Page 93 - Design for Six Sigma a Roadmap for Product Development

68 Chapter Three

Information transformation. Information transformation is similar to
mappings in Suh’s axiomatic design theory illustrated in Fig. 3.4.
Another kind of information transformation is the hierarchical design
deployment illustrated in Fig. 3.5.
Unless there is some information and knowledge creation being
done, that is, creation of new ideas, new technology, and so on, most of
the information transformation work deals with existing knowledge.
For example, in automobile product development, body design and
assembly is a big chunk of design work. Body styles have to change to
make cars catch the fashion trend. But there is very little new knowl-
edge needed in this design work; style designers design the body style,
then the stamping dies have to be made, next stamped metal panels
are welded to form subassemblies, and finally subassemblies will be
welded to form the whole automobile body-in-white (body without
paint). Although there is no technology or knowledge involved, simply
the new combination of the parts and new shape of the parts, there are
still going to be a lot of unknowns to be worked out. In the automobile
body design example, we still need to work out all the issues about fit
and finish, that is, whether these subassemblies can go together really
seamlessly.
The types of work in this information transformation usually
include the following:

■ Given a need—pull design solutions, for example—we need to bind
parts together, and then we can pull all kinds of fastener solutions.
This category is very broad; selections of material, selection of mod-
ules, and so on are all that belong to this category.
■ Design of interfaces.
■ Shape and form design.
■ System flow down and integration.
■ Design analysis, simulation.
■ Testing.
■ Prototype building.

For complicated products with thousands of parts or more, the scope
of this information transformation work can be very big. We need a
whole organization with many people; they have different tasks,
knowledge backgrounds, and experience to work together, as illus-
trated in Fig. 3.7. The information and knowledge need to flow from
one team, one person , to another team or teams, another person, and
so on. There are several potential dangers in this knowledge and infor-
mation flow network: