Books.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.
Overview
Nam P. Suh focussed his axiomatic design theories on methods to understand and deal with complexity. Suh is a well-respected designer and researcher in the fields of manufacturing and composite materials. He is best known for his systems that aim to speed up and simplify the process of design for manufacturing. The 'axioms' in axiomatic design refer to a process to help engineers reduce design specifications down to their simplest components, so that the engineers can produce the simplest possible solution to a problem. Complexity, besides being a key area of burgeoning research in disciplines interested in complex systems and chaos theory (like computer science and physics), is a complicating factor in engineering design that many engineers find difficult to overcome. Suh's multidisciplinary exploration of complex systems is meant to eliminate much of the confusion and allow engineers to accommodate complexity within simple, elegant design solutions.
Synopsis
Suh (mechanical engineering, Massachusetts, Institute of Technology) offers a general theoretical framework that may be used to solve complexity problems in engineering, science, and even in certain nontechnical areas. To achieve this, he has defined complexity narrowly as a measure of uncertainty in achieving a set of design goals that a system much satisfy. His theory differs from others in making complexity a relative rather than absolute quantity, and in measuring complexity in the functional rather than the physical domain. A new and unique concept that is a direct consequence of the theory, Functional Periodicy, can be introduced to reduce the complexity of a system. The book was written to be used as a supplement text in courses on system analysis and design. Annotation ©2005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR