Information modeling and reengineering for product development process

Design process is an important stage in product development. Information model is a useful tool in analyzing and improving complex design process. It can facilitate to rebuild the process through visualizing information flow. Owing to the disadvantages of describing complex design process with data flow diagram (DFD), the extended DFD with powerful description ability is put forward. After the extended DFD is transformed into information model, the present optimal design flow is evaluated and mapped to design structure matrix (DSM). Based on DSM, the reengineering of design process can help manage tasks in concurrent design process. Interpretative structural modeling (ISM) method is adopted to realize the partitioning programming of DSM. Grey theory and work transformation matrix (WTM) are used to find new sequence of the coupled block. Eventually, one case study is employed to illustrate the method and the result validates that it can shorten the time and guarantees the quality and function of design process.