Towards life-cycle awareness in decision support tools for engineering design

In this paper a decision support tool with the focus on how to generate and visualize decision base coupled to the business agreement is outlined and discussed. Decision support tools for the early design phases are few and especially tools that visualize the readiness level of activities throughout the product life-cycle. Aiming for the sustainable society there is an indication that business-to-business manufacturers move toward providing a function rather than selling off the hardware and providing separate services. This increased responsibility for the function provider implies that early phase development needs intensified life-cycle awareness to minimize cost and maximize customer satisfaction. The main contributions from this paper are the outline of the decision support tool, the presented example scenario and aspects to consider when developing a multi-disciplinary decision support tool for the early design phasesGodkänd; 2009; 20090115 (tobias)Fastelaboratoriet – VINNEXC, ProViking THINK - Team för Heterogen Innovationskunskap, NFFP4 – Erfarenhetsåterkopplin