Combinatorial scheme for management of life cycle: Example for concrete macrotechnology
The paper describes a combinatorial scheme for the analysis and synthesis of product life cycle on the basis of a typical compressed structure: design of materials and manufacturing process. In addition, the following problems are studied: system refinement, series-parallel production process, and multistage design (design of product trajectories). Hierarchical combinatorial morphological approach is proposed. The solving process is based on ordinal expert knowledge. The following phases are examined: design of a basic system morphology, generation of local design alternatives, knowledge acquisition as ordinal estimates for local design alternatives and their compatibility, and synthesis of the best compositions. A realistic numerical example for concrete-macrotechnology (composing of concrete from constituents and selection of manufacturing alternatives) illustrates the approach.
management of life cycle concrete macrotechnology morphological approach modular design combinatorial optimization decision making