The Importance of the Integration of Design Methods in Robust Engineering Design.

Conceptual design is a very challenging and important stage of engineering design. Developing and selecting concepts of the future products implicitly determines its costs. In addition, the majority of product flaws are caused in the conceptual phase. In most cases they are detected late, during the production and use phases, and correcting them often demands much of the company divisions‟ time and energy, which in turn increases product costs. The faulty concepts, which remain unidentified and uncorrected during conceptual design, usually manifest themselves during production and/or use and can result in product malfunction or even failure, and accordingly increasing costs. Every product is developed to be as profitable as possible. Therefore, reaching a cost target is an important objective of product development. In making each decision in the product development process, it is important to consider the impact on the future costs of the product. Moreover, product flaws or faulty concepts can also be regarded in the sense of undesired behavior, like noise, vibration, or frictional heat. These undesired functions affect the product‟s performance and reliability. This hinders the requirement of robust design to ensure customer satisfaction, which is an essential part of integrated product development. The IPD approach starts with the understanding of customer needs and the management of requirements, considers the whole product life cycle, and leads to a continuous improvement of the design process, including the use of design methods     «

Conceptual design is a very challenging and important stage of engineering design. Developing and selecting concepts of the future products implicitly determines its costs. In addition, the majority of product flaws are caused in the conceptual phase. In most cases they are detected late, during the production and use phases, and correcting them often demands much of the company divisions‟ time and energy, which in turn increases product costs. The faulty concepts, which remain unidentified and...     »