Toward Design Interference Detection to Deal with Complex Design Problems

摘要

This paper proposes a method to deal with complex design problems typically found in multi-disciplinary design such as mechatronics design. First, it explains two different types of complexity, namely complexity by design and intrinsic complexity of multi-disciplinarity, typically found in mechatronics design, from the viewpoint of knowledge structure. Second, a mechatronics design case illustrates how these types of complexity lead to undesired and unpredictable interactions that cause destructive decoupling of subsystems. Third, we present a technological way to detect such undesirable interactions at an early stage of design based on a qualitative reasoning technique.