An Interval Multi-Objective Evolutionary Generation Algorithm for Product Design Change Plans in Uncertain Environments

Design change is an important issue in complex product development projects. In a complex product with numerous parts (also known as components), the change of one key part may spread to other parts associated with it, generating a chain reaction throughout the entire project. Therefore, it is necessary to select a suitable change plan involving only fewer crucial parts in order to enhance the product’s performance, minimize change cost, and reduce change duration/time. Focusing on the case where the correlation strength between parts cannot be accurately obtained, in this paper we study an interval multi-objective evolutionary algorithm for finding excellent design change plans. Firstly, on the basis of the established multi-layer product network with interval correlation weights, an interval multi-objective optimization model of the product design change planning problem is established, where three new objective functions regarding product performance, carbon trading cost and supply risk are defined. Then, a constraint multi-objective evolutionary algorithm based on interval Pareto dominance is proposed to search for optimal change plans. Several novel operators, including the problem characteristic-guided population update strategy, the probability-based interval Pareto dominance, and the interval constraint handling strategy, are developed to enhance the algorithm’s performance. Finally, the proposed algorithm is compared with eight existing algorithms on the two design change cases, experimental results revealed its effectiveness.