Designing at a high level of abstraction

In the early stages of project initiation, it is especially important to be able to represent at a high level of abstraction the functional requirements of a system being designed. This makes it possible for a design team to arrange and rearrange the essential functional components rapidly. This offers a means to explore the feasibility of different system configurations and to pose and answer “what-if” questions before the design is frozen. Similarly, if we are able to model processes associated with manufacture, then in a like manner we can explore the feasibility of different manufacturing systems. If the tools for modeling function and processes are compatible at a high level of abstraction, then we can also pose and answer “what-if” questions to understand the interaction between the design and its manufacturability. In this paper, we put forward some ideas that stem from living systems theory that could facilitate the development of these tools.