Functional Modeling, Reverse Engineering, and Design Reuse

Abstract

Experience is a tremendous asset for any designer. To leverage the experience of many designers, a general methodology for case-based functional design is required. Function-based design is a natural foundation for this methodology because its goal is to structure the solution space and support concept generation. Gaining access to experience about how functions combine will help designers to explore more, better design concepts. This experience is gleaned by reverse engineering existing products and storing and indexing the information gained. This work studies the preliminary steps in matching functional information derived from reverse engineering to that generated in the design process. A language of function developed for reverse engineering is tested in the context of design.