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CASE-BASED REASONING IN

CONCEPTUAL DESIGN
Hannu IIVONEN and Asko RIITAHUHTA
Machine Design, Tampere University of Technology, P.O. Box 589, FIN-33101
Tampere, Finland

Abstract. In systematic design the overall function is the relationship between


inputs and outputs of a plant, machine, or assembly. This overall function is defined
by the requirements and it is usually divided into sub-functions to be solved
separately, because it is easier to find solutions for the smaller sub-functions.
Finding the sub-functions and the solutions for them could sometimes be difficult
and requires a lot of experience from the designer. The idea of this reaserch is to use
Case-based reasoning to help an inexperienced designer in finding the function
structure and the possible solutions for the sub-functions.

1. Introduction
In todays world the ever growing competition creates a need for shorter design and
production times. Several artificial intelligence techniques are used in design to achieve this
goal. A Model-Based Expert System for an Adaptive Design, e.g. configuration of process
plants and mechatronic products is developed at the Tampere University of Technology. At
the moment tools for an Original Design are being developed and a different kind of
technique is required for this purpose.
2. Systematic design approach
The design process is a flow of consecutive steps as described in Figure 1 (Pahl and Beitz,
1984). The main phases are:

Clarification of the task


Conceptual design
Embodiment design
Detail design

At every step, a decision has to be made as to whether the next step can be taken or
previous steps have first to be repeated (Pahl and Beitz, 1984). Thus the process has an
iterative nature.

Task

Clarify the task


Elaborate the specification

Specification

Identify essential problems


Establish function structures
Search for solution principles
Combine and firm up into concept variants
Evaluate against technical and economic criteria

Concept

Develop preliminary layouts and form designs


Select best preliminary layouts
Refine and evaluate against technical and economic criteria

Preliminary layout

Optimize and complete form designs


Check for errors and cost effectiveness
Prepare the preliminary parts list and production documents

Definitive layout

Finalize details
Complete detail drawings and production documents
Check all documents

Documentation

Solution

Figure 1. Steps of the design process.

The main interest in this paper is in the conceptual design, which can also be divided
into steps as shown in Figure 2 (Pahl and Beitz, 1984). The steps are:

Abstract to identify the essential problems


Establish function structures (Overall function - sub-functions)
Search for solution principles to fulfil the sub-functions
Combine solution principles to fulfil the overall function
Select suitable combinations
Firm up into concept variants
Evaluate concept variants against technical and economic criteria

When establishing the function structures, the overall function has to be divided into
sub-functions as shown in Figure 3 (Pahl and Beitz, 1984). This is done, because very often
the overall function is so complex that it is difficult to find the relationships between inputs
and outputs, to identify the necessary physical processes, and, because a large number of
assemblies and components is involved. The combination of individual sub-functions
results in a function structure.

Specification

Information
Abstract to identify essential problems
Definition
Establish function structures
Overall function - sub-functions

Creation

Search for solution principles to fullfil the sub-functions


Conceptual
Design
Combine solution principles to fullfil the overall function

Select suitable combinations

Firm up into concept variants


Evaluation
Check
Evaluate concept variants agains technical and economic criteria

Decision
Concept

Figure 2. Steps of the conceptual design.

In addition to this internationally accepted design method, also known as a consensus


method, Roth has developed a method, where new usage possibilities for known technical
solutions are developed by functional design.
Since 1960's construction catalogues have been developed in order to help designers in
finding solutions for the sub-functions of the function structure. Because the construction
catalogues are not generally available on computer, the usage of them is decreased as the
usage of CAD systems is increasing.
In addition to shortening of design time, the more and more important new design points
of view (Design for X), e.g. the environmental issues (Design for Environment), safety
issues (Design for Safety), etc. increase the need of methodological design.
Functional design has been researched from the Design for Environment point of view at
Tokyo University (Tomiyama et al., 1992). They have developed a design tool called
Sysfund and it was used in GNOSIS, the test case no. 7 of the international research
program IMS, Intelligent Manufacturing Systems.
In the case of original designs, it is often very difficult to find the sub-functions and their
relationships, in order to create the function structure. There is a lack of computer aided
tools for this phase of the design process.

Figure 3. Establishing a function structure by breaking down an overall function into


sub-functions.

In the case of variant design, the function structure is known, but there are some other
problems in configuration of the product, which are dealt in the PRODEAL Technology
Program for Enhancement of Process Plant Realization in Finland funded by TEKES and
major process plant delivery companies (Riitahuhta and Salminen, 1994). In this paper an
idea of an innovative design tool based on commercial tools is presented. Automatic
component selection project ongoing at the Tampere University of Technology is part of
this program (Paasiala et al., 1993). This project deals with the configuration of products
assembled of prefabricated components.
Once the function structure is established, the next step is to find suitable solutions for
the sub-functions. Computer aided tools are also needed in this phase. There should be a
tool to effectively find several possible solutions for a certain sub-function. Case-based
reasoning is a tool that can be used in solving both of these problems.
3. Case-based reasoning
Case-based reasoning (CBR) is a relatively new approach to decision automation.
Traditional expert systems attempt to model problem solving as a deductive process, e.g.
rule based expert systems. However, there is evidence that human experts remember and
adapt solutions from previous problems. This is also the idea behind CBR. It is a technique
of comparing the current case to a library of cases with known solutions.
These previous solutions are stored as cases in a case base. When a search fails to locate
a similar case, the search itself becomes the basis for a new case, which can be compared to
learning from experience. Thus the CBR system can keep pace with a changing
environment, eliminating the need for repeated software upgrades performed by knowledge
engineers. Because of the simple knowledge representation, the case base manager does not
need to be a programmer.

A program called CBR Express by Inference Corporation was used as a CBR tool in this
study. It is a Microsoft Windows based program and the user interface is very simple. The
knowledge bases i.e. the case bases can be built directly by the people, who have the
knowledge. There is no need for a knowledge engineer. With CBR Express the initial
search, which is used to describe the problem, uses natural unconstrained language. Then
the search is completed with questions related to possible cases. When the operator answers
the questions, the score for matching cases increases, until one or several cases become
possible solutions for the problem.
4. CBR in conceptual design
In this study CBR is used in two phases of conceptual design. These are the establishment
of function structures and the search for solution principles. In the former phase, cases can
be used to store and retrieve the function structures of previous products and to help the
user with additional information about the process. In the latter phase, different solution
principles can be stored in cases, so that the user of the system can find them easily by
describing the function in natural language.
The user interface of the search panel of the CBR Express is shown in Figure 4. The
main parts are the description of the problem, questions, and matching cases/actions.

Figure 4. CBR Express user interface.

Figure 5. Hypertext help file connected to recommended action.

Figure 6. Search for solution principles.

The user describes his/her problem in natural language and the program finds possible
cases and questions included in cases. Cases are given scores, which correspond to the
match of each case. In Figure 4 the highest score is for case establishing function structures.
The corresponding action is shown in Figure 5. Windows hypertext help file is used to
provide more information in establishing the function structures. The user can browse
through the help file and then return to the CBR Express for further searching.
An example for the usage of CBR Express in searching solution principles for subfunctions is shown in Figure 6. User searches for solutions to the sub-function "change
energy", which is one of the sub-functions in the function structure of the rig for testing
impulse torque loading of keyed connections described as an example of conceptual design
in Pahl and Beitz, 1984.
CBR Express finds some matching cases with low scores and presents some questions
connected to theses cases. There are different types of answers to the questions available in
CBR Express: Yes/No, Numerical, List of choices, and Text. The type of answer is defined,
when a question is defined in a case.
When the user has answered some of the questions, the score of some cases has
increased close to a perfect match 100, and the score of some cases has decreased, so that
they were dropped from list of matching cases as shown in Figure 7. The user can switch
between the list of matching cases and recommended actions easily. Based on the
recommendations, the user can choose one of the actions, answer more questions, or make a
new search with a better description of the problem.

Figure 7. Recommended actions for the sub-function change energy.

5. Conclusions
Case-based reasoning (CBR) has been applied in the conceptual design phase of the
systematic design approach described in Pahl and Beitz, 1984. CBR can be used to provide
additional information for the designer in dividing the overall function into sub-functions,
and to store and retrieve previous function structures. It can also be used to store and
retrieve various solutions to general sub-functions found, e.g. in construction catalogues.
In the future, this system is going to be included in a distributed multimedia environment
built with a World Wide Web (WWW) and HyperText Markup Language (HTML) based
application. Then the knowledge and information can be distributed easily in the local area
network. It would be possible to build problem oriented multimedia documents, which can
help the designer to find suitable tools and knowledge easily throughout the design process.
These multimedia documents can also contain links to various WWW-servers all over the
world.
References
1. Paasiala, P., Aaltonen, A., and Riitahuhta, A., Automatic component selection, Proceedings of the Ninth
CIM-Europe Annual Conference, IOS Press, Amsterdam 1993.
2. Pahl, G. and Beitz, W., "Engineering Design", Design Council, London 1984.
3. Riitahuhta, A. and Salminen, V., PRODEAL - Technology program for automatization of process plant
design, to be presented in ISRAM 94 and to be published in conference proceedings.
4. Tomiyama, T., Xue, D., Umeda, Y., Takeda, H., Kiriyama, T., and Yoshikawa, H., Systematizing Design
Knowledge for Intelligent CAD Systems, Human Aspects in Computer Integrated Manufacturing, IFIP
Transactions B-3, North- Holland 1992, pp. 237 - 248.

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