Patent ID: 7912791

Claim:
A method for synthesis of a routing of a vehicle with a design tool stored in a memory on a computer, comprising: a) dividing the vehicle into a plurality of zones, each of the zones including service variants and calculator variants; b) obtaining parameters of: different configurations of the service variants and the calculator variants and a percentage occurrence of the configurations, a sum of proportions of the configurations being considered equal to one, cost characteristics of components stored and weighted as a function of their respective installation proportions, and partial or complete mapping of the service variants onto the calculator variants; c) identifying valid routings including routings between the service variants and the calculator variants; d) evaluating, via a processor of the computer, routing cost of the valid routings for each configuration; e) determining, via the processor of the computer, the valid routing that minimizes a mean, weighted by the installation proportions of each configuration, of the routing costs for each configuration; f) displaying, in a first view on a display screen of the computer, the plurality of zones into which the service variants and the calculator variants are grouped, wherein the first view includes a guide to indicate how the plurality of zones are situated relative to one another, the plurality of zones schematically represent a product for which the routing is synthesized, and the first view shows the valid routings between the zones without showing the service variants, the calculator variants, and the valid routing within each of the zones between the service variants and the calculator variants; g) displaying, in a second view on the display screen, the valid routing between the service variants and the calculator variants within a single zone that minimizes the mean of the single zone of the plurality of zones, and the second view is generated by selecting the single zone from the plurality of zones displayed in the first view; and h) switching back and forth between the first view and the second view such that, in the first view, the valid routings between the zones are displayed without showing the valid routings within the zones and, in the second view, the valid routings within the zones are displayed.