ROBUST DESIGN FOR PRODUCT ADAPTATION CONSIDERING CHANGES IN CONFIGURATIONS AND PARAMETERS

This paper introduces a robust design method for product adaptation considering uncertainties in both product configurations and parameters. In this study, probability of product adaptation in the operation stage and influence of the probability on the optimal design solution are investigated. In this work, an AND-OR tree is used to model feasible design candidates and their adaptations, where each node represents a partial solution for the original design or the adapted design. Design candidates are generated from the AND-OR tree through tree-based search, and a design candidate can be defined by variation nodes that are used for potential product adaptations. A multi-level optimization method is applied to obtain the optimal values of design parameters for each design candidate and the best design solution from all feasible candidates. Both evaluation measures and their variations are considered in this robust design method.