A Quantitative Similarity Metric for Design-by-Analogy

Abstract

During the design and development of new products, design engineers use many techniques to generate and define new and “good” concepts. Inherent in this search for solutions is the conscious and unconscious reliance on prior experience and knowledge, or design-by-analogy. In this paper, a quantitative metric for design-by-analogy is developed. This metric is based on the functional similarity of products. By using this product-similarity metric, designers are able to formalize and quantify design-by-analogy techniques during concept and layout design. The methods, as developed in this paper, allow a designer with limited experience to develop sophisticated solutions that enhance the overall design of a new product. Also, a designer’s current design-by-analogy vocabulary can be extended beyond his or her immediate experience, providing access and contributions to new domains by discovering different products with common functions. The similarity metric and its application are clarified and validated through a case study. The case study is the original design of a pickup winder.

The use of creative stimuli at early stages of industrial product innovation

“…During this study the stimuli provided had functional, behavioural and structural elements which may have added to the quality of the stimuli. In other previous research into case based reasoning and design-by-analogy (McAdams and Wood 2002), analogical transfer has primarily concentrated on problem solving using mechanisms 1 and 3. However, product design is different to problem solving and is perhaps better described by C-K theory (Hatchuel and Weil 2009) where concepts are non proven propositions whose functions, behaviours and structures morph through the design process abiding to set theory.…”

An Index-based Method to Manage the Tradeoff between Diversity and Commonality during Product Family Design

“…This includes the degree of commonality index (DCI, [2]), the total constant commonality index (TCCI, [16]), the commonality index (CI, [17]), the component part commonality index (CI (C) , [18]), the product line commonality index (PCI, [19]), the percent commonality (%C, [20]), the generational variety index (GVI, [21]), the functional similarity index (FSI, [22,23]), and measures for the degree of variation [9,24,25]. An extensive comparison between many of these commonality indices and their usefulness for product family design (and redesign) can be found in [10], and a comprehensive list of existing commonality indices can be found in [26,27].…”

Metrics Generation Process for Mechatronics

“…During the early stages of design, engineers and managers need also to evaluate projects and design concepts [9] and to predict their success [10]. Indeed, to facilitate design management, a first key precept would be to provide means of assessing different project attributes such as project maturity, schedule adherence, degree of innovation, amount of effective collaboration and level of effort (investment cost, new competencies), etc.…”