Research on Micro-Factory Based on Leading Design

“领先设计”正在应用于微型车床，并扩展到微型工厂。制作了微型车床样机和主导设计支撑系统，并进行了评价。介绍了微工厂主导设计应用中出现的一些问题和新概念。在主导设计中，设计师被允许通过假设一些未建立的、虚拟的技术基础可用来继续和完成设计过程。采用模拟退火法优化计算，构建了定量设计阶段的领先设计支持系统。难度作为评价函数，这样我们就可以用成本（难度）最小来描述开发所需技术元素的设计结果。我们以微型工厂的一个组成部分——微型车床为设计对象。首先，我们制作了一个由现有机械元件组成的微型车床原型。接下来，我们使用原型设计和性能数据运行领先的设计支持系统，并且我们已经获得了关于实现所需设计规范需要在技术基础上进行多少进一步开发的观点。提出了将这种优化计算方法应用于微工厂设计的一些困难。微工厂包括许多流程，每个流程包括几个组件。设计人员对每个工艺都有许多可能的组件组合，它们的规格是相互关联的。这种情况使得设计条件非常复杂。因此，我们需要在早期阶段进行决策的“模式设计”。在模式研究中，我们引入了“模式观”的概念。视点具有定性属性值，每种模式对应于视点的这些属性值的组合。我们使用系统总体性能规格和每个元素规格之间的一些观点来描述网络结构。

"Leading Design" is being applied to micro lathe, and expanded to the microfactory. Prototype of micro lathe and leading design support system are made and evaluated. Some problems and new concepts are described, which appear in leading design application to microfactory.In the leading design, designers are allowed to proceed and complete a design process by assuming some non-established, virtual technical fundamentals to be available. We made a leading design support system for quantitative design phase, using optimizing calculation with simulated annealing method. Difficulty is used as evaluation function, so that we can describe the design result with cost (difficulty) minimum for developing the required technical elements.We pickup the micro lathe, which is one component of microfactory, as a design object. At first, we made a prototype of micro lathe constituted from existing mechanical elements. Next, we run out the leading design support system using the prototype design and performance data, and we have obtained the perspectives about how much further development in technical fundamentals is necessary of achieve the required design specification.Some difficulties are brought out to applying this optimizing calculation approach to the microfactory design. Microfactory includes many processes, and each process includes several components. Designers have many possible combinations of components for each process, and specifications of them are related to each other. This situation makes the design condition very complex. So, we need "mode design" for decision making at earlier stage. In the mode study, we introduce the concept of "viewpoint of mode". Viewpoints have qualitative attribute values, and each mode corresponds to the combinations of these attribute values of viewpoints. We describe a network structure using some viewpoints between total system performance specifications and specifications of each element.