Hierarchical Product Design Progress Monitoring
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current traceability tools inadequately monitor the progress of complex product design due to their failure to account for the hierarchical structure of trees, particularly in managing relations between intermediate components, leading to inaccurate tracking of implementation status in systems with numerous components and sub-components.
Innovation Solution
A computer-implemented method that analyzes components hierarchically, starting from the lowest level and recursively assessing implementation links and child components' statuses to determine the implementation status of each component, using three statuses (projected, partially projected, and non-projected) and providing a graphical representation of progress, with periodic recalculations and warning messages for overdue components.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If current traceability tools are used to monitor product design progress, then the monitoring process is simple, but the accuracy of tracking implementation status is insufficient due to failure to account for hierarchical structure
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the hierarchical tree structure into individual components and nodes, allowing the monitoring system to analyze each component's implementation status separately. The system divides the complex hierarchical structure into manageable units (components, sub-components, and their relationships) that can be tracked independently while maintaining the overall hierarchical context. This segmentation enables accurate tracking of implementation status at each level without being overwhelmed by the entire system's complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies the nesting principle by implementing a hierarchical monitoring structure where the monitoring system itself is organized in nested levels corresponding to the product design hierarchy. Each level of the monitoring system mirrors and tracks the corresponding level in the product design hierarchy, with parent components containing and coordinating the monitoring of their child components. This nested structure allows the system to maintain accuracy across all hierarchical levels while managing complexity through organized nesting.
2Measurement precision
If hierarchical analysis is implemented to accurately track component status, then measurement precision improves, but computational complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by pre-establishing the hierarchical structure and relationships between components before the monitoring process begins. The system pre-defines the tree structure, parent-child relationships, and implementation links among components. This preliminary setup allows the monitoring algorithm to efficiently traverse and analyze the already-organized hierarchy without needing to compute relationships dynamically during status assessment, thereby reducing computational complexity while maintaining measurement precision.
3Reliability
If intermediate component relations are properly managed in hierarchical trees, then traceability accuracy improves, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses intermediate components as mediators in the hierarchical structure. These intermediate components serve as connecting elements between parent and child components, properly managing the relationships and implementation links across different hierarchical levels. The monitoring system specifically tracks these intermediate relations to ensure accurate traceability. By designating certain components as intermediaries with specific relational roles, the system maintains reliable traceability accuracy while managing complexity through structured intermediary relationships rather than direct connections between all components.
Data Source
AI summary
A computer-implemented method for monitoring the progress of the implementation of a product design. A status representing the progress of the implementation is determined for each component of a first tree associated with the product design by first analyzing the components belonging to the lowest hierarchy level, the analysis being then conducted recursively on other components up to the highest hierarchy level, a component being analyzed by checking if an implementation link has been set up with a component belonging to a second tree associated with the product design and by checking the progress status of the children of the analyzed component.