine (CDE) that helps the designer by displaying mechanisms, machines, sub-assemblies, and related information that realize functional requirements that the designer wants to accomplish. The tool effectively brings the designer’s consciousness to ideas new to him or something that escaped his mind at the time of conceptual design. We analyzed this tool and laid out the modifications necessary so that it not only displays design solutions and alternative options to the designer but also gives warnings to the designer about design error he is about to make during conceptual design. The application will constantly monitor the designer’s intention to compare it to known failures in the FKDB.