Measurement foundations for design engineering methods

Abstract

Among the many tasks designers must perform, evaluation of concepts based on performance criteria is fundamental. A formal evaluation of a design defines a measurement of the design: an assessment reflected by real valued numbers. A measurement requires some basic a-priori information from the designer. In particular, a base-point design is required from which the remaining designs are relatively measured. Also, a metric reference design is required to compare the deviation of each remaining design from the base point design. Given these two reference designs, any other design can be evaluated numerically. Such engineering methods as concept selection charts, QFD, optimization, and many curr..