This work aims to help the designers to make decisions in the early stage of new product development. Design concept evaluation is very critical in design process, it may affect the later stages. However, facing to uncertain circumstance, mostly, the raw data in early stage are subjective and imprecise. This work proposes a novel approach to solve this problem. The whole work is based on rough numbers, Shannon entropy, technique for order performance by similarity to ideal solution method and preference selection index method. Firstly, rough numbers and Shannon entropy are integrated to determine the weight of evaluation criteria based on their interrelationships. After that, a novel technique for order performance by similarity to ideal solution method improved by rough numbers and preference selection index method is proposed to evaluate and rank the alternatives. Then, a comparative case is carried out with proposed method and two other methods in this study. The comparation of evaluation processes indicates that the proposed method’s advantage. Compared the other methods, proposed approach is objective, simple and do not need additional input. The results of three methods are similar. It means that the proposed method is not only effective and efficient in design concept evaluation, but also can save time and cost in the early stage of new product development.
Expert weight determination is a critical issue in the design concept evaluation process, especially for complex products. However, this phase is often ignored by most decision makers. For the evaluation of complex product design concepts, experts are selected by clusters with different backgrounds. This work proposes a novel integrated two-layer method to determine expert weight under these circumstances. In the first layer, a hybrid model integrated by the entropy weight model and the Multiplicative analytical hierarchy process method is presented. In the second layer, a minimized variance model is applied to reach a consensus. Then the final expert weight is determined by the results of both layers. A real-life example of cruise ship cabin design evaluation is implemented to demonstrate the proposed expert weight determination method. To analyze the feasibility of the proposed method, weight determination with and without using experts is compared. The result shows the expert weight determination method is an effective approach to improve the accuracy of design concept evaluation.
Flow shop scheduling problems are NP-hard problems. Heuristic algorithms and evolutionary metaheuristic algorithms are commonly used to solve this kind of problem. Although heuristic algorithms have high solving speed, the solution quality is not good. Evolutionary algorithms make up for this defect in small-scale problems, but the solution performance will deteriorate with the expansion of the problem scale and there will be premature problems. In order to improve the solving accuracy of flow shop scheduling problems, a computational efficient optimization approach combining NEH and niche genetic algorithm (NEH-NGA) is developed. It is strengthened in the following three aspects: NEH algorithm is used to optimize the initial population, three crossover operators are used to enhance the genetic efficiency, and the niche mechanism is used to control the population distribution. A concrete application scheme of the proposed method is introduced. The results of compared with NEH heuristic algorithm and standard genetic algorithm (SGA) evolutionary metaheuristic algorithm after testing on 101 FSP benchmark instances show that the solution accuracy has been significantly improved.
Design concept evaluation plays a significant role in new product development. Rough set based methods are regarded as effective evaluation techniques when facing a vague and uncertain environment and are widely used in product research and development. This paper proposed an improved rough-TOPSIS method, which aims to reduce the imprecision of design concept evaluation in two ways. First, the expert group for design concept evaluation is classified into three clusters: designers, manufacturers, and customers. The cluster weight is determined by roles in the assessment using a Multiplicative Analytic Hierarchy Process method. Second, the raw information collection method is improved with a 3-step process, and both design values and expert linguistic preferences are integrated into the rough decision matrix. The alternatives are then ranked with a rough-TOPSIS method with entropy criteria weight. A practical example is shown to demonstrate the method’s viability. The findings suggest that the proposed decision-making process is effective in product concept design evaluation.
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