PRODUCT REDESIGN FOR PERFORMANCE, MANUFACTURE, AND ASSEMBLY: A RATIONAL METHODOLOGY TOWARDS TOTAL SYSTEM DESIGN.

This paper describes the objectives, the methodology, and the progress made in the project entitled 'Product Redesign for Performance, Manufacture and Assembly'. Redesign is the process of modifying or changing an existing design with the objective of improving one or more of its aspects. The aspects of an engineering design which concern us are performance, manufacture and assembly. The objectives of the research are to develop methods for the total system redesign of an engineering product, and to create a computer environment to implement these methods. In this paper we describe our overall approach towards achieving these objectives. One of the first steps towards achieving the aforementioned objectives was the development of a simple expert system which will be used to implement redesign procedures. The structure and current capabilities of this expert system are described.