Axiomatic Design as a Means to Find Contradiction in an Integrated Approach for Product Design

The present paper aims to underline the strict connection among a series of valuable methods for product design: Functional Analysis, Axiomatic Design and Quality Function Deployment, that must be employed jointly in order to allow a designer to reach a good solution for an industrial product. These methods, that share the matrix format common basis, must mutually exchange the elements at the basis of each method: Customer Needs, Functional Requirements, Design Parameters, in a sort of virtuous circle. After a brief introduction to the matrix formulation of each method, the circular exchange of parameters among the methods will be discussed. A case of study will clarify how the methods can interact and how the parameters can be used in each single method allowing the designer to have a better control of the whole design process.