| Effective product design is the backbone for creating and sustaining competitive advantage. For achieving competitive advantage, our industries are emphasizing the management of the product design process to deploy products that are functionally superior and highly innovative in a short time These three issues (functional performance, product innovation and lead time to market) are closely tied to the concept of coupling. The term coupling refers to the interrelationship between two or more design requirements. Often, the interrelationships between design requirements force a design team to compromise on the functional performance. Also, coupling adversely affects the time required for product deployment. Elimination of coupling results in highly innovative designs. Thus, at a fundamental level, the management of coupling is a key facet in the overall management of the product design process.;As a fundamental core for managing coupling, the dissertation presents the concept of transmission path wherein a design team consciously views any design task in terms of the transmission of energy, material, information, generalized forces and generalized displacement. This concept of transmission path is used for actively managing coupling by identifying, controlling and handling coupling. For identifying coupling, the dissertation presents a systematic method. Once the coupling in a design is identified, the design team can control coupling by either avoiding, eliminating or reducing it. To this end, the dissertation presents several detailed techniques for controlling coupling. When it is not possible to control coupling, the strategies presented in the dissertation are useful for handling coupling.;The fundamental contribution of this dissertation is the development of a cohesive theory for managing coupling. Several examples are presented to illustrate the fundamental concepts in effective product design and active management of coupling. These examples vary in the levels of abstraction and technical scope. These examples show the significance and universal applicability of coupling. Further, they show how to apply the method, techniques and strategies presented in the dissertation for solving real-world design needs. |
