Regular Paper

Application of Axiomatic
Design and Design
Structure Matrix to the
Decomposition of
Engineering Systems
M. D. Guenov* and S. G. Barker

Department of Power, Propulsion and Aerospace Engineering, School of Engineering, Cranfield University, Wharley End,
Bedfordshire, MK43 0AL, United Kingdom
DECOMPOSITION OF ENGINEERING SYSTEMS

Received 25 February 2004; Accepted 1 August 2004, after one or more revisions
Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com).
DOI 10.1002/sys.20015

ABSTRACT
A design decomposition-integration model, named COPE, is proposed in which Axiomatic
Design Matrices (DM) map Functional Requirements to Design Parameters while Design
Structure Matrices (DSM) provide structured representation of the system development
context. In COPE, the DM and the DSM co-evolve. Traversing between the two types of
matrices allows for some control in the application of the system knowledge which surrounds
the decision making process and the definition of the system architecture. It is argued that
this approach describes better the design process of complex products which is constrained
by the need to utilise existing manufacturing processes, to apply discrete technological
innovations and to accommodate work-share and supply chain agreements. Presented is an
industrial case study which demonstrated the feasibility of the model. © 2004 Wiley Peri-
odicals, Inc. Syst Eng 8: 29–40, 2005

Key words: axiomatic design, design structure matrix, systems decomposition, systems
integration

*Author to whom all correspondence should be addressed (e-mail:
m.d.guenov@cranfield.ac.uk).
Contract grant sponsor: UK EPSRC Research Grant GR/R37067
under the Systems Integration Initiative.
Systems Engineering, Vol. 8, No. 1, 2005
© 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
1. INTRODUCTION
Standards for the engineering of systems such as EIA
632 and ISO/IEC 15288 support a seamless process of
converting customer needs into systems/technical re-
quirements, which are subsequently transformed into
logical representations (architectural design) and fi-

29
30 GUENOV AND BARKER
nally into physical solution representations. The proc-
ess is iterative (see Fig. 1) due to the incomplete infor-
mation available at the outset of the project and also the
large number of constraints involved—technical, eco-
nomic and even political. The systems approach of
tackling the problem includes the deployment of Inte-
grated Product Teams (IPT). These are composed of a
variety of specialists from different functional disci-
plines, ideally representing different phases of the prod-
uct lifecycle to ensure that the design process will
consider, as early as possible, all relevant requirements
and constraints. IPTs are now a common practice in
industries such as the defense and aerospace. What
seems to be lacking, however, are high-level support
tools which could help the systems teams and architects
draw together consistently a vast amount of information
needed for the requirements and the design decompo-
sition of the system. Currently there exist a number of
requirements management tools, which fulfill only par-
tially this need. For instance, “Acclaro” [Suh, 2001;
Axiomatic Design Software Inc. website] is designed
to evolve the systems design in accordance with the
rules of Axiomatic Design Theory (ADT). The software
allows the systems designer to enter the top-level Func-
tional Requirements (FRs) and Design Parameters
(DPs), and to decompose and map those in two tree
hierarchies and associated design matrices. However,
Acclaro is concerned primarily with functional decom-
position, and not with explicit constraint mitigation and
control. SLATE, on the other hand [Talbott et al., 1994a,
1994b], now part of the EDS Team Center suite of
software, is a good example of a powerful requirements
management system. It provides constructs not only to
build requirements and product hierarchies, but also
Figure 1. High-level view of the systems engineering process
(adapted from ANSI/EIA-632-1998).
allows the designer to attach constraints and text frag-
ments to each item within each layer of the system
decomposition, and also provides a good level of trace-
ability of nonfunctional requirements throughout the
design decomposition. SLATE, however, would only
produce results which reflect the experience of those
using it. Observations made during the industrial case
study suggest that, in practice, even experienced sys-
tems designers are too quick to follow a particular
solution path, relying heavily on existing knowledge
and past concepts.
There are also other methods of structuring the de-
sign process, such as the N2 chart [Lano, 1977, 1979],
and the Design Structure Matrix (DSM) approach
[Steward, 1967, 1981]. The latter approach provides the
ability to group related design elements. There are
software tools available which are based on the DSM.
These include DeMAID [Rogers, 1999], which was
developed by NASA to facilitate the decomposition and
sequencing of design activities, and more recently,
PlanWeaver (ADePT [Adept Management website])
which has been applied mainly in the construction
industry.
This paper presents work which has concentrated
particularly on the integration of ADT and DSM. The
conjecture is that ADT and DSM are complementary
parts of the decomposition–integration problem, where
the former is more concerned with mapping of func-
tional requirements to design parameters, while the
latter is better suited to modeling the interactions and
the integration of the design parameters. The main
objective of the work is to investigate to what extent
those two methods can be integrated and to evaluate the
approach in a realistic industrial setting. The potential
value of this work is that it provides a means of relating
component integration to system functionality, which
otherwise is not available but is essential during the
early stages of the design process. The following two
sections present a brief summary of ADT and DSM,
respectively. Section 4 outlines the Methodology, while
Section 5 describes the industrial case study undertaken
to test and evaluate the approach. Finally conclusions
are drawn and future work outlined.
2. AXIOMATIC DESIGN THEORY (ADT)
The underlying hypothesis of the Axiomatic Design
[Suh, 1990, 2001] is that there exist fundamental prin-
ciples that govern good design practice. The main dis-
tinguishable components of the ADT are domains,
hierarchies, and design axioms. The foundation axioms
are:

Figure 2. Decomposition by zigzagging.
Axiom 1. Maintain the independence of the func-
tional requirements.1
Axiom 2. Minimize the information content of the
design.
Axiom 1 requires that Functional Requirements
(FRs) be independent of one another, which enables
each FR to be satisfied without affecting any of the other
FRs. Thus there is no coupling of function where it can
be avoided, and the design remains as uncomplicated as
possible. Axiom 2 provides a quantitative measure of
the merits of a given design, and thus it is useful in
selecting the best among the designs which satisfy
axiom one [Suh, 2001]. Generally, the design that uses
the least information is superior. This is explained in
more detail later in this section. According to the ADT,
the design process takes place in four domains (Fig. 2,
adapted from Tate [1999] and Suh [2001]): Customer,
Functional, Physical and Process. Through a series of
iterations, the design process converts customer’s needs
(CNs) into Functional Requirements (FRs) and con-
straints (Cs), which in turn are embodied into Design
Parameters (DPs). Functional Requirements can be de-
fined as “a minimum set of independent requirements
that completely characterises the functional needs of the
product in the functional domain”; Design Parameters
are “the key physical variables in the physical domain
that characterise the design that specifies the FRs” [Suh,
2001, p 14]. DPs determine (but also can be affected by)
the manufacturing or Process Variables (PVs). The de-
composition process starts with the decomposition of
the overall functional requirement—in practice this
should correspond to the top system requirement. Be-
fore decomposing a FR at a particular hierarchical level
in the functional domain, the corresponding DP must
1
It appears that software engineers realized this earlier, while
learning from some bad designs in the automotive industry [see
Stevens, Myers, and Constantine, 1974: 139].
DECOMPOSITION OF ENGINEERING SYSTEMS 31
be determined for the same hierarchical level in the
physical domain. This iterative process is called zigzag-
ging (see also Tate [1999] for a more thorough treatment
of the decomposition problem).
Zigzagging also involves the other domains since
manufacturing considerations may constrain design de-
cisions, while “over-specified” requirements could vir-
tually prohibit the discovery of feasible design
solutions. At each level of the design hierarchy, the
relations (the dependencies) between the FRs and the
DPs can be represented in an equation of the form:
FR = [A]DP, (1)
where each element of the design matrix [A] can be
expressed as Aij = ∂FRi/∂DPj (i = 1,…, m and j = 1,…,
n). Equation (1) is called the design equation and can
be interpreted as “choosing the right set of DPs to
satisfy given FRs.” This is required by Axiom 1 (Inde-
pendence). Each element Aij is represented as a partial
derivative to indicate dependency of a FRi on a DPj. For
simplicity the value of an element Aij can be expressed
as 0 (i.e., the functional requirement does not depend
on the particular design parameter), or otherwise X.
Depending on the type of resulting design matrix [A],
three types of designs exist: uncoupled, decoupled and
coupled (Fig. 3).
Uncoupled design occurs when each FR is satisfied
by exactly one DP. The resulting matrix is diagonal, and
the design equation has an exact solution; i.e., Axiom 1
is satisfied. When the design matrix is lower triangular,
the resulting design is decoupled, which means that a
sequence exists, where by adjusting DPs in a certain
order, the FRs can be satisfied. The design matrix of a
coupled design contains mostly nonzero elements, and
thus the FRs cannot be satisfied independently. A cou-
pled design can be decoupled, for example, by adding
components to carry out specific functions—however,
this comes at a price.
32 GUENOV AND BARKER
Figure 3. Examples of design types. From top to bottom:
Uncoupled, Decoupled, and Coupled Design.
One additional factor that affects coupling is the
number of FRs, m, relative to the number of DPs, n. If
m > n, then the design is either coupled or the FRs
cannot be satisfied. If m < n, then the design is redun-
dant. (Note that in both cases the design matrix [A] is
not square.)
In addition to the design axioms, ADT is governed
by a set of rules, which are formalized into theorems
and corollaries. Of particularly relevance to this re-
search are Corollary 3 and Theorem 5 which originate
from the first axiom (Independence):
• Corollary 3 states: “Integrate design features in a
single physical part if the functional requirements
(FRs) can be independently satisfied in the pro-
posed solution.”
• Theorem 5 states: “When a given set of FRs is
changed by the addition of a new FR, by substi-
tuting one of the FRs with a new one, or by
selection of a completely different set of FRs, the
design solution given by the original DPs cannot
satisfy the new set of FRs. Consequently, a new
design solution must be sought.”
The Second Design Axiom states that minimizing the
information content of a DP increases the probability
of success of satisfying a function. The information
content is defined by the equation
I = log 
system range 
. (2)
 common range 
In Figure 4 design range is the tolerance within which
the DP can vary; system range is the capability of the
Figure 4. Probability distribution of a design parameter. The
solid line represents uniform distribution, the dotted line a
nonuniform distribution (adapted from Suh [1990]).
(manufacturing) system; common range is the overlap
between design and system ranges, and specifies the
range within which the FR(s) can be met [Suh, 2001].
The information content of a system can be computed
by summation of the individual information contents of
all DPs only if the latter are probabilistically inde-
pendent. Frey, Jahangir, and Engelhard [2000] proved
that simple summation cannot be performed for decou-
pled designs and offered a method for computing infor-
mation content. There is no exact method for computing
the information content of coupled designs.
3. DESIGN STRUCTURE MATRIX (DSM)
The DSM can be seen as a successor to the N2 chart
[Lano, 1977, 1979, Becker, Ben-Asher, and Ackerman,
2000], which was used for some years by the Systems
Engineering community, before the introduction of the
DSM. The DSM has become increasingly popular as a
means of planning product development, project plan-
ning and management, systems engineering, and organ-
izational development [Browning, 2001, 2002]. The
concept dates back to the 1960s and was not actually
published until 1981 [Steward, 1981]. The Design
Structure Matrix (DSM) is a compact, matrix repre-
sentation of a system/project. The matrix contains a list
of all constituent subsystems/activities and the corre-
sponding information exchange and dependency pat-
terns. That is, what information pieces (parameters) are
required to start a certain activity and where does the
information generated by the activity feed into—i.e.,
which other tasks within the matrix utilize the output
information [Design Structure Matrix website]. There
are three different configurations of the matrix (Fig. 5).
The simple, parallel configuration, in which the design

Figure 5. DSM configurations.
elements (e.g., design parameters or activities) are fully
independent of each other, the sequential, “decoupled”
configuration, in which the second parameter is de-
pendent upon the output of the first, and the fully
coupled configuration, in which parameters are interde-
pendent upon each other. Figure 6 shows how a DSM
may be used. The crosses below the diagonal in figure
6a represent a forward flow of information, while those
above the diagonal depict a feedback loop. The DSM
can be used to reorder, or “partition” design elements,
to minimize feedback loops (Fig. 6b). This is achieved
by a process of “triangularization” [Browning, 2002],
to render the matrix as “lower-triangular” as possible.
Sets of feedback loops can also be removed, by “tear-
ing” them from the matrix—in practice this means
producing a set of assumptions for the (as yet) unknown
information. The DSM must then be repartitioned.
DSMs can also be used to create and sequence modules
or clusters [Sharman and Yassine, 2004], which are
either mutually exclusive, or minimally interacting.
This absorbs any (remaining) iteration within the sys-
tem. This is shown in Figure 6c.
There are two types of DSM in terms of application:
• The static DSM, essentially a square matrix, used
for the representation of systems design architec-
ture interface, design decomposition and modu-
Figure 6. Examples of DSM forms: (a) Basic, (b) Partitioned, (c) Clustered.
DECOMPOSITION OF ENGINEERING SYSTEMS 33
larization, and planning of organizational topolo-
gies
• The temporal DSM, which is primarily used for
mapping of design processes and for scheduling
and management of activities, over time
This research is concerned with the use of DSM to
model the integration and connectivity (logical and
physical) between design embodiments of system ar-
chitectures, and to trace the effects of this integration
on the functionality of the system.
While DSM provides a powerful technique for the
analysis of design interactions within a complex devel-
opment program, it appears to be less effective in inno-
vative design. As Dong and Whitney [2001, p 11] point
out, it is not possible to “obtain a DSM for a new
product that has never been designed before.” Addition-
ally, Dong and Whitney maintain that, although the
DSM captures the interactions between elements within
a system, it fails to record explicitly the reasons for
these interactions.
4. DECOMPOSITION-INTEGRATION
PROCESS USING ADT AND DSM
ADT postulates that a zigzagging process for FR-DP
mapping that takes place in a “solution neutral” envi-
34 GUENOV AND BARKER
ronment ensures better design. This, however, can
rarely happen in practice, particularly in complex prod-
uct environments, where economic considerations dic-
tate maximum possible utilization of mature designs
and existing manufacturing processes [Guenov, 2002].
In addition, the design process must capture the inter-
actions among the design parameters, including geome-
try, spatial layout, interfaces (e.g., logical and physical
connectivity), and so forth. As discussed in the previous
section, DSM is a mature method capable of capturing
the interaction between design parameters, but by defi-
nition, it is fully known only for products that have
already been designed.
These considerations led us to the idea that the
decomposition integration problem would be better
modeled as a co-evolution of ADT matrices and DSMs.
The generic representation of the process which we
named COPE (decomposition-integration of COmplex
Product Environments) is depicted in Figure 7. In
COPE, ADT is used to map the decomposition of
functional requirements to design parameters (FR-DP).
At each decomposition level various knowledge
sources are consulted in order to take into consideration
constraints originating from all stakeholders. The
knowledge sources include unstructured ones (e.g., em-
ployees’ tacit knowledge and various unpublished
documents) as well as structured/coded sources. Exam-
ples of the latter include government regulations, DSMs
of past designs (also processes), company’s own design
standards, synthetic and analytical models, knowledge
bases, and so forth. Technology “bricks” is a generic
Figure 7. Schematic representation of the COPE Decomposition-Integration process.
term which encompasses chunks of new technology
which is mature enough to be applied in the new product
with potential competitive advantage.
As the decomposition progresses, essential design
studies must be performed, including spatial layout,
performance and capacity constraints checks, and/or
more detailed design of particular, riskier aspects of the
product, resulting in more interactions between the
design parameters. As a consequence, Corollary 3 of
ADT may be violated or requirements may need to be
added or changed at a higher level, which would require
a repetition of the decomposition phase (see Theorem
5 of ADT).
The first step to linking ADT and DSM was made
by Dong and Whitney [2001], who showed that if the
Axiomatic design matrix (DM) can be expressed ana-
lytically and one design parameter (DP) is dominant in
satisfying a particular functional requirement (FR),
then the triangulated design matrix is equivalent to the
DSM of the design parameters. The algorithm consists
of three major steps:
1. Construct the Design Matrix (DM).
2. In each row of the DM choose the dominant (the
largest) entry.
3. Permute the matrix by exchanging rows and col-
umns so that all dominant entries appear on the
main diagonal.
The authors show that choosing the dominant entries is
important as it ensures the convergence of the design
process.

Unfortunately, when designing complex (physical
or software) systems the FRs are satisfied by modules
or other (sub)systems or components and therefore the
design matrix cannot be represented analytically; and it
may not necessarily be square either. In order to over-
come this restriction, we have devised a decomposition
procedure (Fig. 8) in which the design and structure
matrices co-evolve.
The procedure starts with the construction of the DM
of the FR-DP hierarchy. At this level the dominant DPs
are identified. The DM is manipulated [see Dong and
Whitney, 2001] so that it becomes lower triangular with
dominant entries, “X,” on the main diagonal. The result
Figure 8. COPE decomposition–integration procedure.
DECOMPOSITION OF ENGINEERING SYSTEMS 35
is the “Architectural” DSM, that is, a DSM derived only
from the functional view of the product. At this stage a
certain amount of layout/spatial design may need to be
done, including possible integration of components.
This will be subjected to considerations regarding in-
novation, cost, weight, capacity and other constraints,
which are taken into account by applying the knowl-
edge sources, as discussed above (see also Fig. 4). The
resulting design may affect the functionality of the
systems, for example, grouping components together
may couple functions. If that is the case, requirements
may need to change or more design parameters may
need to be added. This means that the design decompo-
36 GUENOV AND BARKER
sition has to be reconsidered from the highest level (see
Theorem 5). The decomposition ends when a leaf node
is encountered, that is, further decomposition will
change the subject of the requirement. In terms of
systems engineering standards (see, e.g., ANSI/EIA-
632), a leaf node can be approximately described as a
specified/assigned requirement.
Perhaps it is worth emphasising that the COPE pro-
cedure aims to retrace the AD-DSM connection at each
level of the decomposition rather than at reaching a leaf
node of the DP hierarchy. This is justified by the fact
that in practice one can be very restricted in performing
the entire decomposition in a “solution neutral” envi-
ronment (as advocated by ADT)—there are, for exam-
ple, cost considerations at the outset of the project
which result in targets on reusability of components and
manufacturing processes from previous products and
/or targets on commonality of components with other
existing product lines. Furthermore, one sometimes
needs to decompose much deeper one branch of the
FR-DP hierarchy relative to other branches in order to
de-risk the solution. For example, one may need to
know if a particular material can be used before con-
tinuing further with the decomposition since this par-
ticular material may affect performance constraints or
interfaces with other components. Thus we see our
approach as compliant with the deeper localized studies
that need to be preformed in practice at the conceptual
and preliminary design stages before proceeding fur-
ther with the development process.
5. CASE STUDY
In order to test our approach regarding ADT (and,
subsequently, DSM), a case study was undertaken in
conjunction with COPE Project sponsor BAE SYS-
TEMS. The chosen study concerns the upgrading of an
air defense system. The primary form taken by our
research was a series of interviews with key members
of the project. These ascertained the nature of the re-
quirements, and the structure of the design. This infor-
mation was then decomposed using axiomatic design
techniques to identify connectivity between require-
ments and design, and how each impacted the other.
This was known as the “As Is” solution. Impacting
factors, or constraints, both within the system of design,
and of an organizational nature, were studied to model
their effect on the process of system design. This was
validated with the BAE SYSTEMS Project. A parallel
analysis was conducted to determine how the system
could have been designed, had ADT [Suh, 1990, 2001]
and engineering design standards been applied. This
became the “As Could Be” solution. It was intended that
the comparison between “As Is” and “As Could Be”
would indicate any areas where the existing design
could have been improved, thus confirming (or not) our
initial hypothesis. Additionally, we expected that the
comparison would identify a set of potentially useful
features that have not yet been addressed by the existing
systems engineering tools.
The findings of the study noted that possibly the key
constraint was that this was an update rather than a new
system, and that any design was therefore constrained
by what already existed. However, the analysis of re-
quirements by the BAE SYSTEMS Project appears to
have been relatively unstructured—and, indeed, an on-
going process. This, when coupled to a predominantly
“bottom-up” rather than “top-down” analysis tech-
nique, meant that the requirements were not decom-
posed fully, and therefore the relation of requirements
to design was not fully analyzed. This has the potential
for delay in the form of extended or unnecessary rework
or iteration—the need for which the Project admitted
was not accounted for. The work breakdown was de-
scribed as being intuitive, and based largely on previous
experience. Thus work appeared to be assigned to teams
without consideration of how all of the modules could
be integrated together successfully.
The design of the system was forced down specific
avenues. This was mainly because it was time con-
strained and there was a history of rival bids, which,
through the prime contractor, led to decisions regarding
the design being taken that were beyond the control of
the BAE SYSTEMS team. Furthermore, the fact that
certain data was provided much later than scheduled,
has also placed certain restraints upon the system design
process. The organizational need requiring the design,
initially at least, to be planned in conjunction with two
specific suppliers, also applied certain constraints.
The need to trace and analyze design decisions and
changes has been a central requirement in the design of
complex products for quite some time [Guenov, 1996].
In the context of this case study, the DSM offered a
potential solution to the problem of tracing the effect of
contextual issues such as project scheduling, and event
sequencing, upon the system design (Pimmler and Ep-
pinger, 1994; Ulrich and Eppinger, 1999). Through the
application of ADT and DSM, our case study research
discovered elements of the system design and its con-
text which required integration to provide a successful
design solution. For example, given that the chosen
design utilized two sensors, one to track the position of
incoming targets, the other to track an outgoing missile,
with the outgoing missile potentially being able to be
seen by both sensors simultaneously, could be seen as
an integration issue which requires the application of
 DECOMPOSITION OF ENGINEERING SYSTEMS 37

Figure 9. 2nd-level Design Matrix (DM).

Figure 10. 2nd-level “Architectural” DSM.

both ADT and DSM. An example of such an application

is described below. second between 2.2.4 and 2.2.3. However, these feed-
The approach for deriving the DSM from the DM is back loops had not been anticipated in the design.
“leveled” so that each hierarchical level of the FR-DP Analysis of the model revealed that the likely reason for
decomposition hierarchy is evaluated in turn. The first their appearance in the structural DSM was a leveling
step is to construct the Design Matrix (DM). For the
issue: DP 2.2.4 verifies that the output of previous DPs
purposes of demonstrating the approach, a 2nd-level
is correct. But the corresponding FR for this DP occurs
abstraction of the ADT decomposition hierarchy will be
concentrated upon. A sample of the 2nd-level BAE at a lower level of decomposition in the DM. This raised
SYSTEMS DM is shown in Figure 9. an issue with the “As Is” model (this being the existing
The design appears to be a redundant one as the solution, modeled in Figs. 9 and 10). A review of the
number of design parameters is greater than the number requirements then led to the creation of an “As Could
of functional requirements. At this stage it is important Be” solution, which is shown in Figure 11a. This at-
to identify the primary relationships between require- tempted to use axiomatic design method [Suh, 1990,
ments and design—i.e., if more than one design pa- 2001] to create a design independently of the existing
rameter is used to satisfy a requirement, identify the “As Is” model, to see if improvements were theoreti-
dominant one, and where appropriate, secondary rela- cally possible to the design. The main changes (the
tionships if they exist (they do not in this example). This original FR/DP nomenclature has been retained for ease
is step two of the approach. The primary relationships of comparison) are an additional FR, stating the need to
are marked with large X’s, while secondary relation-
verify the output of processing tasks, and an additional
ships could be depicted with small x’s. The DM now
DP which enables a further verification task, that of
describes the functional linkages between the Func-
tional Requirements (FRs) and the Design Parameters comparing successive outputs to enhance reliability of
(DPs). This serves to define the manner in which the
DPs will satisfy the FRs. However, the effects of deci-
sions relating to the system such as cost, capacity, and
physical integration are not dealt with particularly well.
As a result, a DSM structure can be generated to accom-
modate these issues. The next step of the approach
concerns the derivation of an “Architectural” DSM.
This is illustrated in Figure 10. A “dummy” FR, denoted
by “?,” is added to make the matrix square. Asterisks
are used to denote blank cells on the diagonal.
The “Architectural” DSM is created through a com-
bination of a method proposed by Dong and Whitney
[2001], and triangulation. Thus the rows and columns
are permuted to produce a (predominantly) lower trian-
gular matrix. The vertical axis is renumbered according
to the DP order, and the “Architectural” DSM is the
result. This is the equivalent of the DM, in DSM form,
and provides the interface between the DM and DSM.
This stage of the case study analysis revealed a
problem with the design solution. Figure 10 shows a Figure 11. (a) 2nd-level “As Could Be” Design Matrix; (b)
feedback loop between DPs 2.2.3 and 2.2.2, and a 2nd-level “As Could Be” “Architectural” DSM.
38 GUENOV AND BARKER
missile/target detection, up from a lower level of the
decomposition.
This simplifies the FR-DP relationship—whereas,
previously, FR 2.2.2 had been satisfied by three DPs
which embodied the verification algorithms at a lower
level of decomposition, the requirement can now be met
independently of processing operations. This may incur
a cost overhead, depending on the technology used to
implement it, but is representative of the ADT design
philosophy, being in accordance with corollary three of
axiomatic design [Suh, 1990, 2001]. Finally, FRs 2.2.1
and 2.3.1 of the “As Is” solution (Fig. 9) perform the
same operation. These have therefore been combined
into one. The design solution remains uncompromised
as the DPs can be scheduled to cater for the newly
“compressed” FR. It can be seen in Figure 11b that this
has resolved the feedback issue.
The effects of decision-making on the matrices now
need to be modeled. The decisions can regard a range
of criteria, such as constraints, physical and logical
connectivity, and software or hardware integration. In
the BAE SYSTEMS case, the need exists to combine
software functionality onto processor cards. The physi-
cal connectivity of the design and the interaction of the
functions across the processors are therefore relevant.
Using the “As Is” solution as a basis, the creation of
these DSM can be demonstrated by Figures 12 and 13.
For the physical connectivity (denoted by 0’s), it can
be seen that of the “processing” DPs (2.2.1, 2.2.2, and
2.2.3), 2.2.3 operates independently, while 2.2.2 pro-
vides data to 2.2.1. DPs 2.2.1 and 2.2.3 then feed 2.2.5.
The verification DPs (2.2.4 and 2.2.5) also operate
independently, with both passing information to the
output channel (DP 2.2.6) on completion of the verifi-
cation task. This completes an operational cycle.
The integration between software cards, shown in
Figure 13, is described by numbers. The numbers on the
diagonal indicate which of three processors the DP is
assigned to. Thereafter, numbers separated by a comma
indicates that two DPs communicate over separate
Figure 12. 2nd-level physical connectivity between design
parameters.
Figure 13. 2nd-level interaction between processor cards.
processors. The first number denotes the card from
which the communication is initiated, and the second
number indicates which card receives the communica-
tion.
An example is that DP 2.2.1, stationed on card 3,
communicates with DP 2.2.5, which appears on card 2.
The DSM can be separated out into layers (shown by
Figs. 12 and 13), to give the system engineer a filtered
view of how each of the design elements interacts with
each other in regard to a different design perspective.
This is illustrated in Figure 14.
So far, we have shown that the model can highlight
the effect of integration issues of a system design. This
is shown by the unbroken arrow in Figure 14. However,
it is also necessary to be able to understand how the
nature of the design is affected by these issues. This
necessitates backtracking from the layered DSM to the
DM, to understand changes which may have been
caused to the original FR-DP relationship. This is indi-
cated by the dotted arrow to the right hand side of Figure
14, illustrating how the effect of a constraint or decision
regarding integration may alter the balance between
FRs and DPs on the original DM.
To provide an example, currently, the processing is
verified prior to output. This involves two DPs (2.2.5
and 2.2.4), which currently appear on processor cards
two and three, as shown in Figure 13. If, however, the
capacity and speed constraints of the processor cards
dictated that they be positioned on the same card, then
new physical connectivity would appear on the appro-
priate DSM, as both DPs would now be linked via the
same processor card. This is denoted by the shaded area
upon the layered DSM in Figure 14. This in turn would
dictate a new sequence in which the two DPs could be
executed, bringing about a coupling, and altering the
structural DSM/DM, as indicated by the dashed arrow
and letter A.
A further example of this is that an FR specified the
need to detect objects a, b, and c at range x in climate
condition y. To meet this requirement, a DP provides
the required capability. However, cost and capability
constraints applied to the DSM mean that it is not
possible to use the DP. The alternative is a DP which,

Figure 14. Layered DSM and its effect upon the DM.
unfortunately, can only detect objects a and c at range
x, and not in condition y. It can be seen that the process
of deriving the DSM to study constraints etc. and their
effects has now revealed that the FR on the original DM
cannot be met. Thus the FR must be changed to accom-
modate the DSM constraints, and this changes the de-
sign, as dictated by theorem five of ADT [Suh, 1990,
2001]. Consequently, a new design solution must be
sought.
6. CONCLUSIONS
A novel design decomposition model for complex
product environments (COPE) is presented. It com-
bines Axiomatic Design with Design Structure Matrix
to accommodate the iterative nature of the decomposi-
tion-integration process. The research to date has dem-
onstrated that this approach can bring significant
benefits. An industrial Case Study, conducted as part of
the research and reported here, has shown that the
DM-DSM arrangement can be used to identify the
existence of potential conflicts in the design solution,
and allows groups of design parameters to be explored
in greater detail. This approach also appears to provide
a level of control and transparency to the systems design
process, and gives the systems architect the opportunity
to study proposed changes before they are made, and to
understand how any such change(s) may produce a
knock-on effect throughout the design solution.
Despite the potential which COPE has demonstrated
so far, we have not yet solved completely the problem
of mixing various levels of details during the decompo-
sition process. This is important since deeper localized
design studies cannot be avoided in practical situations,
it is a part of the de-risking process. Secondly, the
decomposition process forms only a subset of the engi-
DECOMPOSITION OF ENGINEERING SYSTEMS 39
neering life cycle and therefore COPE must be evalu-
ated in a wider context. So far we have consulted and
tried to take into account the established standards for
engineering of systems, however, standards implemen-
tation is company dependent. In this view, further de-
velopment, evaluation and validation of the method, as
well as a specification of the requirements for a decom-
position tool form the scope of our future work. Cur-
rently we are experimenting with the integration of
ADT, DSM, and Requirements Management tools
[Guenov and Barker, 2004].
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work is funded by UK EPSRC Research Grant
GR/R37067 under the Systems Integration Initiative.
We are indebted to BAE SYSTEMS for their help with
the Case Study. We thank the anonymous referees for
their helpful comments.
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Marin D. Guenov is a Senior Lecturer (Advanced Engineering Methods) in the School of Engineering,
Department of Power Propulsion and Aerospace Engineering at Cranfield University, UK. He holds an
MEng in Mechanical Engineering and a Ph.D. in Materials Handling Systems and Operational Research.
Currently Dr. Guenov leads national and international multidisciplinary research projects supported by
the European aerospace industry in the areas of design of complex systems, modeling and simulation for
synthetic environments, multidisciplinary design analysis and optimization, and infrastructures for
collaborative design. Dr. Guenov is a member of the Royal Aeronautical Society and The Association of
Cost Engineers and is a Charted Engineer.

Stephen G. Barker is a Research Officer in the School of Engineering, Department of Power Propulsion
and Aerospace Engineering at Cranfield University, UK. Dr. Barker holds a BSc. (Hons.) in Computer
Studies, and researched Applied Engineering Process Management for his Ph.D. Currently, Dr. Barker is
part of the COPE (COmplex Product Environment) research team, which investigates “Decomposition-
Integration” issues within Complex Product Development programs. Dr. Barker has previously worked
as a lecturer and tutor in the fields of Network Communications and Operations Management.