The objective of this work is to study, functional metrics (FMs) in Axiomatic Design (Suh 1990), their relationship to each other within the functional domain, and understand ways in which they add value to the design process and the design solution, as well as variables that influence that value

Zugl.: Ilmenau, Techn. Univ., Diss., 2009 u.d.T.: Fiege, René: Analyse des Beitrages von Axiomtic Design zur Modellierung serviceorientierter Architekturen

In recent years there has been great concern over what many are calling the “tuition bubble� in American higher education. Baumol and Bowen, in 1966, observed that personally delivered services, like a professor teaching in a university, are difficult to scale, which causes a continuing and compounded rise in real cost. Additionally, universities, in competing for students, tend to invest in expensive assets. The resulting cost of the education and the amount of student debt threatens to rise beyond the intrinsic economic value of a US college degree, especially in the face of equivalent substitutes. The overall objective of this research is not only to analyze but also to design, or re-design, some of the essential aspects of engineering education systems. A new design is proposed using principles from manufacturing, industrial engineering and axiomatic design. The proposed system is able to operate at lower costs while producing high-caliber engineers. The approach presented relies on the decomposition of the functional elements of engineering education as well as defining a quantum of learning as an inventory unit. Methods used include a value-added analysis, and value stream mapping, computer simulation and financial analysis. The results show that the net present value (NPV) for the student increases over the interval from [t start to t graduation] as the time to employment post gradation decreases for a given discount rate. This is due to receiving employment income sooner during the cash flow. Engineering schools might benefit economically from reduced costs and higher tuition revenue resulting from greater system capacity.

Traditionally in the Architectural / Engineering / Construction industry, the design and construction phases are conducted by multiple professional and trade disciplines having minimum interaction among them along a rather sequential process. These parties bring their different objectives to the project that are not necessarily aligned with the overall project objectives. Design professionals do not necessarily work together giving little or no consideration for the requirements or constraints of subsequent functions such as construction and operation and maintenance of the facility. Design documentation that communicates the design intent to the builder, contains errors and inconsistencies, are incomplete or are simply difficult to read. This results in poor designs that have to be changed or modified during the construction phase and even during the long-term facility operation, thus increasing total cost and time of execution. It has been established that the decisions made at early stages of the design process have the highest impact on the project lifecycle cost and facility performance. For that reason, new project delivery systems, software tools and lean principles have emerged in the industry enhancing collaboration among project participants and reducing the existing gap between the design and construction phases. The increased use of Building Information Modeling (BIM) allows project participants to generate, manage and share information through a 3D digital model to better collaborate, communicate and understand the design intent. Still, design and construction professionals do not necessarily share their models and collaborate in an integrated fashion to accrue the benefits of an early involvement during design. This research uses the Axiomatic Design (AD) methodology to analyze some essential aspects of the design process to propose an improved process that seeks to produce better designs by adding value and reducing waste. Axiomatic Design is a systems design methodology using matrix methods to systematically analyze the transformation of customer needs into functional requirements, design parameters, and process variables. In AD, design principles or design Axioms govern the analysis and decision making process to develop high quality product or system designs. This research proposes an integrated, BIM-based design approach embracing compliance with the two AD axioms. Axiom one, the Independence axiom, seeks to maintain the design adjustable and controllable, and implements lean principles, BIM processes and tools following the concepts established by a BIM Project Execution Plan. Computer simulation techniques, the development of metrics and the calculation of Axiom two, the Information Axiom, are used to assess the benefits of an improved process.

<p>In this thesis, a study of the rational design and fabrication of microfluidic systems for microsphere generation is presented. The required function of microfluidic systems is to produce microspheres with the following attributes: (i) the microsphere size being around one micron or less, (ii) the size uniformity (in particular coefficient of variation (CV)) being less than 5%, and (iii) the size range being adjustable as widely as possible.</p> <p>Micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) technology, largely referring to various micro-fabrication techniques in the context of this thesis, has been applied for decades to develop microfluidic systems that can fulfill the foregoing required function of microsphere generation; however, this goal has yet to be achieved. To change this situation was a motivation of the study presented in this thesis.</p> <p>The philosophy behind this study stands on combining an effective design theory and methodology called Axiomatic Design Theory (ADT) with advanced micro-fabrication techniques for the microfluidic systems development. Both theoretical developments and experimental validations were carried out in this study. Consequently, the study has led to the following conclusions: (i) Existing micro-fluidic systems are coupled designs according to ADT, which is responsible for a limited achievement of the required function; (ii) Existing micro-fabrication techniques, especially for pattern transfer, have difficulty in producing a typical feature of micro-fluidic systems - that is, a large overall size (~ mm) of the device but a small channel size (~nm); and (iii) Contemporary micro-fabrication techniques to the silicon-based microfluidic system may have reached a size limit for microspheres, i.e., ~1 micron.</p> <p>Through this study, the following contributions to the field of the microfluidic system technology have been made: (i) Producing three rational designs of microfluidic systems, device 1 (perforated silicon membrane), device 2 (integration of hydrodynamic flow focusing and crossflow principles), and device 3 (liquid chopper using a piezoelectric actuator), with each having a distinct advantage over the others and together having achieved the requirements, size uniformity (CV ⤠5%) and size controllability (1-186 &#x00B5;m); (ii) Proposing a new pattern transfer technique which combines a photolithography process with a direct writing lithography process (e.g., focused ion beam process); (iii) Proposing a decoupled design principle for micro-fluidic systems, which is effective in improving microfluidic systems for microsphere generation and is likely applicable to microfluidic systems for other applications; and (iv) Developing the mathematical models for the foregoing three devices, which can be used to further optimize the design and the microsphere generation process.</p>

<p>In this thesis, a study of the rational design and fabrication of microfluidic systems for microsphere generation is presented. The required function of microfluidic systems is to produce microspheres with the following attributes: (i) the microsphere size being around one micron or less, (ii) the size uniformity (in particular coefficient of variation (CV)) being less than 5%, and (iii) the size range being adjustable as widely as possible.</p> <p>Micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) technology, largely referring to various micro-fabrication techniques in the context of this thesis, has been applied for decades to develop microfluidic systems that can fulfill the foregoing required function of microsphere generation; however, this goal has yet to be achieved. To change this situation was a motivation of the study presented in this thesis.</p> <p>The philosophy behind this study stands on combining an effective design theory and methodology called Axiomatic Design Theory (ADT) with advanced micro-fabrication techniques for the microfluidic systems development. Both theoretical developments and experimental validations were carried out in this study. Consequently, the study has led to the following conclusions: (i) Existing micro-fluidic systems are coupled designs according to ADT, which is responsible for a limited achievement of the required function; (ii) Existing micro-fabrication techniques, especially for pattern transfer, have difficulty in producing a typical feature of micro-fluidic systems - that is, a large overall size (~ mm) of the device but a small channel size (~nm); and (iii) Contemporary micro-fabrication techniques to the silicon-based microfluidic system may have reached a size limit for microspheres, i.e., ~1 micron.</p> <p>Through this study, the following contributions to the field of the microfluidic system technology have been made: (i) Producing three rational designs of microfluidic systems, device 1 (perforated silicon membrane), device 2 (integration of hydrodynamic flow focusing and crossflow principles), and device 3 (liquid chopper using a piezoelectric actuator), with each having a distinct advantage over the others and together having achieved the requirements, size uniformity (CV ⤠5%) and size controllability (1-186 &#x00B5;m); (ii) Proposing a new pattern transfer technique which combines a photolithography process with a direct writing lithography process (e.g., focused ion beam process); (iii) Proposing a decoupled design principle for micro-fluidic systems, which is effective in improving microfluidic systems for microsphere generation and is likely applicable to microfluidic systems for other applications; and (iv) Developing the mathematical models for the foregoing three devices, which can be used to further optimize the design and the microsphere generation process.</p>

QA bearing technologies Ltd. (hereafter QA) is a custom manufacturer of bearings in a variety of types and sizes. This research concerns one of the processes in QA’s bearing manufacturing in which the individual bearings, once assembled, are packaged to prevent corrosion and attack from any environmental influence. QA currently employs a manual process, which is time-consuming and significantly limits QA’s productivity. This greatly raises a need to improve this process through the design of an automated process for bearing packaging. Various kinds of packaging machine are available in the market for this application. However, most of them are designed for general packaging purpose and simply combining them may result in the functional overlap as applied to the packaging process. This research aims to design an automatic bearing packaging system (ABPS) based on an advanced design theory, i.e., Axiomatic Design Theory (ADT). In the first part of this research, a set of general functional requirements (FRs) and constraints (CONs) were defined specifically based on the needs from the customers. All FRs were maintained independent to each other such that the following design wouldn’t result in functional overlap. Then, design parameters (DPs) in general level were created to satisfy the defined FRs, each being a functionally independent subsystem consists of both custom-design components and products existing in the market. The second part of the research was to decompose the FRs and DPs based on independent axiom of ADT into further levels until the conceptual design was accomplished. In this process, acceptable alternatives in different hierarchies were proposed for comparison in the decision making process. Also, the relationship between FRs and DPs in the same level was always maintained one-to-one, which allows readily for modification in future, if needed. In the third part of this research, the information axiom of ADT was utilized to find the best solution from alternatives. For this, each alternative was evaluated in terms of the information content that reflects the possibility of satisfying the objective FR. The one with least information content was determined as the best alternative. As a result of this research, two solutions with different degree of automation were recommended for the bearing packaging system. The first solution is featured with higher degree of automation and capable of packaging bearings with limited human interface and as result, the total cost for its implementation is relatively high. The second solution integrates semi-automated machines and simplified sealing strategy and as such, the cost for its implementation is significantly reduced. After the conceptual design is complete, ADT is further applied in the detailed design level for oiling system with custom-designed components and mechanism. For the design of certain DPs, the design process applying ADT is used to compare with conventional methods, proved to be more efficient and simplified. Eventually, the final solution proposed for the detailed design of oiling system is consistent with independent axiom of ADT.

Ur ett företagsekonomiskt perspektiv finns det ett stort intresse av att utveckla innovativa tjänster då forskning visar att det skapar hållbara konkurrensfördelar. Fastighetsföretag arbetar med tjänsteutveckling för att fylla sina fastigheter och arbetar tätt ihop med sina kunder där efterfrågan styr utvecklingsprocessen. Föreliggande studie testar Wang &amp; Tsais (2012) tjänsteutvecklingsmodell där metoderna tjänstekartläggning, ‘service blueprint’ och ‘axiomatic design’ utgör verktyg för fastighetsföretag. Med dessa metoder ska företaget identifiera kundernas behov och leverera en ny tjänst som uppfyller både interna och externa krav. Genom innovativ tjänsteutvecklingsprocess minskar på så sätt gapet mellan kunders förväntningar om vad företaget kan erbjuda för tjänster och fastighetsbolags uppfattningar om vilket behov kunderna har. Med denna utgångspunkt utformades studiens forskningsfrågor; -     Vilka tjänster kan fastighetsföretagen erbjuda för att matcha den efterfrågan som ställs av nyetablerade entreprenörer? -          Hur kan fastighetsföretag genom ’service blueprinting’, i ett nära samarbete med kunden, skapa innovativa tjänster med en långsiktig plan för lokalkontrakt? -          Hur arbetar fastighetsföretag med ’axiomatic design methodology’, för att konstruera tjänster som efterfrågas av nyetablerade entreprenörer, och på så sätt skapa hållbara konkurrensfördelar? / From a business perspective, there is a considerable interest in developing innovative services, as research shows that it creates sustainable competitive advantage. Real estate companies are working with service development to fill their properties and work closely with their customers where demand determines the development process. The present study tests the Wang &amp; Tsai (2012) service development model where the methods service mapping, service blueprint and axiomatic design provides tools for real estate companies. With these methods, the company shall identify customer needs and deliver a new service that meets both internal and external requirements. Through innovative service development process, the gap between customers’ expectations of what services the company can offer and the real estate companies’ perceptions of what needs the customers have decreases. On this basis, the research questions of the study were designed; -          What services can property companies offer to match the demand made by newly established entrepreneurs? -          How can the real estate company through service blueprinting, in a close cooperation with the customer, create innovative service with a long-term plan for local contracts? -          How do real estate companies work with axiomatic design methodology, to construct the services demanded by newly established entrepreneurs, and thus create sustainable competitive advantage?

Virtual Enterprise (VE) is an organizational business concept. Its key ingredients are collaboration among a set of member companies and integration of their competencies, which are needed for developing a new product or service. This concept is in response to the ever-increasing demand on the manufacturing enterprise to react quickly to changes in the market conditions and become agile enterprises. This thesis presents a quantitative study on the life cycle of Virtual Enterprises. Specifically, it covers the design and management phases. These two phases are modeled using system engineering as a foundation. This has led to the development of two new methods for designing and managing Virtual Enterprises. The design method uses Axiomatic Design Theory and a methodology for complex large systems. The management method is based on the Robust Design principles.

Virtual Enterprise (VE) is an organizational business concept. Its key ingredients are collaboration among a set of member companies and integration of their competencies, which are needed for developing a new product or service. This concept is in response to the ever-increasing demand on the manufacturing enterprise to react quickly to changes in the market conditions and become agile enterprises. This thesis presents a quantitative study on the life cycle of Virtual Enterprises. Specifically, it covers the design and management phases. These two phases are modeled using system engineering as a foundation. This has led to the development of two new methods for designing and managing Virtual Enterprises. The design method uses Axiomatic Design Theory and a methodology for complex large systems. The management method is based on the Robust Design principles.