Reports in Mechanical Engineering

Vol. 3, No. 1, 2022, pp. 135-144

ISSN: 2683-5894, DOI: https://doi.org/10.31181/rme20009022022a  135

Automation of the conceptual design in engineering project

management based on morphological approach

Bardenhagen Andreas 1, Pecheykina Marina 2, Rakov Dmitry 3, Todorov Vladislav 1,

1 Technische Universität Berlin, Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Germany; e-mail: andreas.bardenhagen@tu-
berlin.de, [email protected]
2 National Research University "Moscow Power Engineering Institute", Russia; e-mail: [email protected]
3 Mechanical Engineering Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IMASH), Russia; e-mail: [email protected]

Article Info ABSTRACT

Article history: The article discusses the formalization and automation of the search for new
engineering and technological solutions. Attention is drawn to some issues
Received December 11, 2021 associated with approaches relying purely on human estimations and
Revised February 2, 2022 experience for the purpose of solving structural problems. In order to reduce
Accepted February 8, 2022 these, the prospect of software tool introduction for the automation of the
conceptual design process is presented. Particularly, global requirements for
Computer-Aided Innovation tools are outlined and positioned within the
Keywords: classification of such software. The main challenges include the creation of
approaches that allow early processing of information flows and produce some
Morphological methods, set of possible solutions. The focus lies in improving the efficiency of design
Technology management, studies and reducing the time spent on the entire process creation cycle. The
Conceptual Design, Advanced Morphological Approach is presented as a successful example of
Technological solutions. addressing some of the mentioned challenges. The future implementation of
the proposed software would allow to create a space of feasible design problem
solutions, ideally resistant to changes of the external environment.
Copyright © 2022 Regional Association for Security and crisis management
and European centre for operational research.
All rights reserved.

Corresponding Author:
Rakov Dmitry,
Mechanical Engineering Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IMASH), Russia.
Email: [email protected]

1. Introduction
One of the important challenges in the search for new technological solutions remains the necessity for
further conceptual design process formalization. The methods for defining and solving structural analysis and
synthesis problems are divided into two main classes: transformational and morphological. The
transformational approach relies on the extensive use of human creativity. However, in the process of synthesis,
unexpected circumstances may arise due to some characteristic features of human reasoning. The fact is that
the researcher has a certain predilection for given ordinary approaches, which are comprehensible to them. At
the same time, original ways of solving are not usually referred to as "regular" methods. Regularity manifests
itself either in giving the structures visually "correct" features - symmetry, hierarchy, repetition and periodicity,
or in deriving the structure itself from a certain analogy. Ultimately, this can lead to the development of a
pattern, which itself can affect the quality of the results of structural synthesis. Many researchers draw attention
to some of the dangers in using purely human approaches for the solution of structural problems.
The initial form or the overall structure of the object to be designed has an impact on its final form. The
peculiarity of human decision-making is such that once the initial structure appears, it is most likely to be
followed as a model for further development. Full automation of transformational methods is fundamentally
impossible. All morphological methods are based on a combinatorial approach. The Morphological Analysis

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(MA) procedure allows to purposefully and systematically lay down a huge number of analogues in
morphological sets of engineering solutions. Some stages of morphological methods can be automated. The
general conclusion from the above analysis is that automated design should cover not only the final stages, but
also the search for initial product concepts. Without modern computer technology it is practically impossible
to examine and evaluate a large number of possible solutions and technical innovations.
Thus, the MA has been used in dozens of developments in project management. The morphological box
for education for sustainable development (ESD) provides more than 70 million opportunities to systems
implement. Universities may use this morphological box for ESD to find out their unique profile and develop
proper ways to implement ESD (Isenmann et al., 2020).
The analysis has been used to complex selection process of worker assistance systems for human-centered
manufacturing systems. Due to rising complexity of products and processes in the manufacturing sector, as
well as changing work environments, the choice for suitable support systems on the shop floor becomes more
difficult. In this work the researchers identify a broad variety of influencing attributes for selecting the most
appropriate worker assistance systems depending on each individual field of application. These attributes are
building the ground for the development of a morphological box to facilitate the selection process of worker
assistance systems (Späker et al., 2021).
The study analyzed new electricity business cases with an aim to categorize them systematically based on
theoretical grounds. Complementing the shortcomings, researchers adopted the morphological box for
categorization to compare several business cases and draw the main types of businesses. It has revealed that
utilities as well as residential, commercial, industrial customers also act as the main customers for the
distributed resources while cooperation among different industries is growing rapidly, and local governments
are actively involved in the business as the main providers (Park & Lee, 2020).
The MA results indicate that the present state of developing and maintaining B2C systems has not been
much influenced by modern Web Engineering concepts and that there is considerable potential for
improvement (Knolmayer & Borean, 2010).
The investigates proposes a planning methodology of systems technologies using a three-dimensional
morphological box. The authors assume that the planning problem of systems technologies could be
represented by three basic attributes, i.e., needs (system requirements), seeds (basic technologies) and systems
technologies (system problems). They introduce a three-dimensional morphological box, whose axes are the
above attributes, as a framework of planning activities. The constituent items of each axis are obtained from
the recognition of societal and technological trends (Nakao, 2001).
In the work the concept of human-machine collaboration is regarded as key enabler for agile production
systems as collaborative robots offer new forms of flexibility. Due to inherent safety functionalities, these
robots can operate without physically separating safety devices and thus provide flexibility in task allocation
and execution. The paper presents the impact of modifications on collaborative robotic cells and how they
influence the risk assessment. Furthermore, a method of considering work system variants based on desired
future modifications is presented so that implications can be already identified in an early design phase of the
system (Komenda et al., 2021).
This research builds upon the methodological literature on developing and evaluating energy scenarios and
presents a morphological box, which comprises parameters describing the scenario properties, (energy system)
model properties, scientific practice and institutional settings of energy scenarios. The newly developed
morphological box is applied to four selected energy scenarios of the energy transition (Witt et al., 2018).
Morphological approaches have also been used in a number of other works (Zwicky,1969), (Levin, 2015).
Among the tasks encountered during the design of engineering and technological processes, one can
highlight the following (Rakov, 2010):
a) Creation of approaches that allow in the early stages of process creation to process information flows
and produce some set of possible solutions;
b) Increasing the efficiency of design research and reducing the time spent on the whole cycle of process
creation;
c) Increasing the number of options under consideration, determining the optimal modes of operation
and taking into account the influence of the external environment;
d) Use of new methodological approaches to problem solving;
e) Increasing the effectiveness of design research;
f) Satisfying the conditions of competitiveness, high quality requirements, manufacturing feasibility,
etc;
g) Selection of the best process structure, implementation of the optimal organization of the elements
interaction, determination of the optimal functioning modes and consideration of the external
environment impact;
h) Automation of prospecting works.

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2. Conceptual Design
The initial stage of product development is denoted as conceptual design (Gost, 2013). Typically, it
encompasses the following tasks:
a) The implementation of options for possible solutions, the establishment of the peculiarities of
options. The depth of such study should be sufficient to compare the options under consideration;
b) Development and justification of engineering solutions aimed at ensuring the indicators established
by the terms of reference and the technical proposal;
c) Assessment of the product’s manufacturing feasibility and ensuring the correct choice for means
and methods of control (testing, analysis, measurement);
d) Evaluation of the product in terms of its compliance with the requirements of ergonomics and
technical aesthetics;
e) Check of variants for patent purity and competitiveness;
f) Comparative assessment of the options under consideration. The comparison is carried out according
to product quality indicators (purpose, reliability, manufacturing feasibility, standardization and
unification, economic, aesthetic, ergonomic).
g) Choosing the best (rational) option(s) for the product and justifying the choice;
h) Decision-making tasks;
i) Confirmation or clarification of the product requirements (engineering characteristics, quality
indicators, etc.) and definition of technical and economic characteristics.
The significant information uncertainty encountered during conceptual design leads to the consideration of
“crude” models and multi-variant design solutions, i.e. parallel processing of a number of alternative variants.
Such a detailed system and mathematical study needs to reproduce the interaction of external and internal
factors during the design process. The automation of the process itself creates patterns in the solution space
influenced by the defining process characteristics. The development of project cost, cost influence and
uncertainty of information over project lifetime is shown in Figure 1 (Bardenhagen, 2019; Rakov, 2020).
Various methods have been developed for conceptual design. These methods include genetic algorithm
(Boutemedjet et al., 2019), matrix-based methods (Geng et al., 2011), exergy methods (Zhy et al., 2018),
axiomatic design (Thielman & Ge, 2006) etc. At present, there exist many methods to search for and synthesize
engineering solutions, including processing Big Data in Internet (Hashimova, 2016) and structural analysis for
the realization of scientific and engineering ideas (Aliyev & Shahverdiyeva, 2017).

Figure 1. Change in project cost, cost influence and uncertainty of information

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The design of a product, system or process can be summarized by the definition of the product structure
(structural synthesis) and of the parameter range for the synthesized structure (parametric synthesis or
parametric optimization). The completely different character of these tasks implies different solution strategies.
Parametric synthesis could be usually resolved by reducing the task to the determination of solutions satisfying
the metric criteria. On the contrary, structural synthesis defines the rational structure of an object and is
generally classified as formally non-resolvable. Such tasks involve working with uncertain structural
connections, non-metrical attributes of structural elements and quality criteria. Conventional optimization
methods cannot be applied to a certain objective function of structural synthesis due to its following qualities:
(1) it is discontinuous (discrete) or cannot always be determined; (2) it exists in operator notation; (3) it is not
based on analytical expressions; (4) it is not differentiable, not unimodal, not separable, and not additive
(Mishin & Osin, 1978; Rakov 2019,2020). The solution of the structural synthesis task is the main and
exclusive subject of the researcher’s creative activity.
During the stage of structural synthesis of new engineering solutions intuitive (Brainstorming, Mind
Mapping, TRIZ, Synectics etc.) and discursive (morphological analysis, cause-and-effect diagram, Osborn-
Checklists etc.) techniques can be used.

3. Automation of the conceptual design stage

The most intuitive techniques for idea generation such as brainstorming and mind mapping rely mostly on
subjective human judgment, experience and decision-making. Although for the design of complex engineering
solutions one would seek the opinions of dedicated domain experts, the results of the methods would still
exhibit a certain amount of subjectivity. Apart from potential flaws or drawbacks of the applied design
methodology, this is also highly due to cognitive biases. Such human biases rely on judgmental heuristics and
help people make intuitive decisions in uncertain situations (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). However, these can
lead to systematic errors, especially when addressing complex tasks such as seeking innovative designs for
new product generations. These drawbacks of subjective techniques for idea generation could result in the
following unwanted outcomes:
a) the designers might rely mostly on their previous experience;
b) prioritization of known or existing problem solutions rather than innovative ideas;
c) the objectively optimal solution for a given problem statement may unwillingly be left out of scope.
In order to avoid these potential pitfalls, an increased level of automation of conceptual design processes
could be sought. As shown in Figure 1, this could be addressed during the conceptual design stage by
introducing software for Computer-Aided Innovation (CAI) purposes. Kohn and Hüsig (Kohn & Hüsig, 2007)
classify CAI tools into the categories Strategy Management, Idea Management and Patent Management. The
creation of innovative products as solutions for unconventional or complex problem statements falls under the
Idea Management class. It can be further divided into the sub-categories’ idea generation, idea collection
(search and integration of existing problem solutions), idea evaluation and idea classification.
For the reasons mentioned in Section 2, full automation of conceptual product design can hardly be
achieved. In order to profit from computational capabilities, it is therefore necessary to introduce software
covering all sub-classes of Idea Management while making it a proper aid to the designer and combining
computational advantages and expert human reasoning. In this context, one could define global initial
purposes/requirements for such software as follows:
a) extended automation of conceptual design tasks in the fields Idea Generation, Idea Collection, Idea
Evaluation and Idea Classification;
b) robust formalization of problem structuring regardless of application domain;
c) transparent and intuitive algorithm and execution;
d) efficient and intuitive interaction between the software and the experts/designers;
e) reduction of human cognitive biases in the design process;
f) handling of possible uncertainties;
g) consideration of the multidisciplinary character of conceptual design;
h) ability to generate, evaluate and classify innovative technologies with partial or complete lack of
experimental or statistical data.
The sub-category idea evaluation implies the use of structured evaluation techniques and/or the
involvement of expert systems for the ranking or comparison of alternative design ideas. For this purpose, one
could apply certain Multiple-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) methods, which represent sets of
mathematical tools used for ranking, sorting, describing or narrowing down given sets of alternative scenarios
(Mota et al., 2013). These approaches allow certain structuring and a mathematical framework for the decision-
making tasks while considering multiple evaluation criteria simultaneously. MCDM methods can be divided

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into Multiple-Attribute Decision Making (MADM) and Multiple-Objective Decision-Making (MODM)
categories, depending whether the evaluations are conducted on discrete or continuous variables respectively
(Mota et al., 2013).
A study of available CAI tools conducted by Zaripova and Petrova (Zaripova & Petrova, 2012) has revealed
that the majority of idea generation software relies mostly on the brainstorming and mind mapping techniques.
However, the authors of the source underline that these methods are less effective for addressing complex
engineering design tasks. In the same time, they suggest the MA as a more suitable approach among other ones.
According to the study results, there is a very limited amount of software products which implement the
method.

4. Morphological Methods
Along with the estimated higher effectiveness for idea generation, the Morphological Analysis (MA) is also
considered as the most commonly used method among the discursive techniques for structural synthesis
(Zwicky,1969), (Levin, 2015). Thus, according to statistics compiled in 2009 by German scientists, the total
number of companies using the morphology is more than 40%, while regular use is done by more than 20%
(Smerlinski et al., 2009). Morphological synthesis is regarded as a methodology to streamline the problem to
be solved. Morphological analysis is a method developed by F. Zwicky for exploring all the possible solutions
to a multi-dimensional, non-quantified problem complex (Zwicky,1969). Zwicky applied this method to such
diverse tasks as the classification of astrophysical objects and the development of jet and rocket propulsion
systems. More recently, morphological analysis has been extended and applied by a number of researchers in
the USA and Europe in the field of future studies, engineering system analysis and strategy modelling.
The MA envisages the decomposition of the product to be designed into multiple constructive, functional
or technological elements (Zwicky,1969), (Garvey, 2016). Subsequently, one assigns to each element a finite
set of alternative design solutions. All possible combinations of alternative technology options for each element
compose the solution space for the given design problem.
Most discursive approaches for structural analysis and synthesis of engineering solutions are based on
morphological models, which exhibit the following disadvantages in this case: the enormous volume of the
morphological set of solutions, the problems of choosing rational options and their interaction with the external
environment (Zwicky,1969). The power of the morphological set can reach millions of possible solutions. In
general, classical morphological models are inappropriate for large parameter studies, such as the optimization
of flight systems.
At present, there exist many methods to search and synthesize solutions based on the morphological
analysis in a variety of physical and engineering areas (Pereverza et al., 2017; Ritchey, 2018).
Some of the largest problems of application of classical methods of morphological analysis are: poor access
to software support necessary to address the combinatorial explosion generated by multi-parameter problem
spaces inherent in the use of MA; insufficiently flexible processes addressing users’ operational constraints;
perception of being overly generic, disguising identification of specific application areas of interest (Garvey,
2016).
A major step to address these challenges and the CAI tool requirements outlined in Section 3 could be seen
in the developed Advanced Morphological Approach (AMA) (Rakov 2019,2020), (Bardenhagen & Rakov,
2019). It is based on the provisional MA, system analysis, variant clustering and mathematical modelling.
Among others, AMA’s main features include:
a) intuitive implementation of the MA methodology;
b) filtering of solutions with incompatible technological options;
c) qualitative multi-criteria evaluation of options by dedicated experts;
d) integration of existing products as reference design problem solutions;
e) clustering of the obtained solutions based on their evaluation scores.
Therefore, the AMA approach aims to cover all sub-categories of Idea Management, namely idea
generation, idea collection, idea classification and idea evaluation.
As a result of all mentioned actions, the designer obtains a visualized design space with ranked and
highlighted clusters and solutions along the axis of the defined criteria. Example results of such visualizations
are presented in Figures 2,3 and 4. This serves as a clear overview of the available solutions and therefore as a
direct decision-making aid on the most suitable product concept. It is worth noting that the qualitative
evaluation and clustering of solutions allows to include innovative technologies with lack of prior statistical or
experimental data. Thus, the AMA represents an example of potential long-term designer benefit from
purposeful CAI tools. Furthermore, it also motivates to use non-conventional and novel technological options
in the search for breakthrough solutions.

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Nevertheless, not all requirements for the desired CAI conceptual design tool from Section 3 have been
met within the AMA. Particularly, the consideration of uncertainties and multidisciplinary evaluation should
be introduced as future improvement.
Very often in the practice of project management there is a task of forecasting the development of the
objects under study.

Figure 2. Arrangement of variants in the solution space, clustering of variants

Figure 3. Investigation of clusters in the solution field

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Figure 4. Exploring clusters and individual cluster solutions

5. Results
As the result, a search for engineering solutions for micro-arc oxidation is given (Rakov et al., 2018).
Microarc oxidation is an electrochemical process of oxidation of the surface layer of valve metals and alloys
combined with electric discharge phenomena at the anode - electrolyte boundary. A morphological matrix with
the following features - coating modes, electrolytes used, materials used, coating process control, frequency
control, etc. - was generated to synthesize and evaluate the variants. Any set of elements of all traits represents
a possible technology option. After synthesis, a cluster was selected and a number of technical solutions were
scanned (Figure 5). An experimental setup was created for the rad solutions and the coatings were synthesized
(Figures 6 and 7).

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Figure 5. Location clusters in the morphological field of solutions

Figure 6. Experimental installation

Figure 7. Research specimen with ceramic coatings

6. Discussion and Conclusions

The article discusses formalization and automation aspects of idea management for novel engineering and
technological solutions. First, attention is drawn to some issues associated with approaches relying purely on
human estimations and experience. In particular, methods like brainstorming and mind mapping face cognitive

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Reports in Mechanical Engineering ISSN: 2683-5894  143
bias from human reasoning and could result in unwanted outcomes such as sub-optimal problem solutions and
unexplained uncertainties. These phenomena could be reduced by increasing the level of automation in idea
management, namely for idea generation, idea collection, idea evaluation and idea classification. In order to
approach the development of CAI software which covers all these areas, the current article defines global
purposes and requirements for such tools. Since morphological approaches are more suitable for the conceptual
design of complex engineering solutions, the MA is introduced through its applications and capabilities.
In this context, the Advanced Morphological Approach was given as a specific example which aims to
cover the full spectrum of idea management tasks during conceptual design of complex engineering solutions.
However, it still exhibits necessity for further improvements in order to cover the defined requirements, such
as multidisciplinary interactions and evaluations and improved problem structuring.
The main automation challenges include the creation of approaches that allow early processing of
information flows and produce some set of possible solutions. In focus lies the efficiency improvement of
design studies and the reduction of time spent on the entire process creation cycle. The introduction of such a
software tool would allow to generate a space of feasible solutions. Ideally, these solutions would be resistant
to changes in the external environment and therefore have high competitiveness.

Acknowledgement: This research was funded by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research
Foundation) Project number 443831887.

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