An Integrated Framework to Design Architecture, Configurations and Parameters of Adaptable Product with Robust Performance

An adaptable product is the one that can be changed/adapted, such as reconfigured and upgraded, during the product operation stage to satisfy the changes in requirements. Design of adaptable products can bring with both economic and environmental benefits. Adaptable design is the design paradigm that aims at creating adaptable products. Since parameter variations caused by uncertainties usually lead to variations of product performance, robustness has to be considered in design of adaptable products. This research aims at developing an integrated framework to design architecture, configurations and parameters of adaptable product such that the product can be adapted to satisfy the changed requirements, meanwhile the product performance is the least sensitive to parameter variations. In this work, design of an adaptable product in the embodiment design stage is conducted at three different levels: parameter, configuration and architecture levels. At the parameter level, an adaptable product can be achieved through the changes of parameter values. At the configuration level, an adaptable product can be achieved through the changes of product configurations. At the architecture level, an adaptable product can be achieved through selection of an open architecture to connect the platform of the product with the add-on modules by interfaces. Characteristics of adaptable design at the three different levels are discussed. Modeling methods to describe various configuration candidates in design and various configuration states in operation of an adaptable product are introduced. Moreover, evaluation methods considering both the product performances and the variations of the performances in terms of robustness are developed. Optimization models are introduced to identify the optimal design of the adaptable product with the best robustness. Case study is implemented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the integrated adaptable design approach.