Mechanical design support system based on thinking process development diagram

Abstract

This paper describes a system that directly supports a design process in a mechanical domain. This system is based on a thinking process development diagram that draws distinctions between requirement, tasks, solutions, and implementation, which enables designers to expand and deepen their thoughts of design. The system provides five main functions that designers require in each phase of the proposed design process: (1) thinking process description support which enables designers to describe their thoughts, (2) creativity support by term association with thesauri, (3) timely display of design knowledge including know-how obtained through earlier failures, general design theories, standard-parts data, and past designs, (4) design problem solving support using 46 kinds of thinking operations, and (5) proper technology transfer support which accumulates not only design conclusions but also the design process. Though this system is applied to mechanical engineering as the first target domain, it can be easily expanded to many other domains such as architecture and electricity.