Designing with available assets: its impact on decision support in optimization

In this paper, the notion of 'designing with what you have' or designing with available assets is explored and its impact on decision support in solving optimization problems is discussed. Supplier driven design is based largely on design using available assets. If existing parts or components can be used then why design a new one when a local supplier can provide an off-the-shelf part quickly and cheaply? However, development of optimization packages to support decision making in design has many times ignored the challenges that designing with only a limited or discrete number of options implies. On the other hand, companies many times can use in-house or out-of-house production options to produce a part of any dimension. Many products are assembled from both made-to-order parts manufactured to a specific dimension and stock parts bought off-the-shelf. In this paper, providing decision support for such product development problems is discussed. A small example demonstrating the efficacy of the offered approach and tool is shown. A large industrial case study and the practical implications of combining designing with available assets and optimization is discussed.