Abstract

Adaptable Design (AD) refers to increasing competition of products such as product functionality, cost, time, quality and environmental performance. Adaptable estimation of products (AEP) provides its quantitative approach which was overlooked in advanced designing and manufacturing technologies. In this paper product adaptability is analyzed quantitatively and its complex numbers model is put forward. The real number of the model expresses the applicability of design products and the imaginary number expresses their inclusivity. Requirement information types of products are used to calculate the two numbers and a relative adaptable constant is defined to indicate the inherent adaptability of design products. Interface parameters and functional parameters of design products are introduced as main parameter values of AEP to estimate the adaptability of products in the process of which some other concepts such as product sets, product layers, product regions, estimate regions are explained. Relative standards such as pass lines and better lines of product design are obtained. An estimate approach of modular machine tools is illustrated in the end, which provides significant guidance to AD application for product designs.