A methodology for engineering design change analysis using system modelling and knowledge management technologies

In the current fiercely competitive market, engineering design change management in manufacturing companies is a critical factor for business success. Recognised as inevitable in product development, engineering changes may significantly influence lead time, development cost and product quality of new product development. It has been recognised that the earlier change issues are addressed, the greater product lifecycle costs can be saved. In this thesis, three main industrial requirements have been identified in engineering design change management, including: (i) a lack of formal methods to analyse the impacts of design changes on both functional requirements and physical components; (ii) a lack of methods to trace design change propagations; (iii) a lack of methods for conflict resolving in design change management. It is also identified that there is a lack of systematic method for reusing design knowledge to solve design conflicts. The literature review carried out in this project also confirms that there were no unified and systematic methods proposed to meet these industrial requirements. This thesis reports a methodology and tool to meet these requirements and help designers trace, analyse and evaluate engineering changes occurring in the product design phase. A modelling method is employed to enhance the traceability of potential design changes occurred between the functional requirements domain and physical structure domain of design. Based on functional and physical models, a matrix-based method is developed to analyse change propagations between components and help find out design conflicts arising from design changes. A knowledge based method has been proposed to resolve design conflicts by reusing previous design change knowledge. A web-based distributed system has been developed to implement the proposed methodology. An engineering design change example from the collaborating company has been used in a case study to help understand the methodology and prove its usefulness