CALL FOR PAPERS

摘要

In design methodology there are a number of approaches for describing products functionally. In all of these approaches the concept of function is advanced as a fundamental one to engineering, and all of these approaches have proved their viability by achieving important results. The current state in engineering concerning functional descriptions is therefore characterized by the coexistence of various approaches among design methodologists to defining function and by an ongoing confusion among practitioners about how to apply functional descriptions. This state seems not to be an intermediate phase that will be quickly replaced by one in which more clarity is achieved; it instead seems to be one that is relatively stable, with historical roots and with various advantages to engineering.