Configurable Design Matrixes for Systems Engineering Applications

This paper presents a formalized approach to specify and implement design matrix support for systems engineering applications that structure large and complex product models. Design matrixes can clearly visualize the relationships between large amounts of hierarchically structured engineering objects and higher level systems engineering design objects like requirements and functions in the product model. Examples of structures that can be lied out along the X and Y axis of a design matrix are stakeholder trees, requirement trees, function-means trees, product concept trees, and implementation trees. The cells of the design matrix visualize how corresponding objects at the axes relate to each other. One benefit with configurable design matrixes is that the information content and layout of a design matrix can be specified by a user, and all software implementation effort is handled automatically by a generic software framework that is included in the engineering application. The paper provides an overview of the theory behind a formal specification language for configurable design matrixes. It gives examples of design matrix specifications and screen shoots of instances of these design matrixes generated by a prototype engineering application called FMDesign. The examples of different types of design matrixes are taken from a aircraft product model of a small business jet. A formal software specification of the design matrix specification language and the example engineering application is provided in UML class diagrams.