Module division method of complex products for responding to user’s requirements

• Published in: Alexandria engineering journal Vol. 82; pp. 404 - 413
• Main Authors: Hao, Juan, Gao, Xinqin, Liu, Yong, Han, Zhoupeng
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 01-11-2023
• Subjects: Design Structure Matrix; Fuzzy C-means Algorithm; Modular division; User requirements
• ISSN: 1110-0168
• DOI: 10.1016/j.aej.2023.10.021

With the gradual diversification of personalized usage scenarios, user requirements play a direct role in product design decisions. Due to the problem of fuzzy demand caused by user cognitive bias, traditional design methods usually focus on realizing product functions and cannot effectively match user requirements. Therefore, this paper proposes a complex product module division method for user requirements. The method constitutes of three tasks, requirement analysis of module division, design mapping of module division and scheme implementation of module division. Firstly, based on the progressive architecture from initial requirements to precise requirements, the effective user requirements are obtained through similarity recommendation. Secondly, according to the four types of knowledge of function, geometry, physics and design, the design structure matrix is constructed to complete the Requirement-Function-Structure mapping. The improved Fuzzy C-means Algorithm is used to solve the mapping model, and finally a module division scheme that meets the user requirements is obtained. Taking the chip removal machine as an example, the rationality and effectiveness of the method are verified. The results show that the product modules divided by this method can effectively meet the multiple user requirements.