PRODUCTIVITY, QUALITY AND DECISION THEORY BASED UPON AXIOMATIC DESIGN

The motto of the World Confederation of Productivity Science ”Wealth, Prosperity and Peace through Productivity” is an important true statement that is important fully to understand. However, it is also an important imperative to everybody in politics, civil services as well as in industry. Especially in manufacturing industries which have a direct effect on the wealth production, as it creates the tools we need in our daily life, this imperative is evident and very important. Studies have also shown a direct correlation between investment level in a country and the increase in labor productivity. Wealth production also requires that we create and produce the products that are needed in order to improve the welfare. We understand this as quality, ”fitness for use”. Today many products are complex systems that have to be designed in order to meet specific customer requirements on functionality, reliability and easy use. Market timing is also very important in order to meet the market windows, which especially for IT products are very short in time. Complexity must be combined with understandability and easy use through skillful engineering. Success requires today that the production processes and systems are designed integrated with the product design. We understand this as concurrent engineering. In order to improve our skill in engineering design we have to understand the fundamental principles of good design and define and use a decision theory for development work. Such a theory can be defined with Axiomatic Design as a base. This can be further developed, taught and used in practice in order to improve productivity and quality in industrial product realization. We have also to distinguish between tools, methods and fundamental principles for engineering design. Products and processes also steadily include more knowledge through the use of information technology. The use of modeling techniques and information technology integrated with such a decision theory is important.