Process template based flexible resource integration for product innovative reuse design

The innovative design process of complex products is characteristic of top-down decomposition, dynamic change and circular iteration. Different design resources including tools, knowledge and available product objects are needed to assist designers in solving various design problems. In this paper, a process template based flexible design resource integration framework is proposed. The framework is divided into two levels, namely the process modelling level and the project running level. At the process modelling level, modelling of system objects such as design parameter, design task, design resource, design activity, etc. are described in detail, and sequential, projective, referential and hierarchical relationships among system objects are put forward to adapt to the characteristics of the innovative reuse design process. At the project running level, this article proposes three kinds of design task activating patterns such as the task-input pattern, the task-decomposition pattern and the task-output pattern and raises a first-diverge-then-converge based automatic integration algorithm for matching design resources to design tasks, and a customisation mechanism for design resource integration, all of which are used to drive the flexible integration of resources. Finally an innovative reuse design case is taken to demonstrate the flexibilities of the framework.