Design with objects: an approach to object-oriented design

This paper is concerned with object-oriented design and aims to describe an object-oriented approach [called design-with-objects (DwO)] that encompasses both the fundamentals of object-oriented design and the use of object-oriented design in the development of design process models. The major design objects are described, together with their main structure, the message passing and inheritance involved, and the computability and exchangeability of the approach. The main potential advantages of such an approach are computability, in that a design process model obtained using DwO is not just a descriptive model but a computable model; reusability, in that once a design object in DwO has been established, it can be used repeatedly; and exchangeability, in that objects with similar interfaces can be readily exchanged in a modular manner. This paper reviews the background to design process models and object-oriented design and then describes the basis of DwO. Design models, DwO methods and an architecture for DwO are described together with an example design process model formalism that uses DwO, The implementation of this example DwO design process model formalism for the problem of electronics assemblies components selection is overviewed. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.