Design Concept Evaluation Based on Rough Number and Information Entropy Theory

Abstract

Abstract-Concept evaluation at the early phase of product development plays a crucial role in new product development. It determines the direction of the subsequent design activities. However, the evaluation information at this stage mainly comes from experts' judgments, which is subjective and imprecise. How to manage the subjectivity to reduce the evaluation bias is a big challenge in design concept evaluation. This paper proposes a comprehensive evaluation method which combines information entropy theory and rough number. Rough number is first presented to aggregate individual judgments and priorities and to manipulate the vagueness under a group decision-making environment. A rough number based information entropy method is proposed to determine the relative weights of evaluation criteria. The composite performance values based on rough number are then calculated to rank the candidate design concepts. The results from a practical case study on the concept evaluation of an industrial robot design show that the integrated evaluation model can effectively strengthen the objectivity across the decision-making processes.

A Knowledge-Based Method for Rapid Design Concept Evaluation

“…However, these methods require the setting of membership functions, which will bring new subjectivity. Therefore, rough set [35], [36], [43]- [47] is adopted in the last decade to deal with the uncertainty, and this method does not require the setting of membership.…”