Tools and Techniques for Decomposing and Managing Complex Design Projects

Abstract

Many companies are looking for new tools and techniques to aid a design manager in making decisions that can reduce the time and cost of a design cycle. One tool that is available to aid in this decisionmaking process is the design manager's aid for intelligent decomposition (DeMAID). Since the initial public release of DeMAID in 1989, much research has been done in the areas of decomposition, concurrent engineering, and process management, and many new tools and techniques have been developed. Based on this research and development, numerous enhancements have been added to DeMAID to aid the design manager in saving both cost and time in a design cycle. The key enhancement, a genetic algorithm (GA), is available in the most recent public release called DeMAID/GA. The GA orders the sequence of design processes to minimize the cost and time to converge to a solution. Several of the most recent advances are discussed and compared with the enhancements in DeMAID/GA. An example of an aircraft conceptual design project is used to show how these enhancements can be applied to improve the design cycle.

Multidisciplinary design optimization through use of stochastic mutation algorithm

“…A well structured MDO may also include sub-level (hierarchic) decomposition, priority procedures, and concurrent data processing to reduce computation cycle time [12]. In addition to traditional design process employing mathematical models or engineering decision, MDO provides an alternate method that explores all possible outcomes in designing complex systems [13] with the aid of advanced computing tools and techniques.…”

Calculating Data Importance using Mutual Information for Engineering Design

“…low/med/high). 4 A weighted DSM, with discrete values, ranks its links from a discrete set greater than two; integers 1-10, low/med/high, 4 etc. The information used to obtain this linkage ranking can come in the form of surveys or other means of expert supplied or computed data.…”

“…Historically this process has been performed by human field experts and many heuristics have been developed to guide these decomposition efforts. [2][3][4][5][6] The problem has always existed of what to do when either a professional is not available or when a problem does not agree with an individual's experiences or expectations. It is proposed that this creates a need for automated decomposition methods to aid the engineer in discovering useful structure that can be leveraged to understand and better solve their problems.…”

Globally distributed product development using a new project management framework

“…Rojers [3] developed a computer aided design tool to support assisting in large-scale system decomposition. As cited in Stallings [15], some researchers have also come forward with an ''Intelligent Agent'' based project management framework.…”