On representations and dynamic analysis of concurrent engineering design

The iteration of design tasks in concurrent design is an unavoidable feature in contemporary engineering design. The work transformation matrix is a useful method, recently introduced for analysing a concurrent design process. This work develops a systematic representation of the work transformation matrix method, with a discrete state-space description of the design process. With this representation, the dynamics of the concurrent design process can be easily investigated and predicted, using well-established discrete system analysis and control synthesis techniques. Following the introduction of the new representation, a famous numerical example is revisited to illustrate the use of the new representation, while pointing out a few possibly misleading results in existing research works.