Study on the development of web-based product design support system

The creative design of product is a complex processing, multi-subject knowledge is involved, and it is needed to considering, reasoning and judging based on the accumulating of knowledge and experience, moreover, the creative dispersing thought of mankind should be combined. And it is obvious that having an efficient product design support system can enhance a company's competition effectively. This article sheds more lights on how developing a suitable product design support system easily according to every participant's specific requirement during the product design process. The development heart of the product design support system is that the system should be helpful to combine human-human and human-machine intelligence during collaborative product design process, and every design participant could adopt the development schema of such a system easily. The characteristics of product development and key challenges faced in developing product design support system integrating human-human and human-machine intelligence are identified. It also describes a prototype of web-based product design support system; its server part is composed of DSS basic component module sub-system, product information management sub-system, design repositories sub-system and design facilities sub-system. A primary DSS of human-machine incorporate optimization for flexible assembly system has been implemented as an example. The whole optimal DSS can integrate the intelligence of design examples, experts, designer and computer, and it also can support designer utilize the all knowledge resource to design.