Product conceptual design based on theory of belief functions

In the development phase, the designer makes decisions under uncertainty, contradiction and ignorance conditions. This paper presents an improved decision making process in such a way that when the designer made a decision he or she is shown at the same time the result of customer satisfaction on the decision made. In order to solve above problems, the paper describes the method which integrates the use of an axiomatic approach to designing and the Taguchi method of robust design. This approach implies the modelling of the development process as an evidence-reasoning network based on uncertain evidence described via the belief functions of the Dempster-Shafer theory. We introduce the coefficient of relative decrease of uncertainty in design process. From an example of belt-flywheel design we present a new hybrid paradigm for product/manufacturing design in uncertainty conditions.