Automated quantitative functional decomposition in product design
Publication date
2026-07-02
Document type
Conference paper
Organisational unit
Conference
19th International Design Conference (DESIGN26) ; Cavtat, Dubrovnik, Croatia ; 18–21 May 2026
Publisher
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Series or journal
Proceedings of the Design Society
ISSN
Periodical volume
6
Book title
Design 2026
First page
787
Last page
796
Peer-reviewed
✅
Part of the university bibliography
✅
Language
English
Keyword
Functional modelling
Functional reasoning
Design automation
Early design phase
Artificial intelligence (AI)
Abstract
Functional decomposition shapes early design decisions but is largely qualitative, leaving units and measures implicit. This work introduces the Quantitative Functional Decomposition Problem, which formalizes functions and interfaces with measurable quantities, making decomposition solvable as a quantified planning problem. Two case studies show that the approach gives immediate feedback on the admissibility of functions and their connections. Design engineers get consistent quantified structures, which speed up iteration, reduce work and set targets for subsequent steps in the design process.
Description
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Version
Published version
Access right on openHSU
Metadata only access