Page 269 - Design for Six Sigma a Roadmap for Product Development

Axiomatic Design 239

A design and its manufacturing and production process scenarios are
continuously changing. Shorter life cycles and higher value of customer-
oriented products are examples of present changes. We have reached the
point where the product development time is rapidly shrinking.
Therefore, design efficiency in terms of throughput and quality has
become more significant than ever.This situation requires healthy design
to be delivered to the customer on a continuous basis, which, in turn,
requires efficient and systematic procedures to analyze, synthesize, and
validate conceived concepts upfront. The activities of design must be
based on general basic design principles, and not on accumulated empir-
ical knowledge, simulation, and traditional engineering knowledge
alone. A design process can be rapidly altered if the product follows some
basic principles. If this approach can be extended to manufacturing and
production, adaptation of novel products and future inexperienced cre-
ative design situations will become smoother and design organizations
will gain the flexibility needed to accommodate changes quickly.
To stay competitive, the design industry needs to deliver high-
quality products in a short time at the lowest cost. The impact of the
early phases of design on both product and the manufacturing systems
are discussed by Suh (1990, 2001). With increasing demands of short-
er time to market, we encounter new products that lack the support of
scientific knowledge and/or the presence of existing experience. It is no
longer sufficient to rely solely on traditional knowledge. Concurrent
engineering will facilitate somewhat in improving the situation, but
only in designing the required incremental improvements of datum
products and installed manufacturing systems. To design efficiently,
design organizations need to support the practices of synthesis and
analysis of new conceptual solution entities and base these activities
on basic generic design principles. Basic principles do not substitute
any other knowledge, nor do they replace the need to constantly learn,
adopt, and implement new knowledge in the related disciplines.
Deployment of basic principles complements the specific knowledge
needed to develop products and manufacturing systems.

8.3 Design Axioms
Motivated by the absence of scientific design principles, Suh (1984,
1990, 1995, 1996, 1997, 2001) proposed the use of axiom as the scien-
tific foundation of design. A design needs to satisfy the following two
axioms along with many corollaries.
Axiom 1: The Independence Axiom. Maintain the independence of the
functional requirements.
Axiom 2: The Information Axiom. Minimize the information content in a
design.