A Model for the Management of Design Project Issues. The Case of the Microsatellites Design
Last Updated on Wednesday, 09 February 2011 17:58
Authors: C. Belleval, I. Deniaud, C. Lerch
Institutions: University of Strasbourg (France)
Abstract: This article studies the resolution of problems related to the design of complex products using a systems engineering approach. We illustrate our discussion with a case study from the space sector pertaining to the design of microsatellites. We postulate that problem complexity depends on the nature of the interaction between product subsystems, as well as on the difficulty of defining an acceptable formulation of the problem by the project team. Our analysis tends to show that although systems engineering is effective for breaking a product into subsystems and managing the resulting issues, it is sometimes inefficient to deal with problems that are difficult to formulate. This is because systems engineering does not explicitly take into account the technical, organizational and cognitive contradictions inherent in the most innovative design problems.
Keywords: Design, contradiction, systems engineering, Vee cycle