DESIGN SELECTION IN TRIPTYCH

Design selection is a decision-making process that used to select a design (among many alternate designs) that most closely meets multiple, conflicting requirements. This is sometimes called Design Trade-Off.

• Design Options: Multiple designs, thoughts, or concepts being considered from which one is to be chosen for further study or analysis.
• Design Criteria: Requirements, design goals, or specifications that the Design Options must meet or exceed.
  

There are many approaches to performing Design Trade Off, but all have the following characteristics:

• Gather Design Options (brainstorming, TRIZ, patent searches)
• Gather Design Criteria (benchmarking, QFD, surveys)
• Compare each Design Option against each Design Criterion (qualitative or quantitative scoring)
• Compare each Design Option against each other (qualitative or quantitative scoring)
  

Triptych incorporates three approaches:

• Qualitative Selection for preliminary designs using Pugh Matrix
• Goal-based Selection for preliminary detailed designs using TOPSIS
• Quantitative Selection for detailed designs using SDI Matrix
  

Additionally, Triptych provides a worksheet for prioritizing Design Criteria called AHP (Importance).