Web-based morphological charts for concept design in collaborative product development

Morphological Chart Analysis is one of the formal design tools enabling collaborative product development. It is widely accepted in the textbooks and by practitioners as an effective technique for conceptual design of products, processes, and systems. This paper proposes to exploit the Web technology to implement the morphological chart analysis method on the Internet/Intranet. A prototype system, consisting of a concept browser/editor, a functional analyzer, a concept generator, a concept assessor, and all linked to a central concept database, is demonstrated. Parties concerned in product development are able to contribute in different locations to the same project. In addition to project team members, even experienced customers and potential suppliers are able to contribute their ideas to the concept base using the concept browser/editor. The incorporation of various decision-making activities of concept design into one integrated Web-based system allows the designer to choose the most appropriate idea from potential alternatives in an objective and systematic way.