Integrating Nonfunctional Requirements Into Axiomatic Design Methodology

Axiomatic design (AD) theory is a general framework for system design process based on mapping between several domains. In the AD theory, only the functional requirements (system functions) are considered in the design process, since the mapping between requirements and design parameters in AD does not include nonfunctional requirements (system attributes). This paper introduces an extended view of the system design process based on AD theory framework to incorporate nonfunctional requirements into the mapping between the problem domain and the solution domain. A systematic way of including nonfunctional requirements in the design process is presented, and an extended design matrix is introduced, which includes the mapping between a complete set of requirements (functional and nonfunctional) and corresponding design parameters (physical domain). We also present an approach to decide between solutions that satisfy nonfunctional requirements to a varying degree through the employment of the analytical hierarchy process.