Synthesis of product architectures using a DSM/DMM-based approach

• Computational architecture synthesis can help produce better designs and improve existing ones. • A formalism for establishing the validity of component DSMs is the Architecture Schema presented here, consisting of an ontology of components and connections and two types of constraint (connection requirements and path requirements). • An exhaustive search algorithm can use such a schema to generate all possible architectures allowed by the constraints. • Further work will be undertaken on applying this method to problems involving the redesign of existing products and to systems in other domains (processes and organisations).