Citation:
Marin D. Gueno Covariance structural models of the relationship between the design and customer
domains. Journal of Engineering Design, Vol.19(1), Feb.
2008, pp.75-95
Abstract:
This paper addresses the problem of modelling and mapping of difficult to
quantify customer needs to technical requirements and subsequently to design
parameters. Proposed is a covariance structural equation model, which
incorporates a confirmatory and a structural component. The former is used for
the decomposition of the qualitative customer needs, modelled as latent
variables, onto a generally larger number of measurable technical requirements.
The structural component maps the technical requirements to design parameters.
The concept is illustrated by an example. The model is confined to the linear
dependence between the variables, but in general the approach can handle a
number of non-linear relations through variable transformation. The conclusion
is that the proposed synthetic procedure, named SEMDES (Structural Equation
Models for the Design of Engineering Systems) represents a sufficiently rich and
generic structure capable of bridging the gap between the customer and the
design domains.