Design as evolution and reuse

A process for constructing an information workspace with low-cost access to reusable analysis and design knowledge has been developed and validated. The intent is to support the design and evolution of product families. The process involves three related efforts: techniques to consolidate critical analysis and design information-domain analysis; organization of the information in structured form-technology books; and methods and tools to reuse information. It is concluded that a process for consolidating and reusing design knowledge is powerful by itself, and in the authors' engineering domains, the reuse of analyses and designs is more useful than the reuse of software. >