Modeling concurrent product design: A multifunctional team approach

A satisfaction-driven, multifunctional team approach is presented with application to concurrent product design. This team approach is based on optimization formalism in which different teams are responsible to perform their specified functions by controlling the individual sets of design variables. The functions of each team should characterize different aspects of product design in the collaborative product development. In particular, the preference of each team against a design alternative is formalized using fuzzy set theory to seek the most favorite design that best fulfills the team goal. Two fuzzy set operators-"min" and "geometric mean"-are extended to aggregate team's satisfaction metrics to describe the non-compensative and compensative relationships between teams. Team aggregation is based on the strategic team paradigms derived from game theory and the concept of responsibility and controllability. As a result, five design models are explored to reveal typical team interactions in design computing and then illustrated through the study of a design example.