A Design Process Model based on Design Working Spaces

The german design methodology demonstrated its usefulness for solving design problems by being applied in the enterprises’ design departments during the years. Design methodologists as Roth, Pahl, Beitz and Hubka developed an instrument for a systematic approach to solve design problems. This approach is strongly process oriented and describes together with the fundamentals of design, general strategies for solving design problems. Another approach followed by the researchers of CAD systems was concentrated on information modeling. Until now there was no approach combining these two different approaches consequently. In this article we introduce a concept which integrates these different views. In the first part we give an overview of the systematic approach of the german design methodology especially describe what they have in common. After that we introduce the statical fundamentals of the design process for technical systems. This part is conform with the information modeling approach. In the third part we describe the fundamentals of the process oriented aspects of the german design methodology with the conceptual model of the so called modeling space of design. Then we introduce so called design working spaces to structure and administer design solutions. Based upon the fundamental statical information model and the dynamical view of the design process we will finally give a proposal of an architecture and present the concept of process patterns for an intelligent CAD-System supporting the designer in the whole design process. We always illustrate the ideas with the help of a product example from the area of mechanical engineering.