A Generative Approach for Design Evaluation and Partner Selection for Agile Manufacturing

: An agile manufacturing firm forms partnerships with other manufacturers as necessary to design and manufacture a product quickly in response to a market opportunity. In order to form a successful partnership, the firm needs to create a superior design and select the partners that best fit the partnership's scope. In this paper we consider the intrinsic relationship between design evaluation and partner selection. The paper presents a generative approach that a design team can use to obtain feedback about a new product embodiment based on high-level process plans and on the manufacturing capabilities and performance of potential partners. Using this information, the design team can improve their design and identify the potential partners that best fit its manufacturing requirements. The primary application of this work is to certain types of mechanical and electronic products.