Design for control: A new perspective on process and product innovation

Product and process design have been examined from a multitude of perspectives: engineering, manufacturing, marketing, industrial design, as well as the integration of some or all of these perspectives. In turn, each perspective has led to approaches that are commonly known--design for manufacture (DFM), agile enterprise, concurrent engineering, value engineering, design for assembly (DFA), product data management (PDM), product life-cycle management (PLM), and many others. We propose a new perspective--design for control (DFC). DFC focuses on the carefully considered integration of new (or redesigned) parts/products into the control system structures that are used to plan and control the manufacture and assembly of products. We offer a formalization of DFC and the concept of "controllability" that facilitates development and maintenance of more efficient control systems.