Many issues in design and design management have been explored by building models which capture the relationships between different aspects of the problem at hand. These models require computer support to construct and analyse. However, appropriate modelling tools can be time-consuming to develop in a research environment. Reflecting upon five design research projects, this paper proposes that such projects can be facilitated by recognising the iterative and tightly-coupled nature of research and tool development, and by attempting to minimise the effort of solution prototyping within this process. Our approach is enabled by a software platform which can be rapidly configured to implement many conceivable modelling approaches. This configurability is complemented by an emerging library of modelling and analysis approaches tailored to explore design process systems. The platform-based approach enables any mix of modelling concepts to be easily created. We propose it could thus help researchers to explore a wide range of questions without being constrained to existing conventions for modelling - or for model integration.

Planning is an integral part of the complex product development system. While the value of using DSM as a valuable project tool has been widely discussed, few have proposed using DSM as a tool to assist in managing the planning activity itself. This paper proposes that such an approach could be used to communicate planning change requirements across individual teams involved with complex product development and design projects. Such a dynamic response to change also minimizes the role of plans as a creativity inhibitor suggested by some authors. Further development and use of this method in industry could help enhance communication between project actors enabling better planning activity synchronisation and consistently contributing to an overall improvement in project results.

This paper discusses a case study in which process simulation was applied to support the integration of life-cycle engineering activities into the existing design process at a major UK manufacturer of capital equipment. we demonstrate the practical value of process simulation as a tool to support the specification of changes to a complex, concurrent engineering design process. The paper also liilustrates how development of a design process simulation model can provide significant benefit to companies, not just in terms of the numerical results of simulation analysis, but through the understanding of process behaviour which is gained through validating the behaviour of the model in different iteration scenarios.

Companies which develop complex products are under constant pressure to produce better designs and to do so in less time, with lower cost and in more rational fashion than before. Achieving these goals often requires more than technical advancement; the processes by which products are developed must also be improved. Process improvement can be achieved in many ways, including the development of more robust plans, the introduction of better procedures and of new tools. In each case understanding the design process and its likely behavior is an essential prerequisite. When working with complex products this can pose a considerable challenge. In this paper we present a modeling framework which can support design process improvement activities ranging from process description to simulation and automation. The framework is implemented in the extensible software package 'P3', which has been applied to support process improvement projects in industry and academia. Four such studies in a UK aerospace company are discussed to illustrate the approach.

Many authors have proposed theories, models and methods in their search to explain or improve upon aspects of design practice.This field of literature, commonly known as design methodology, is primarily concerned with: ...the study of how designers work and think; the establishment of appropriate structures for the design process; the development and application of new design methods, techniques and procedures; and reflection on the nature and extent of design knowledge and its application to design problems. (Cross, 1984) Despite the extensive research undertaken since the 1950s, there is no single model which is agreed to provide a satisfactory description of the design process (Bahrami and Dagli, 1993). Likewise, there is no 'silver bullet' method which can be universally applied to achieve process improvement. Instead, most methods have a well-defined and often relatively narrow focus, ranging from the generation of mechanism concepts (e.g. Pahl and Beitz, 1996) through to the management of project risk (e.g. Baxter, 1995). Even so, implementation and use of such methods is often problematic, as experienced by Bucciarelli (1996). In this chapter, some popular approaches to the design process are presented and their practical relevance is discussed.Throughout the chapter, a classification framework is developed to support the discussion and to relate the diverse range of forms exhibited by these models.