A fuzzy method for propagating functional architecture constraints to physical architecture

Modular product design has received great attention for about 10 years but few works have proposed tools to either jointly design the functional and physical architectures or propagate the impact of evolutions from one domain to another. In this paper we present a new method supporting the product architecture design. In new product development situations or in reengineering projects, system architects could use this method in the early design stages, to pre-determine cohesive modules and integrative elements and to simulate a domain architecture by propagating architecture choices from another domain. To illustrate our approach, we present an industrial case study concerning the design of a new automobile powertrain.