Short Programs

Axiomatic Design for Complex Systems

This course is in development for 2013 or beyond. The below description should be taken as an example of content and is subject to change. If you are interested in this course, please
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Course Summary  |  Learning Objectives  |  Who Should Attend  |  Program Outline  | 
Participants' Comments  |  About the Lecturers  |  Location  |  Updates

Course Summary

Learn how the Axiomatic Design (AD) helps top-down thinking when we design complex systems. This course will introduce design principles that will enable you to define problems free from preconceived solutions. The instructors will engage the course participants through interactive discussion using many industrial cases including, where possible, the participants’ own problems.

Many of today’s engineered systems, whether a very large-scale factory or a small-scale nanoproduct, are complex systems. When designing these systems, most challenging problems manifest at the system level, and decisions need to be made, often in the absence of understanding the complexity. In this course, you will learn how the Axiomatic Design principles enable you to overcome these challenges by identifying and reducing the complexity and by promoting functional, top-down design thinking.

We will introduce the basics of the Axiomatic Design approach, and will examine how each element of the Axiomatic Design process relates to complex systems design. We will present the latest developments of the Axiomatic Design approach to complex systems as well as a number of case studies and industrial examples ranging from large scale to nano-scale systems, and from design for six sigma to design for health care systems.

One example of our case studies is Health Care System. The health care delivery system is one of the least studied complex systems. Can we maximize the productivity by streamlining the patient flow while providing the best patient care? We will present ways to understand the complex nature of these interactions, and finding systematic solutions will be presented. Attempts have been made to facilitate the patient flow, to avoid the bottleneck by creating fast tracks in the Emergency Department (ED) of hospitals. We have recently found that the patient flow can be drastically improved by redesigning the fast track system based on Axiomatic Design and the overall patient waiting time could be decreased drastically (~50%).

In this course you will learn how to:

• understand the causes of complexity in your project,
• recognize various mistakes in designing and operating complex systems,
• understand the benefits of functional, top-down thinking in solving complex design problems,
• make good decisions in design and operation of complex systems with the Axiomatic Design thinking and processes.

Learning Objectives

1. Understand the important role of top-down functional thinking during problem definition and concept generation phase.
2. Grasp fundamental concepts in the Axiomatic Design approach such as design domains, design hierarchy, and functional coupling.
3. Understand the Axiomatic Design approach in the context of other design tools and methodologies such as DFSS.
4. Be able to formulate system design problems separate from preconceived solutions and use the concept of functional coupling in concept generation.
5. Be able to promote collective agreement in system-level discussions by providing clarity and accountability of the system’s functional requirements.

Who Should Attend

This course is suited to anyone who handles complex systems or design, and those who want to improve the quality and performance of their operations and decision making. Attendees will include engineers, division leaders, and program managers in industries such as automotive, aerospace, semiconductors, and health-care.

Program Outline

• Introduction
  • Understanding Complexity
  • Design (synthesis) vs. analysis
  • Functional thinking
• Fundamental concepts: Axiomatic Design (AD)
  • Design Domains
  • Design decomposition - Top-down design process
  • Functional independence
  • Information contents
  • Axiomatic Design in various design contexts
  • Other design tools and methodologies
• AD and Robust Design (RD) as a unified approach to DFSS
  • A primer on Six Sigma and Design for Six Sigma (DFSS)
  • Concept and elements of Robust Design
  • Integrating AD and RD into DFSS
• Case studies and examples
  • Design of a health care delivery system
  • Micro-nano system design
  • Design of an IC wafer processing system (Track machine)
  • Vehicle (automotive) system design

Participants' Comments

Senior Designer, Bobrick Washroom Equipment
“I really enjoyed the course and the concepts that we studied are permanently drilled into my viewpoint as a designer. I couldn't turn it off I wanted to.”

System Architect, The Informatics Applications Group (TIAG)
“Quite possibly the best investment I could have made in my job-related skills, and therefore my career, in the past year...at least since last summer's MIT short course!”

Systems Engineer, Lockheed Martin MS2
“It is nearly impossible to perform engineering design of large systems without some kind of methodology. Axiomatic design turns a chaotic cacophony into a symphony.”

Principal Systems Engineer, Goodrich
“The course was helpful in improving my decision making process while developing new products or improving existing products. It helped in exercising a different way of thinking about finding solutions to engineering problems.”

About The Lecturers

Professor Sang-Gook Kim
Dr. Kim is a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT, and currently serves as an acting director of the Park Center for Complex Systems.

Professor Kim has spent his professional career equally in academia and industry, and has extensive experience in the design and commercialization of microelectromechanical systems, commonly known as MEMS. Prof. Kim has been an MIT Mechanical Engineering faculty member since 2000. His areas of research include MEMS by digital printing, piezoelectric micro actuators, energy harvesting, and assembly of carbon nanotubes.

Dr. Kim received a B.S. from Seoul National University (1978), an S.M. from KAIST (1980), and a Ph.D. from MIT (1985) in mechanical engineering.

Dr. Hilario Oh
Dr. Oh is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT.

Dr. Oh spent 19 years in research on brittle fracture, fatigue, sheet metal forming, digital signal processing and wafer processing. He spent another 20 years in problem solving and in design for quality and productivity of semiconductor equipment and automotive parts and subsystems.

Dr. Oh received a B.S. from University of the Philippines, an M.S. from Purdue University, and a Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley.

Location

This course takes place on the MIT campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. We can also offer this course for groups of employees at your location. Please contact the Short Programs office for further details.

Updates

There are no updates at this time.