Patent ID: 8572004

Claim:
A method comprising: performing a design of experiment based statistical analysis on a design space defined by a plurality of values for a plurality of parameters; generating a plurality of potential best and worst cases for a design based, at least in part, on said performing the design of experiment based statistical analysis on the design space defined by the plurality of values for the plurality of parameters; seeding a population of a swarm intelligence based simulation of the design with the plurality of potential best and worst cases for the design, wherein said seeding the population of the swarm intelligence based simulation of the design with the plurality of potential best and worst cases for the design comprises, setting personal bests of each of a first plurality of simulation agents to one of the plurality of potential best cases; setting a collective best for the first plurality of simulation agents to a best of the plurality of potential best cases; setting personal worsts of each of a second plurality of simulation agents to one of the plurality of potential worst cases; and setting a collective worst for the second plurality of simulation agents to a worst of the plurality of potential worst cases, wherein the swarm intelligence based simulation employs the first and the second plurality of simulation agents; and generating an overall best case of the design and an overall worst case of the design based, at least in part, on an output of the swarm intelligence simulation.