Development of design tool to reduce design complexity

• Main Author: Chen, Edwin Weilun.
• Other Authors: Sim Siang Kok
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2009
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Manufacturing::Product engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/17108
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

In an increasingly competitive, intensive and globalise market, the need to diversify is greater than ever before. To remain strong in the competition, companies combined model variety and high rates of technological changes to meet the needs and demands of the consumer market. However implementing these new developments increase the design complexity in products or systems. Design complexity caused by design changes and design uncertainty usually lead to redesigning which has a huge impact on the schedule, cost and quality of the product. As an answer to reduce and manage complexity, a proposed model was developed based on the concept of modularisation. Modularisation is defined as the process of decomposition of a product into modules with specified interfaces. The model studied the component interfaces within a product by using matrixes such as design structure matrix and coupling index matrix. Components that increase design complexity known as multipliers were identified and used as module. These modules will break the product structure into smaller and manageable units. With this, a modular product platform is formed as a dominant design for future changes. Future development was brought into discussion in this research as the importance of technology advancement in today’s market cannot be neglected. Two case studies, one on a vacuum cleaner and the other on a Sony Walkman were used in this report to illustrate the effectiveness of the model. The vacuum cleaner was used as a mean to validate the proposed model in comparison with the Modular Function Deployment™ method while the Sony Walkman was used to study generational design changes in various platforms of the player. In additional, the exploration of using the model to predict future changes will be done using the product evolution of the Sony Walkman to the Sony Discman. The proposed model proves to be a good tool in analysing interactions of the components within a product and the generation of a modular product platform. It can be used in new product development where a modular product platform can be generated to facilitate future changes due to technological advancement or market demands. The ability of the model can be further enhanced by the following features, incorporating customer requirement with the use of Quality Functional Deployment, predicting future trends using technological forecast model and analysing changes in future development.