A Preliminary Study on Product Family DNA in Industrial Design

From industrial design, the concepts of product family and product family DNA were introduced, and the relationship between industrial design and engineering design of product family was analyzed. The framework and representation structure of product family DNA design were proposed, and the research methods and key technologies were reviewed. The applications of product family DNA design in academia and industries were formulated, and the deficiencies were discussed. Taken the telephone form design as an example, a prototype product family DNA conceptual design system is implemented, which consists essentially of the knowledge agents. With this system, product designer can direct new products in the same family.