From concept to specification maintaining early design intent

Abstract

Early design intent can be compromised as decisions transition in the design process from early concepts to prototyping and to the final specification. This paper presents a method to support designers in the decision making process in the design of innovative products. Bearing selection in kinetic design is used to demonstrate how implementation decisions made in the late stages can heavily impact the early design intent. An inductive research approach is adopted to analyze a collection of existing kinetic products with rotational joints across scales and domains. The resulting macroscopic decision trees demonstrate a way towards a new type of support systems that can be applied at the earliest stage of functional prototyping. An industry case is used to validate this two-stage knowledge schema representation. This method is viewed as a foundational step towards the development of future knowledge-based systems that help teams across disciplines develop creative solutions and maintain early design intent.