Web-based conceptual design support system

Conceptual design is one of the most critical and important phase of design with least computer support. This paper presents an extension of a standalone conceptual design support tool developed previously by the authors on a web-based environment. The proposed framework is suitable for collaborative design which is performed by multiple participants, each potentially capable of proposing values for design issues and/or evaluating these choices. The framework uses design reuse philosophy which plays a major role in product development especially during the early concept generation phase supplementing the designer's knowledge by providing stored knowledge outside the designer's area of expertise. The reused design knowledge from existing product has an advantage of being tested for reliability in previous design and may inspire the designer to generate new concepts. Based on this philosophy, a web-based conceptual design support system (CDSS) has been developed and deployed on a local server which can be accessed on intranet network. The CDSS can be used either to generate new concepts from the design repository (database) or from the designer which can be added to the repository through knowledge acquisition module for future design.