Robust Design for Product Adaptation Considering Changes in Configurations and Parameters

Abstract Adaptable products are designed such that their configurations and parameters can be changed easily in the operation stage to satisfy changes in functional requirements. Design of adaptable products can extend lifespans of these products. A new robust adaptable product design method is introduced in this research to identify the optimal design including the product configurations and parameter values considering uncertainties in both product configurations and parameters. In this work, an AND-OR tree is used to model feasible design candidates and their configurations considering product adaptations, where each node represents a partial design solution. Different design candidates are created from the AND-OR tree through tree-based search, and a design candidate is defined by configurations of the original design and the adapted designs. Each configuration is further defined by parameters. A multi-level optimization method is used to obtain the optimal adaptable product design including its configurations and parameter values of these configurations. In this study, uncertainties of configurations are defined by probabilities for production adaptations, while uncertainties of parameters are defined by variations of parameter values. Both evaluation measures and their variations are considered in this robust adaptable product design method. A case study has been implemented to show how the developed method is used for the design of an adaptable mechanical system.