Multiobjective design optimization studies typically derive Pareto sets or use a scalar substitute function to capture design trade-offs, leaving it up to the designer's intuition to use this information for design refinements and decision making. Understanding the causality of trade-offs more deeply, beyond simple post-optimality parametric studies, would be particularly valuable in configuration design problems to guide configuration redesign. This paper presents the method of Multiobjective Monotonicity Analysis to identify root causes for the existence of trade-offs and the particular shape of Pareto sets. This analysis process involves reducing optimization models through constraint activity identification to a point where dependencies specific to the Pareto set and the constraints that cause them are revealed. The insights gained can then be used to target configuration design changes. We demonstrate the proposed approach in the preliminary design of a medical device for oral drug delivery

Configuration (or topology or embodiment) design remains a ubiquitous challenge in product design optimization and in design automation, meaning configuration design is largely driven by experience in industrial practice. In this article, we introduce a novel configuration redesign process founded on the interaction of the designer with results from rigorous multiobjective monotonicity analysis. Guided by Pareto-set dependencies, the designer seeks to reduce trade-offs among objectives or improve optimality overall, deriving redesigns that eliminate dependencies or relax active constraints. The method is demonstrated on an ingestible medical device for oral drug delivery, currently in early concept development.

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It is generally accepted in industry and academia that trade-offs between functional design objectives are an inevitable factor in the development of mechanical systems. These trade-offs can have a large influence on the achievable robustness and performance of the final design, with many products only functioning in narrow sweet-spots between different objectives. As a result, the design process of multi- functional products can be prolonged when designers concurrently attempt to find sweet-spots between a number of potentially interdependent trade-offs. This paper will show that designers only have six different approaches available when attempting to manage a trade-off while trying to ensure robustness and a sufficient performance. These fall within one of three categories; accept, optimise, or redesign. Selecting the wrong approach, can result in consequences downstream which can be difficult to predict, amongst others a lack of robustness to geometric variation, constrained performance, and long development lead time. This points to a substantial potential in the synthesis of design methods that support the identification and management of trade-offs in early product development.