A NEW APPROACH TO MODELING OF THE DESIGN PROCESSES

The paper presents a new model of the design process. First the distinction is made between ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ system models. Then the design process is conceptually decomposed into the designing system, the system of design operations, and the model of designed object. The designing system performs design operations. The design operations determine features of the designed object. The design object model is being constructed of features in course of the designing. A basic invariant structure of the design process is identified, which is common to all engineering design processes.