The study of the design process, design theory and methodology has been a preoccupation of engineers, designers and researchers over the last four to five decades. As the end of this millenium is approached and with the renewed interest around the world in engineering design, it is fitting to examine the state of the art and current status of issues relating to design philosophies, theory and methodology. Over the last 40 years, many approaches to design have been put forward by various researchers, designers and engineers, both in academia and industry, on how design ought to and might be carried out. These proposals on design have tended towards what has come to be regarded as design philosophies, design models and design methods. The thesis of this paper is to discuss various aspects of generic research in design, within the above classifications in the light of the work that has been done in the last four decades. Discussions will focus on various definitions of design, design theory and methodology, the nature and variety of design problems, design classifications, philosophies, models, methods and systems.

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This paper aims to enunciate a model for concurrent materials and associated manufacturing process selection within a comprehensive design system called Design Function Deployment (DFD) The stages of the materials and manufacturing process functions deployment process and how it interfaces with the DFD design model, is fully elucidated The interactions during the design process, between materials properties, manufacturing processes and form (shape, geometry and size) and how this impinges on the selection process is also discussed The paper concludes by discussing the software system architecture for the proposed materials and manufacturing process selection within DFD, and how it can be implemented

The thesis of this paper is on the development of an integrated design system called Design Function Deployment (DFD), which provides a platform for the adoption of the concurrent engineering approach to product development The paper commences with discussions on the objectives and rationale for the development of the design system The contributing factors to its development are also elucidated DFD is then examined in terms of what it is, its design model, and how concurrent engineering is implemented within it The paper concludes with a concise discussion of some of the key concurrent design methods constituted within it and work done to date toward the software Implementation of DFD