Innovative Applications PDF

In this study, the use of AD was demonstrated for anthropometric design of workplaces. Two examples explore how the formulation of Functional Requirements and Design Parameters can help in conceptualizing design principles and selecting design parameters for a seated work place. To improve the ease of adjustability the Independence Axiom was used to formulate functional requirements with respect to adjustability, and select suitable design parameters. Two case studies were used to illustrate how the methodology can be used to improve design solutions. The results show that use of height adjustable chairs is not necessarily a good design solution. The Information Axiom was then used to calculate the information in adjustability features. This involved a redefinition of the concepts of system range and design range, which are used in AD, and resulted in a modified calculation of information contents. The two axioms fit well with the type of design methodology that has developed in ergonomics over the years. 1. It has been well recognized that formulations of functional requirements are essential to ergonomics design. AD now gives a robust methodology, which may drive design solutions. 2. In Ergonomics design, minimization of information has long been recognized as an important criteria; this is expressed through Fitts’ law and Hick’s law. The less the information the quicker it is to operate and the easier it is to learn.

This paper has its focus on the Swedish building industry and the necessity of improvements in order to stay competitive. The central part is the building process, which is defined here as the process from the idea to develop or acquire land to the management of the accomplished building. It can be divided into three parts: product design, product production and product use. The aim of this paper is to clarify where improvements could take place within the building industry in general and in real-estate development in particular. The aim is also to discuss if Axiomatic Design can be used in order to improve the building process especially in the definition of goals and decisions undertaken in the early stages of the process. The paper concentrates on these decisions since they have such a great impact on the following stages of the process and on how high customer value can be reached. The paper can also be seen as a description of a research project within the Swedish research program Competitive Building. The project has recently started (September 1, 1999). The aim of the research project is to seek a higher customer-value, in short and long term as well as a more effective building process than obtained through the methods applied today (within the industrial partner JM AB). The main goal is to generate a normative description of the development of a large project, within residential project development, based on scientific methods.

A multi-viewpoint modeling was conducted to obtain a better understanding of how to work in a concurrent engineering way within an innovation system. The modeling was carried out using a process-, a design- and a function centric viewpoint. The process centric viewpoint divides the innovation process into a development and a realization phase. The development phase was further divided into preparation, development and validation. The realization phase was divided further into source, make and deliver. The design centric viewpoint dealt with the iterative design processes both within and between development processes, from an Axiomatic Design perspective. It also dealt with the connection between development processes in terms of constraints and decision-making. The function centric viewpoint stated the functions and different kinds of flow that occurs in an innovation process. In the multi-viewpoint model the connections between the different viewpoints were stressed. This raised the understanding, of the whole innovation system, to a higher level. A better understanding of the innovation system provides the means for good decision-making concerning both productivity and quality.

Axiomatic design procedures may be used to decouple usability analyses in Human-Computer Interaction. Nielsen’s ten usability heuristics were analyzed in terms of implications for FRS and DP’s. From the results we conclude that heuristic usability analysis leads to a coupled design process. To uncouple the design a cluster analysis was performed on the original design matrix. FR’s were then split and recombined in order to reduce the coupling.

This paper presents a computer-aided method for designing topologies and shapes of geometric artifacts from the highest-level functional requirements in conceptual design phase. The method combines a thinking process of engineering design and knowledge base within axiomatic design framework. The proposed thinking process is called a V-model in this paper. The V-model consists of three main sub-processes; top-down decomposition process of functional requirements(FRs) and design parameters(DPs), mapping process of DPs into geometric entities, and bottom-up integration process of the geometric entities. Knowledge base stores information on FRs, DPs, and corresponding geometric entities generated during the V-model design process in a unique structure designed to combine advantages of both top-down and bottom-up approaches. The design matrix is used to relate visually the effect of geometric entities to corresponding FRs. The method presented in this paper can be the basis for creating a new intelligent CAD system that incorporates the FRs of a design task. This method enhances the designers’ creative thinking for geometric shape design and facilitates the reuse of CAD models by relating functions to geometric topology and shape design.

This paper presents details of databases and automatic assembled shape generation. The databases store links of FR-DPFGF- INTERFACEs and their hierarchies generated based on the V-model. Each FGF is composed of links to a set of cells and relations of interfaces of the cells. The retrieval of proper FGFs from the database is performed by matching a query FR with stored FRs linked to the corresponding FGFs by a lexical search based on the frequency of words and the sequence of the words in the FR statements using a synonym checking system. The language-matching rate is calculated as a value of FR_metric between 0 and 1. A computer algorithm automatically combines and assembles the retrieved FGFs. Genetic algorithm (GA) searches for the best matching of interface types between FGFs and generates the corresponding assembly sequences based on the codes of the chromosomes. From the highest-valued chromosome, the computer algorithm operates automatic assembly of FGFs by coordinating, orienting, and positioning FGFs with reference to the given mating conditions. Geometric interface-ability between FGFs is calculated as a value of INTERFACE_metric between 0 and 1. The higher the values of FR_metric and INTERFACE_metric, the better the design solution for the given FRs that must be satisfied in the sense of language and geometric interface matching. The top-down decomposition and bottom-up integration in the V-model reduce the number of possible combinations of interfacing FGFs. The method presented in this paper has demonstrated that a “functional CAD” can aid designers in generating conceptual design solutions from functional descriptions, in reusing existing CAD models, and in creating new designs.