Collaborative Research: Innovations in Product Flexibility

这项合作研究的主要目标是建立基本原则和全面的度量和决策工具，以支持柔性产品的设计。 产品柔性是指产品适应市场竞争压力、快速技术变革以及客户需求的能力。 具体来说，这项研究的重点是调查的基本原则和技术，以提高产品的灵活性，为未来的演变变化，即使这些变化的确切形式是不知道的先验。 为了实现这一目标，基础研究计划建立（1）一个全面的度量和决策工具，客观地评估和比较产品的灵活性，（2）基本原则和指导方针，设计灵活的产品架构，部分基于灵活的产品的实证研究，和（3）一个严格的，随机决策分析方法来解释预测柔性产品价值的困难，并确定具有适当柔性水平的设计。 该研究将导致改进的方法，设计创新，灵活的产品（1）更有效地表征灵活性，（2）建立基本原则和教学方法设计灵活的产品架构，（3）提供一个框架，使设计决策涉及灵活性，面对不确定性。 当这些知识转移到工业界时，将有助于提高质量，减少成本和产品上市时间，使其更可持续，更能满足人类需求和不断变化的市场。 为了将研究从实验室转移到课堂，将创建具有实践活动和深入示例的产品灵活性教学模块。 这些教学模块将在德州大学奥斯汀分校和美国空军学院的研究生和本科生课程中推出。 在产品设计和原型设计的研究生课程中，学生将应用研究成果为身体和精神残疾人设计灵活的辅助技术。

The primary objective of this collaborative research is to establish fundamental principles and a comprehensive metric and decision-making tool to support the design of flexible products. Product flexibility is defined as the ability of a product to adapt in response to factors such as competitive market pressures, rapid technological change, and transient and multi-dimensional customer requirements. Specifically, this research is focused on investigating the fundamental principles and techniques for enhancing the flexibility of a product for future evolutionary changes, even if the precise form of those changes is not known a priori. Towards this goal, basic research is planned for establishing (1) a comprehensive metric and decision-making tool for objectively evaluating and comparing the flexibility of products, (2) fundamental principles and teachable guidelines for designing flexible product architectures, based in part on empirical studies of flexible products, and (3) a rigorous, stochastic decision analysis method to account for the difficulty of forecasting the value of a flexible product and to identify designs with appropriate levels of flexibility. The research will lead to improved methods for designing innovative, flexible products by (1) more effectively characterizing flexibility, (2) establishing fundamental principles and teachable methods for designing flexible product architectures, and (3) providing a framework for making design decisions involving flexibility in the face of uncertainty. When transferred to industry, this knowledge will help improve the quality and reduce the cost and time to market of products that are more sustainable and responsive to human needs and changing markets. To transfer the research from the laboratory to the classroom, product flexibility teaching modules with hands-on activities and in-depth examples will be created. The teaching modules will be launched in graduate and undergraduate courses at UT-Austin and the United States Air Force Academy. In a graduate course on product design and prototyping, students will apply the research results to design flexible assistive technologies for persons with physical and mental disabilities.