A Synthesis Decision Framework for Early-Stage Innovative Design

Abstract

Design synthesis is an abductive reasoning process from abstract intents to concrete instantiations under constraints. This process involves two stages: purposeful "alternative creation" and systematic "alternative selection". This paper presents a synthesis framework to support decision making during these two phases for early-stage innovative design. For alternative creation, a decision process that uses three synthesis reasoning operations to generate innovative options is provided. For alternative selection, an aggregation method that combines multiple preferences to choose the most preferred option is developed. This decision framework can be seen as a theoretical generalization of the Axiomatic Design Theory to better support design synthesis.