| Productivity is of major economic significance in all parts of the industrialized world. Due to growing costs and globalization of the marketplace, improvements in productivity require the creation of a reliable design in the shortest possible time. Since time-to-market and its associated costs are dominated by decisions made during the early stages of design, the importance of being able to make rational and correct design decisions in the early stages of product realization cannot be overemphasized.;A Robust Concept Exploration Method (RCEM) and the associated techniques are developed in this dissertation to facilitate concept exploration, which is a process of evaluating different design concepts and providing top-level design specifications, in the early stages of designing complex systems. In order to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the process of concept exploration itself and ultimately the productivity, an integrated design process is developed to introduce several quality aspects into the choice of top-level design specifications which are comprehensive, robust, flexible and modifiable. This is implemented by integrating several metrics and tools, including Taguchi's robust design principles, Suh's independence axiom and the Response Surface Methodology (RSM) into one multiobjective mathematical construct, namely, the compromise Decision Support Problem.;Implementation of the concepts in this dissertation involves testing the research hypotheses through two example problems, namely, the design of a two-bar structure and the conceptual design of a thermal system for solar powered irrigation. Associated with the application of the RCEM, the design of an integrated airframe/propulsion High Speed Civil Transport (HSCT) system is used as a case study to illustrate the design applications of the RCEM as well as further verify/validate the developed methods. |
