Framework for Platform System Design

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This PhD project will investigate the requirements for, and prototype, a framework/tool for platform design. In platform design the goal is to design a system that is highly flexible through the various options that can be used for each subsystem. This means that many system variants can be produced from the same platform, resulting in a system family. This approach should help to satisfy the continued market demand for product variety, whilst trying to prevent significant increases in engineering development and production costs. This is something which has to some degree been employed within automotive companies but as of yet has not made its way into the aerospace industry. To achieve this, an extensive literature review will be carried out to determine the current state of the art in this field, and to become familiar with the design tools and methodologies currently being applied in this domain. It is envisaged that the some of the key topics for investigation will relate to how the model is parameterised. The use of systems engineering tools and philosophies will be utilised to understand how design decisions and trade-offs are made for highly complex systems, so that this can also be incorporated into the design tool.The novel aspect of this research is the investigation of design at the platform level. This will enable designers of complex systems to parameterise product families for complex products, and to concurrently design a family of products which will allow them to meet the growing demand for variety of products and reach niche market segments with lesser lead times and development costs.