Design for Autonomy: Integrating Technology Transfer into Product Development Process

This paper presents the integrated product development tool Design for Autonomy for reengineering of complex products. The objective is to assure that the product can be designed, produced and operated in Brazil for a defined period of time at a minimum risk of being dependent on export bans or unavailability of components. This tool is a new member of the Design for X family, which aims at integrating the requirements from the autonomy area into the conceptual phase of the product development process. Development guidelines derived from the procedures of the generic Design for X development framework are presented that lead to a balance between functionality and operability. The Design for Autonomy tool contains four steps: (1) Analysis of the product in order to identify critical elements; (2) Preparation of nationalization; (3) Reverse engineering of the original product in order to obtain technological know-how; and (4) Forward engineering for a national product, stimulating improvements and added value. The implementation can be evaluated by qualitative and quantitative performance criteria comparing the national product with the baseline configuration of the original product. The Design for Autonomy tool is being successfully applied and verified on a pilot project in the Brazilian space sector.