scholarly journals Predicting requirement change propagation, using higher order design structure matrices: an industry case study

2012 ◽  
Vol 23 (12) ◽  
pp. 905-926 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beshoy Morkos ◽  
Prabhu Shankar ◽  
Joshua D. Summers
2017 ◽  
Vol 139 (12) ◽  
Author(s):  
Inayat Ullah ◽  
Dunbing Tang ◽  
Qi Wang ◽  
Leilei Yin

Product family (PF) design is a widely used strategy in the industry, as it allows meeting diverse design requirements. Change propagation in any PF is difficult to predict. Consequently, while numerous design change management methodologies presently exist, their application is restricted to a single artifact. This issue is overcome in the present study. The proposed framework explores effective change propagation paths (CPPs) by considering the risks associated with design changes in the PF with the aim of minimizing the overall redesign cost. The propagated risk, which would result in rework, is quantified in terms of change impact and propagation likelihood. Moreover, a design structure matrix (DSM) based mathematical model and an algorithm for its implementation are proposed to investigate the change propagation across the PF. Finally, to demonstrate their effectiveness, a PF of electric kettles is examined in a case study. The study findings confirm that the proposed technique is appropriate for evaluating different CPPs in PF.


Author(s):  
Phyo Htet Hein ◽  
Varun Menon ◽  
Beshoy Morkos

Prior research performed by Morkos [1], culminated in the automated requirement change propagation prediction (ARCPP) tool which utilized natural language data in requirements to predict change propagation throughout a requirements document as a result of an initiating requirement change. Whereas the prior research proved requirements can be used to predict change propagation, the purpose of this case study is to understand why. Specifically, what parts of a requirement affect its ability to predict change propagation? This is performed by addressing two key research questions: (1) Is the requirement review depth affected by the number of relators selected to relate requirements and (2) What elements of a requirement are responsible for instigating change propagation, the physical (nouns) or functional (verbs) domain? The results of this study assist in understanding whether the physical or functional domain have a greater effect on the instigation of change propagation. The results indicated that the review depth, an indicator of the performance of the ARCPP tool, is not affected by the number of relators, but rather by the ability of relators in relating the propagating relationships. Further, nouns are found to be more contributing to predicting change propagation in requirements. Therefore, the physical domain is more effective in predicting requirement change propagation than the functional domain.


Author(s):  
Beshoy Morkos ◽  
Joshua D. Summers

This paper presents an industry case study investigating change propagation due to requirement changes. This paper makes use of a change propagation prediction tool, ΔDSM, to identify if the propagated changes could have been identified and predicted. The study used an automation firm’s client project as the study subject. The project entailed 160 requirements, changing over the span of 15 month. Engineering change notifications were developed for each change and documented under the firm’s data management system. This study makes use of the change notifications to identify if any of the change were as a result of a previous change. The findings of this paper indicated the changes that occurred could have been predicted as the ΔDSM was able to predict affected requirements. This was identified by finding subsequent requirements in the engineering change notification documentation that the ΔDSM indicated might change.


Author(s):  
Inayat Ullah ◽  
Dunbing Tang ◽  
Leilei Yin ◽  
Ishfaq Hussain ◽  
Qi Wang

Design projects have been surrounded by tight schedule and cost overruns. Therefore, it is indispensable to resolve the design changes in an economical way. This work introduces an advanced technique to assess and optimize change propagation paths for multiple change requirements occurring simultaneously during the product development process. A novel multiple change requirement algorithm and a mathematical model considering the overall propagated risk are developed, to explore cost-effective change propagation paths in terms of lead time. The risk is quantified with regard to propagation likelihood and change impact, which results in re-work. Design structure matrix framework is used to capture the dependencies between components. It is revealed that the change requirements execution sequence has a significant effect on the total number of change propagation paths, change steps, distinct change components, and completion time. This approach is illustrated by a case study, which indicates that the proposed methodology can assist the designer in exploring and selecting optimal change propagation paths.


Author(s):  
Xianfu Cheng ◽  
Zhihu Guo ◽  
Xiaotian Ma ◽  
Tian Yuan

Modular design is a widely used strategy that meets diverse customer requirements. Close relationships exist between parts inside a module and loose linkages between modules in the modular products. A change of one part or module may cause changes of other parts or modules, which in turn propagate through a product. This paper aims to present an approach to analyze the associations and change impacts between modules and identify influential modules in modular product design. The proposed framework explores all possible change propagation paths (CPPs), and measures change impact degrees between modules. In this article, a design structure matrix (DSM) is used to express dependence relationships between parts, and change propagation trees of affected parts within module are constructed. The influence of the affected part in the corresponding module is also analyzed, and a reachable matrix is employed to determine reachable parts of change propagation. The parallel breadth-first algorithm is used to search propagation paths. The influential modules are identified according to their comprehensive change impact degrees that are computed by the bat algorithm. Finally, a case study on the grab illustrates the impacts of design change in modular products.


2019 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel J. Povinelli ◽  
Gabrielle C. Glorioso ◽  
Shannon L. Kuznar ◽  
Mateja Pavlic

Abstract Hoerl and McCormack demonstrate that although animals possess a sophisticated temporal updating system, there is no evidence that they also possess a temporal reasoning system. This important case study is directly related to the broader claim that although animals are manifestly capable of first-order (perceptually-based) relational reasoning, they lack the capacity for higher-order, role-based relational reasoning. We argue this distinction applies to all domains of cognition.


Designs ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 31
Author(s):  
Daniel Moran ◽  
Atila Ertas ◽  
Utku Gulbulak

The continued displacement of refugees from their homes and homelands (now greater than 50 million people worldwide) places increased focus and attention on evolving the designs of temporary housing that is available to be provided to the refugee population, especially in rural areas where housing does not already exist and must be constructed in very little time. Complex engineering problems involving social issues, such as this case study, benefit from the use of Integrated Transdisciplinary (TD) Tools (ITDT) to effectively and efficiently address the design questions related to them. The integrated use of TD Tools such as Kano Analysis, KJ Diagrams, Critical to Quality (CTQ), House of Quality (HOQ)/Quality Function Design (QFD), Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ), Axiomatic Design (AD), Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM), and Design Structure Matrix (DSM) through an end-to-end unique design process leads to innovation and elimination of design conflicts for especially complicated design problems. The objective of this study is to examine the design of temporary refugee housing using integrated TD tools mentioned above. This research concludes that the use of the ITDT approach provides an innovative, decoupled design.


2015 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 269-280 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hu Qiao ◽  
Rong Mo ◽  
Ying Xiang

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to establish an adaptive assembly, to realize the adaptive changing of the models and to improve the flexibility and reliability of assembly change. For a three-dimensional (3D) computer-aided design (CAD) assembly in a changing process, there are two practical problems. One is delivering parameters’ information not smoothly. The other one is to easily destroy an assembly structure. Design/methodology/approach – The paper establishes associated parameters design structure matrix of related parts, and predicts possible propagation paths of the parameters. Based on the predicted path, structured storage is made for the affected parameters, tolerance range and the calculation relations. The study combines structured path information and all constrained assemblies to build the adaptive assembly, proposes an adaptive change algorithm for assembly changing and discusses the extendibility of the adaptive assembly. Findings – The approach would improve the flexibility and reliability of assembly change and be applied to different CAD platform. Practical implications – The examples illustrate the construction and adaptive behavior of the assembly and verify the feasibility and reasonability of the adaptive assembly in practical application. Originality/value – The adaptive assembly model proposed in the paper is an original method to assembly change. And compared with other methods, good results have been obtained.


2012 ◽  
Vol 134 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
George Platanitis ◽  
Remon Pop-Iliev ◽  
Ahmad Barari

This paper proposes the use of a design structure matrix/work transformation matrix (DSM/WTM)-based methodology in academic settings to serve engineering educators as a facilitating tool for predetermining the difficulty and feasibility of design engineering projects they assign, given both the time constraints of the academic term and the expected skill level of the respective learners. By using a third-year engineering design project as a case study, engineering students actively participated in this comprehensive use of DSM methodologies. The engineering design process has been thoroughly analyzed to determine convergence characteristics based on the eigenvalues of the system followed by a sensitivity analysis on the originally determined DSM based on data provided by students in terms of task durations and number of iterations for each task. Finally, an investigation of the design process convergence due to unexpected events or random disturbances has been conducted. The obtained predictive model of the design process was compared to the actual dynamics of the project as experienced by the students and the effect of random disturbances at any point in the design process has thereby been evaluated.


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