Supporting early stage set-based concurrent engineering with value driven design

Abstract

Set-Based Concurrent Engineering is commonly adopted to drive the development of complex products and systems. However, its application requires design information about a future product that is often not mature enough in the early design stages, and that it is not encompassing a service and lifecycle-oriented perspective. There is a need for manufacturers to understand, since the early design stages, how customer value is created along the lifecycle of a product from a hardware and service perspective, and how to use such information to screen radically new technologies, trade-off promising design configurations and commit to a design concept. The paper presents an approach for the multidisciplinary value assessment of design concepts in sub-systems design, encompassing the high-level concept screening and the trade-off of different design concepts, and enabling the integration of value models results into a Set-based Concurrent Engineering process. The approach is described through its application in the case study of the development of a subsystem component for a commercial aircraft engine.