Development of a Knowledge-based Assisted Product Design System

Abstract

The demand of high-quality products with short development time in the dynamic global market has forced researchers and industries to focus on various effective product development strategies. The author is carrying out research studies to explore the applicability of knowledge-based system technologies to today's competitive product design and development, with an emphasis on the design of high-quality products at the design stage. A framework of knowledge-intensive support approach for new product concepts is proposed in this article. Based on the proposed approach and methodologies, a prototype system named knowledge-based assisted product design system was designed and it implemented a module for the system, using fuzzy-logic techniques and methodology, design failure mode and effective analysis, to validate the product design. It can assist inexperienced users to perform analysis for quality improvement, alternative design evaluation and material selection, thus helping to enhance robustness of new products at the conceptual design stage. This article presents the underlying concepts of the development and shows the practical application with the prototype system with a case study.