Axiomatic Design Benefits for Managers

Benefits to Management

Axiomatic design helps efficiently manage workflow and changes.

Identify tasks, set a task sequence from the system architecture, and assign resources effectively
Check progress against explicit FRs
Select the best design option using explicit criteria
Change management: identify effects throughout the system and document changes
Use a common language and shared information between design team members

Benefits to the Firm

The designers’ benefits competitive advantage, higher profits, and reduced risk.

The firm gains a competitive advantage when it satisfies its customers’ needs best. With axiomatic design, those needs map to explicit functional requirements and constraints.

The R&D cost is less because designers spend less time designing the product initially and making engineering changes after the product is released.
COGS drops when products are not coupled and therefore are easier to assemble and test.
Support costs are lower because products which are not coupled install and set up faster, and typically require fewer warranty repairs.

Axiomatic design reduces both technical risk and business risk. Axiom 2, the Information Axiom, ensures that the chosen design has minimum information content, which is defined as the most technically probable to succeed. Business risk is also reduced because:

Products satisfy customers’ needs since FRs are derived from those needs
Development schedules are shorter and more predictable, and
Upgrades can be done quickly and effectively.

Paying Attention Pays Off

“Two years ago, Dr. Suh came to SVG and used axiomatic design to evaluate a problem that we had been working on for 3-4 years. Using axiomatic design principles, he solved this problem for us in one day. Our customers wanted us to purchase a new and very expensive robot to solve the problem. Instead, we reexamined the functional requirements of the current system and realized that the system was coupled. By decoupling this system, we found an inexpensive solution to this problem.

On that one project alone, we saved approximately 8,000 engineering hours or approximately $1 million in savings and our time-to-market was reduced by 3 months. Since then our engineers have taken [axiomatic design] principles to other larger projects with tremendous success.

Axiomatic design is a powerful process that provides designers with a method or process to thoroughly understand a project.”

– Jeff Kowalski,
President,
Thermco Division, Silicon Valley Group, Inc