Abstract

ABSTRACT
A Systematic Study of Design Conflict: Modeling, Representation, Resolution, and Application
Baiquan Yan, Ph.D.
Concordia University, 2013

Conflicts drive the development of technical systems and the evolution of design process. Conflict management, which mainly includes conflict identification and resolution, is a crucial part of design activity. This research conducts a systematic study and proposes a formal structure of design conflicts.
The first step of conflict management is to build up a formal model for technical system. Currently, there exist some inconsistences among different design theories because of the lack of a cohesive set of fundamental concepts about technical systems. This lack also causes misunderstanding among researchers and therefore hinders the development of design theories. This thesis presents a formal approach to representing technical systems. Both theoretical derivation and extensive example have shown that this formal representation meets the five requirements: completeness, clarity, independence, flexibility, and adaptability. A set five concepts— purpose, function, structure, behaviour and state— is identified and formally defined as the base set for technical systems.
The second step is to model conflicts based on the formalization of technical system. Current studies are based on heuristics and lack a systematic approach, and therefore fail to detect conflicts that are not predefined. This research puts forward a formal structure of design conflicts based on systematic analysis. This formal structure shows that any conflict is composed of at least three objects: two competing objects and one resource object that the former two contend for. This formal structure can be applied to different design fields and helps designers identify all conflicts existed in different design stages.
Based on the formal structure of conflicts and analysis of relation among the three objects in a conflict, this research also proposes three formal methods for detecting conflicts and presents a set of general resolution principles, which include modifying resource object, separating conflict relations in time or in space, changing the two competing objects, using optimization methods, and replacing the whole conflict.
An example demonstrates the application of the formal structures, followed with conclusion and suggestions for future research.