The objective of this research project is to create, develop, and disseminate a design-repository framework that advances industry's and the design research community's ability to model, exchange, and reuse product design information. In contrast to traditional design databases, design repositories serve not only as archives, but also serve as repositories of heterogeneous knowledge and data that support representation, capture, sharing, and reuse of corporate design knowledge. To create the repository framework, basic research will be performed in the representation and modeling of design function, product architectures, and form through a fundamental and systematic study of 100-200 current products. The National Institute of Standards and Technology will disseminate the research results within a computational, application-neutral format.
If successful, the results of the research will contribute fundamental knowledge in the form of function and product-architecture representations to the design community. Most importantly, the results will improve product design in industry in two ways: (1) by developing a basic technological infrastructure to support the creation and use of design repositories in industry, and (2) by providing industry with access to design information in order to demonstrate the value of these repositories before they have to invest significant effort in their development. Thus, in addition to contributing basic research results in the area of design repositories, the research will produce sets of domain-specific prototype repositories that will be made available online via the world wide web. The results also open the doors to using design-by-analogy, product architecting, and design-for-assembly and manufacturing techniques early in the design and development process.
