Methodology for Early Design Phase Cost and Performance Trade-Off Analysis of a New Variant in a Product Family

DS 116: Proceedings of the DESIGN2022 17th International Design Conference

Year: 2022
Editor: Mario Štorga, Stanko Škec, Tomislav Martinec, Dorian Marjanović
Author: Michel Schaffers, Eveline Rosseel, Sofie Burggraeve, Joren Pelfrene, Klaas Gadeyne, Frederik Petr
Series: DESIGN
Institution: Flanders Make, Belgium
Section: Design Support Tools and Methods
Page(s): 593-602
DOI number: https://doi.org/10.1017/pds.2022.61
ISSN: 2732-527X (Online)

Abstract

Given the Industry 4.0 trend towards smaller lot sizes and large product families, there is a need to increase the design efficiency in terms of cost and lead time. Design decisions taken in the early or conceptual design phases are shown to have the greatest impact on the final product cost, however the choices and trade-offs are often made in an ad-hoc way. This paper presents a structured methodology for formalizing early stage product design knowledge, which is key for designing and evaluating new variants in a product family in the early stages of the design process.

Keywords: design knowledge, product families, early design phase, cost-performance trade-offs, knowledge formalisation