In engineering design, all products and artifacts have some intended reason behind their existence: the product or artifact function. Functional modeling provides an abstract, yet direct, method for understanding and representing an overall product or artifact function. Functional modeling also strategically guides design activities such as problem decomposition, physical modeling, product architecting, concept generation, and team organization. A formal function representation is needed to support functional modeling, and a standardized set of functionrelated terminology leads to repeatable and meaningful results from such a representation. We refer to this representation as a functional basis; in this paper, we seek to reconcile and integrate two independent research efforts into a significantly evolved functional basis. These efforts include research from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and two U.S. universities, and their industrial partners. The overall approach for integrating the functional representations and the final results are presented. This approach also provides a mechanism for evaluating if future revisions are needed to the functional basis and, if so, how to proceed. The integration process is discussed relative to differences, similarities, insights into the representations, and product validation. Based on the results, a more versatile and

This paper is a review of research in product development, which we define as the transformation of a market opportunity into a product available for sale. Our review is broad, encompassing work in the academic fields of marketing, operations management, and engineering design. The value of this breadth is in conveying the shape of the entire research landscape. We focus on product development projects within a single firm. We also devote our attention to the development of physical goods, although much of the work we describe applies to products of all kinds. We look inside the “black box ” of product development at the fundamental decisions that are made by intention or default. In doing so, we adopt the perspective of product development as a deliberate business process involving hundreds of decisions, many of which can be usefully supported by knowledge and tools. We contrast this approach to prior reviews of the literature, which tend to examine the importance of environmental and contextual variables, such as market growth rate, the competitive environment, or the level of top-management support.

This paper describes our initial efforts to deploy a digital library to support computer-aided collaborative design. At present, this experimental testbed, The Engineering Design Knowledge Repository, is an effort to collect and archive public domain engineering data for use by researchers and engineering professionals. We envision this effort expanding to facilitate collaboration and process archival for distributed design and manufacturing teams. CAD knowledge-bases are vital to engineers, who search through vast amounts of corporate legacy data and navigate on-line catalogs to retrieve precisely the right components for assembly into new products. This research attempts to begin addressing the critical need for improved computational methods for reasoning about complex geometric and engineering information. In particular, we focus on archival and reuse of design and manufacturing data for mechatronic systems. This paper presents a description of the research problems, an overview of the initial architecture of the testbed and a description of some of our preliminary results on conceptual design and design retrieval. � 2000

A goal of this paper is to briefly describe work on a novel application of the Semantic Web to design repositories---collections of diverse engineering knowledge with sophisticated reasoning services. However, a more general goal of this paper is to demonstrate the extra utility enabled in database-styled applications by the incorporation of even simple semantics. It also discusses the development of practical, useful representations and applications for the Semantic Web.

iii This document and the work it represents was impossible without the support of my wife Ginger. Often one needs non-technical advice to make clear what one is contemplating. Also one always needs a financial supporter. My thesis advisor Erik Antonsson helped focus many of my thoughts. In addition to providing me with technical assistance, he as well provided instruction on the process of conducting academic research, the communication of ideas both orally and written, and the approach to a developing field. I also owe much to my colleagues in the Engineering and Applied Science Division at Caltech. Their comments and advice maintained my comprehension and rigor. Andrew Lewis in particular provided me with invaluable support. Many of the technical proofs were impossible without him. This material and the work it represented were made possible, in part, by a fellowship from the AT&T-Bell Laboratories Ph.D. scholar program, sponsored by the AT&T foundation. Also, the National Science Foundation provided funding under a Presidential Young

This paper describe a freshman course in engineering design that stresses the open-ended and ill-structured nature of design in a project-based context. The projects are chosen in part for their social context and utility. The projects are supplemented by lectures on design methodology and other topics related to engineering practice. Among the deliverables required of the students are proposals, progress reports, and written and oral presentations---the latter to an external design jury as part of a design competition. I. INTRODUCTION There is little doubt that design is a subject of central importance to the American economy. 1 Design is also a subject that is constantly being studied and analyzed, particularly in the context of engineering education. Yet engineering educators continue to be quite concerned that design is neither properly taught nor adequately presented in engineering curricula. Recently there have been renewed calls for reconsiderations of design and its ...

The material and manufacturing process selection problem is a multi-attribute decision making problem. These decisions are made during the preliminary design stages in an environment characterized by imprecise and uncertain requirements, parameters, and relationships. Material and process selection decisions must occur before design for manufacturing can begin. This paper describes a prototype material and manufacturing process selection system called MAMPS that integrates a formal multi-attribute decision model with a relational database. The decision model enables the representation of the designer’s preferences over the decision factors. A compatibility rating between the product profile requirements and the alternatives stored in the database for each decision criteria is generated using possibility theory. The vector of compatibility ratings are aggregated into a single rating of that alternative’s compatibility. A ranked set of compatible material and manufacturing process alternatives is output by the system. This approach has advantages over existing systems that either do not have a decision module or are not integrated with a database. Keywords: Multi-attribute decision making, material selection, process selection, design for manufacturing, concurrent engineering, possibility theory, fuzzy sets, manufacturing processes.

The Imprecise Design Tool (IDT) presented in this paper is a working computer implementation of the method of imprecision, a formal theory that represents preferences among design alternatives. An aircraft engine design example indicates how the IDT may be applied to support engineering design decisions, using the Engine Development Cost Estimator provided by General Electric Aircraft Engines, Cincinnati, Ohio.

Virtual assembly simulation is one of the most challenging applications of virtual reality. Robust and natural interaction techniques to perform the assembly tasks under investigation are essential as well as e#cient methods for choosing from a large number of functionalities from inside the virtual environment. In this paper we present such techniques and methods, in particular multimodal input techniques including speech input and gesture recognition for controlling the system. We address precise positioning by novel approaches for constraining interactive motion of parts and tools, while a new natural grasping algorithm provides intuitive interaction. Finally, sliding contact simulation allows the user to create collision-free assembly paths e#ciently. Preliminary results show that the array of functionality and techniques described in this paper is su#ciently mature so that virtual assembly simulation can be applied in the field. Keywords: Virtual prototyping, virtual reality, constraint-based interaction, physically-based interaction. 1

This paper presents a systematic method applicable at the early stages of design to enhance life-cycle quality of ownership: Advanced Failure Modes and Effect Analysis (AFMEA). The proposed method uses behavior modeling to simulate device operations and helps identify failure and customer dissatisfaction modes beyond component failures. The behavior model reasons about conditions that cause departures from normal operation and provides a framework for analyzing the consequences of failures. The paper shows how Advanced FMEA applies readily to the early stages of design and captures failure modes normally missed by conventional FMEA. The result is a systematic method capable of capturing a wider range of failure modes and effects early in the design cycle. An automatic ice maker from a domestic refrigerator serves as an illustrative example.