An important aspect of engineering product design selection is the inevitable presence of variability in the selection process. There are mainly two types of variability: variability in the preferences of the decision maker (DM) and variability in attribute levels of the design alternatives. We address both kinds of variability in this paper. We first present a method for selection with preference variability alone. Our method is interactive and iterative and assumes only that the preferences of the DM reflect an implicit value function that is differentiable, quasi-concave and non-decreasing with respect to attributes. The DM states his/her preferences with a range (due to the variability) for marginal rate of substitution (MRS) between attributes at a series of trial designs. The method uses the range of MRS preferences to eliminate “dominated designs” and then to find a set of “potentially optimal designs.” We present a payload design selection example to demonstrate and verify our method. Finally, we extend our method for selection with preference variability to the case where the attribute levels of design alternatives also have variability. We assume that the variability in attribute levels can be quantified with a range of attribute levels.
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e-mail: azarm@umd.edu
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September 2006
Research Papers
Product Design Selection With Preference and Attribute Variability for an Implicit Value Function
A. K. Maddulapalli,
A. K. Maddulapalli
Graduate Research Assistant
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
University of Maryland
, College Park, MD 20742
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S. Azarm
S. Azarm
Professor
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
e-mail: azarm@umd.edu
University of Maryland
, College Park, MD 20742
Search for other works by this author on:
A. K. Maddulapalli
Graduate Research Assistant
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
University of Maryland
, College Park, MD 20742
S. Azarm
Professor
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
University of Maryland
, College Park, MD 20742e-mail: azarm@umd.edu
J. Mech. Des. Sep 2006, 128(5): 1027-1037 (11 pages)
Published Online: November 4, 2005
Article history
Received:
January 21, 2005
Revised:
November 4, 2005
Citation
Maddulapalli, A. K., and Azarm, S. (November 4, 2005). "Product Design Selection With Preference and Attribute Variability for an Implicit Value Function." ASME. J. Mech. Des. September 2006; 128(5): 1027–1037. https://doi.org/10.1115/1.2216728
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