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Making function modeling practically usable

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2013

Tetsuo Tomiyama ,
Thom J. van Beek ,
Andrés Alberto Alvarez Cabrera ,
Hitoshi Komoto  and
Valentina D'Amelio
Tetsuo Tomiyama*
Affiliation:
Manufacturing and Materials Department, Cranfield University, Cranfield, UK
Thom J. van Beek
Affiliation:
Faculty of Mechanical, Maritime, and Materials Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands
Andrés Alberto Alvarez Cabrera
Affiliation:
Faculty of Mechanical, Maritime, and Materials Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands
Hitoshi Komoto
Affiliation:
National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Tsukuba, Japan
Valentina D'Amelio
Affiliation:
Faculty of Mechanical, Maritime, and Materials Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands
*
Reprint requests to: Tetsuo Tomiyama, Cranfield University, Building 50, Manufacturing and Materials Department, Cranfield, Bedfordshire MK43 0AL, UK. E-mail: t.tomiyama@cranfield.ac.uk
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Abstract

Function modeling is considered potentially useful in various fields of engineering, including engineering design. However, a close look at practices reveals that practitioners do not use formal function modeling so much, while the concept of “function” frequently appears in many practical methods without a vigorous definition. This paper tries to understand why formal function modeling is not practically utilized in industry by analyzing usage cases of function. By observing product development activities in industry, the paper identifies three problems that prevent formal function modeling from wider applications in practices, namely, practitioners' neglect of function modeling, the lack of practically useful function reasoning, and the complexity of the methods and tools of formal function modeling that make them impractical. Finally, the paper proposes strategies to tackle these problems and illustrates some research efforts in this regard.

Keywords

FunctionFunction ModelingFunction ReasoningProduct DevelopmentSystems Architecting
Type
Response Papers
Information
AI EDAM , Volume 27 , Issue 3: Functional Descriptions in Engineering , August 2013 , pp. 301 - 309
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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