Parametric design adaptation for competitive products

Very often product development is seen as a process where designers iterate through several design cycles until they converge upon a design that satisfies all of the necessary requirements—design within a single generation. If one takes the view that products change (i.e. adapt and evolve), a broader view must be adopted to capture the drivers of design adaptation across multiple product generations. This paper offers a new multi-generation conceptual framework of parametric design adaptation for consumer products, called the Artisan–Patron (AP) framework, and a complementary computational model. The AP framework captures the interaction between manufacturers (the Artisan) and consumers (the Patron) by structuring the various relevant information (e.g., consumer taste, government policy, cost of raw materials, etc.). Additionally, based on this framework, a corresponding computational model is developed, which allows engineers to find optimal settings for the design variables in a dynamic multi-generation environment. The utility of the conceptual framework and the computational model is demonstrated by considering the parametric design adaptation of the automobile with respect to two design parameters—engine horsepower and weight—based on historical automotive industry data.