Rediscovering the analysis of interconnected decision areas
The method known as the analysis of interconnected decision areas (AIDA) has been in use for nearly 40 years, but has made little headway into engineering design. This paper describes an implementation of AIDA that is useful to engineering designers wishing to combine the solution principles of various subfunctions within a product in new ways. Traditionally, the method is used to understand how one decision affects the options available to other decisions in a large-scale project. The method is to be used interactively with designers participating in a brainstorming session so that ideas are added to AIDA and immediately combined with other compatible ideas. The existing implementation has been tested in a classroom setting in which upper level undergraduates have successfully used the AIDA method along with numerous of design methods to solve conceptual design problems.
brainstorming constraint satisfaction decision making function structure