Determining the Influence of Variables for Functional Design Groups in the Set-Based Design Process

摘要

The set-based design (SBD) process, originally developed in the automotive industry by Toyota, has recently been applied to the naval sector including the first application to a U.S. Navy design - the Ship to Shore Connector (SSC). Although the SBD process itself has many advantages and was deemed successful by SSC Program leaders, the SSC Program revealed ways in which the SBD process could be improved for ship design including the facilitation of functional design preference generation and communication. This paper discusses current SBD challenges and introduces a design space exploration and analysis tool, which was developed as an initial step in providing functional designers with valuable and relevant exploration and analysis information to facilitate preference-based communication. The tool examines the compounding effects of variables, provides feasibility information, and analyzes robustness to aid functional design groups in set-based communications. Finally, this paper outlines future work related to the integration of functional design information, as provided by the design space exploration tool, into the SBD process.