Capturing Design Intent During Concept Evaluation Using Rough Numbers and TODIM Method

Abstract

Design concept evaluation is one of the critical stages of the early design process during which effective decision-making ensures the success of new product development (NPD). The information available to the designer during this stage is dynamic, incomplete, and qualitative. It is necessary to capture design intent during this stage to make the decision-making process effective. The main objective of this work is to reduce the uncertainty as well as subjectivity involved in the customers’ preference evaluations and the decision-makers' judgments, thus, improving the effectiveness of the concept evaluation process. This paper proposes a novel way of performing design concept evaluations by capturing and considering the risk preferences of designers, instead of considering the cost and benefit characteristics of design criteria. The advantage of rough numbers in handling subjectivity and the merits of prospect theory in calculating the risk preferences are combined to propose an integrated approach known as Rough-TODIM for the design concept evaluation. The decisions of the designers are captured in the form of profit/advantage, loss/ setback, and no profit/no loss during decision-making. This profit/loss represents the design intent during the product development process.