ENGINEERING OPERATIONS

Engineering Functional Operations
(on the basis of Altshuller's levels of creativity)

( basic reference:
G.S. Altshuller, Creativity as Exact Science. The Theory of the Solution of Inventive Problems. Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, London, 1984. )

1. Selection of object (an engineering decision)
2. Modification of object
3. Design of a new object
4. Synthesis of a new system of objects
5. Synthesis of a new systems on the basis of new objects

Basic System Operations:
(a) system description/modeling,
(b) problems for decomposable (modular, composable, composite) systems

1. Description and presentation (modeling)

1a. Functional description and /or presentation
1b. Hierarchical (tree-like) system model

2. Analysis and Evaluation

2a. Assessment in multiparameter space
2b. Multilevel assessment of the system and its parts (components, elements)

3. Analysis as Detection of Bottlenecks

3a. Detection of critical parameters
3b. Detection of bottlenecks (by system structure, by system parts, by element interconnection)

4. Comparison

4a. Multiparameter comparison of the objects
4b. Comparison of system versions (by system structure, by system parts, by element interconnection)

5. Selection

5a. Multicriteria selection
5b. Multilevel system's selection

6. Synthesis

6a. Optimal design
6b. Two problems:
(i) selection of the best system version;
(ii) hierarchical Bottom-Up synthesis

7. Transformation (e.g., modification, improvement, adaptation, change, approximation)

7a. Parameter optimization
7b. Generation of improvement actions and planning of improvement strategies
7c. Aggregation

8. Multistage system design (design of system trajectory)

9. Combinatorial evolution of system and system forecasting

Hierarchical Morphological Multicriteria Design (HMMD)
(extended version):

( basic references:
(i) M.Sh. Levin, Combinatorial Engineering of Decomposable Systems. Springer, 1998.
(ii) M.Sh. Levin, Composite Systems Decisions. Springer, 2006. )

Phase 1. Top-Down design and description of hierarchical system model

Phase 2. Bottom-Up hierarchcial scheme for selection and composing of design alternative (local decisions DA's)

Phase 3. Analysis of composite decisions, (composite DA's, versions of the designed system) and revelation of bottlenecks

Phase 4. Improvement of composite decisions

Phase 5. Multi-stage transformation (adaptation, improvement, reenginering) of system

Combinatorial Engineering Frameworks for Hierarchical Modular Systems:

( basic reference:
M.Sh. Levin, Note on combinatorial engineering frameworks for hierarchical modular systems. Electronic preprint. 11 pp., Mar. 29, 2013.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1304.0030 [math.OC] )

Framework 1. Design of hierarchical system model (expert procedures, hierarchical clustering, ontology design, spanning trees, 'optimal' organizational hierarchy)

Framework 2. Bottom-Up combinatorial system synthesis

Framework 3. Evaluation of system (quantitative estimates, ordinal estimates, interval multiset estimates)

Framework 4. Detection of system bottlenecks (system bottleneck, composite system bottleneck, predictive detection of system bottleneck)

Framework 5. System improvement/extension, modification of system structure

Framework 6. Multistage system design (design of system trajectory)

Framework 7. System combinatorial evolution and forecasting

Framework 8 (additional). Aggregation of structured system solutions

Bibliography

Books
1. G.S. Altshuller, Creativity as Exact Science. The Theory of the Solution of Inventive Problems. Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, London, 1984.
2. C.Y. Baldwin, and K.B. Clark, Design Rules: The Power of Modularity. Vol. 1, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2000.
3. D.M. Buede, The Engineering Design of Systems: Models and Methods. New York: J.Wiley and Sons, 1999.
4. A. Chakrabarti, (ed.), Engineering Design Synthesis: Understanding, Approaches and Tools. Springer, London, 2002.
5. A. Kusiak, Engineering Design: Products, Processes, and Systems. New York: Academic Press, 1999.
6. M.Sh. Levin, Combinatorial Engineering of Decomposable Systems, Kluwer (now: Springer), 1998.
7. M.Sh. Levin, Composite Systems Decisions. Springer, 2006.
8. M.Sh. Levin, Decision Support Technology for Modular Systems. Electronic book. 341 pp. (in Russian). 2013.
http://www.mslevin.iitp.ru/Levin-bk-Nov2013-071.pdf
(pdf-file)
9. M.Sh. Levin, Modular System Design and Evaluation. Springer, 2015 (Due: Sep. 2014).
10. G. Pahl, and W. Beitz, Engineering Design. A Systematic Approach. London: The Design Council & Springer-Verlag, 1988.

Some Papers
1. C.Y. Baldwin and K.B. Clark, Managing in an age of modularity. Harvard Business Review, 84-93, Sept.-Oct. 1997.
2. M.Sh. Levin, Combinatorial technological systems problems (examples for communication system).
Intl. Conf. on Systems Engineering and Modeling ICSEM-2007, 24-32, March 20-23, Israel, 2007.
3. M.Sh. Levin, Modular system synthesis: Example for composite packaged software.
IEEE Trans. on SMC, Part C, 35(4), 544-553, 2005.
4. M.Sh. Levin, M.A. Danieli, Hierarchical decision making framework for evaluation and
improvement of composite systems (example for building). INFORMATICA (Lith. Acad. of Sci.), 16(2), 213-240, 2005.
5. M. Yahyaei, Y. Suzuki, Y. Jin, PMT: Modeling Enterprise Operations and Organizations, Proceedings of the Computers and Information in Engineering Conference IDETC/CIE 2009, 2009, DETC2009-87117.
6. Levin M.Sh., Towards Combinatorial Evolution of Composite Systems. Expert Systems with Applications,
40(4), 1342-1351, 2013.
(sciencedirect)

Electronic Preprints
1. M.Sh. Levin, Aggregation of composite solutions: strategies, models, examples.
Electronic preprint. 72 pp., Nov. 29, 2011.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1111.6983 [cs.SE]
2. M.Sh. Levin, Morphological methods for design of modular systems (a survey).
Electronic preprint. 20 pp., Jan. 9, 2012.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1201.1712 [cs.SE]
3. M.Sh. Levin, Multiset estimates and combinatorial synthesis. Electronic preprint. 30 pp., May 9, 2012.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1205.2046 [cs.SY]
4. M.Sh. Levin, Towards communication network development (structural systems issues, combinatorial problems).
IEEE Region 8 Int. Conf. Sibircon 2010, vol. 1, 204-208, 2010.
5. M.Sh. Levin, Composition of modular telemetry system with interval multiset estimates. Electronic preprint. 9 pp., July 25, 2012.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1207.6051 [cs.SY]
6. M.Sh. Levin, Composite strategy for multicriteria ranking/sorting (methodological issues, examples). Electronic preprint. 24 pp., Nov. 9, 2012.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1211.2245 [math.OC]
7. M.Sh. Levin, Towards design of hierarchy (research survey). Electronic preprint. 36 pp., Dec. 8, 2012.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1212.1735 [math.OC]
8. M.Sh. Levin, Note on combinatorial engineering frameworks for hierarchical modular systems. Electronic preprint. 11 pp., Mar. 29, 2013.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1304.0030 [math.OC]
9. M.Sh. Levin, Improvement/extension of modular systems as combinatorial reengineering (survey). Electronic preprint. 24 pp., Apr. 17, 2013.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1304.4965 [cs.AI]
10. M.Sh. Levin, Note on evaluation of hierarchical modular systems. Electronic preprint. 15 pp., May 21, 2013.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1305.4917 [cs.AI]

Dissertations
1. Majid Yahyaei, Modeling Engineering Operations and Organizations for Productivity Improvement, PhD Thesis, University of Southern California (Mechanical Engineering), May 2010.