Farrokh Mistree

• PhD
• Professor at University of Oklahoma

Advanced multi-agent systems are capable of executing tasks in complex and unknown domains that are unsuitable for humans. However, the design of multi-agent systems faces challenges in balancing global and local decision-making and in enabling the system to adaptively generate desired behaviors in a dynamic environment. To address these challenges...

Systems are characterized by continuous changes that are driven by both the evolving nature of the system itself and external environmental factors. To design systems for the future, it is critical to understand the behavior of these systems, the interactions between variables, and the emergent phenomena that arise in evolving systems. Designers mu...

Self-organizing systems are capable of executing tasks in complex and unknown domains that are unsuitable for humans. However, designing of self-organizing systems is challenging due to balancing global and local decision-making and in enabling the system to adaptively generate desired behaviors in different environments. To address these challenge...

Defense supply networks are critical for national security. These supply networks are currently designed using the cyber-physical construct to be lean. An unintended consequence of a lean supply network is that it is fragile and not fail-safe. We propose to design the defense supply network as a cyber-physical-social system that will result in a re...

Bird strikes present a growing concern to wildlife preservation efforts and pose safety and economic challenges in aviation and urban design that amalgamates a sociotechnical system. Our review of recent evidence suggests that artificial light at night (ALAN) is a contributing factor to bird strikes, especially during migration seasons, when birds...

Design of a manufacturing supply network (MSN) requires the consideration of decisions made by different groups at multiple levels and their interactions that include potential conflicts. Decisions are typically made based on information from computational simulations that are abstractions of reality and, therefore, embody uncertainty. This necessi...

In this paper, we address the issue of whether to optimize or satisfice in model-based engineering design. When dealing with operations research problems in the context of engineering design, one may encounter (i) nonlinear, nonconvex objectives and constraints, (ii) objectives with different units, and (iii) computational models that are abstracti...

When dealing with engineering design problems, designers often encounter nonlinear and nonconvex features, multiple objectives, coupled decision making, and various levels of fidelity of sub-systems. To realize the design with limited computational resources, problems with the features above need to be linearized and then solved using solution algo...

In this paper, we address the following question: How can multi-robot self-organizing systems be designed so that they show the desired behaviors and are able to perform tasks specified by designers? Multi-robot self-organizing systems, e.g., swarm robots, have great potential for adapting when performing complex tasks in a changing environment. Ho...

Achieving targeted product performance requires the integrated exploration of design spaces across multiple levels of decision-making in systems comprising products, materials, and manufacturing processes—product-material-manufacturing process (PMMP) systems. This demands the capability to co-design PMMP systems, that is, share ranged sets of desig...

Wicked problems are characterized by incomplete and conflicting information. To frame a wicked problem, it is necessary to analyze the interaction between variables and thence identify a reduced set of variables that are key to designing a socio-economic-technical system. In this paper we propose using a combination of interpretative and evidentiar...

Decision-making in the design of Manufacturing Supply Networks (MSNs) is complex owing to the need to account for decisions made by groups at multiple levels and the interactions that include potential conflicts and uncertainties. Decisions are made based on information available from simulations that employ computational models. These models are a...

How can multi-robot self-organizing systems be designed so that they show the desired behaviors and are able to perform tasks specified by designers? Multi-robot self-organizing systems, e.g., swarm robots, have great potential for adapting when performing complex tasks in a changing environment. However, such systems are difficult to design due to...

In this paper we address the following question: How can the designers of self-organizing systems use the relationships among relevant parameters to quantitatively characterize how a self-organizing system produces the collective behavior process, to better control and design a self-organizing system? A self-organizing system has advantages in perf...

What non-technical career-sustaining competencies are needed for the success of budding entrepreneurs in facilitating Atmanirbhar Bharat in 2047? In the context of the preceding question, we seek to promote reflection and dialog that results in action on modifying curricula that facilitates learning and the internalization non-technical career-sust...

In the context of the theme for this special issue, namely, challenges and opportunities in computing research to enable next generation engineering applications, our intent in writing this paper is to seed the dialog on furthering computing research associated with the design of cyber-physical-social systems. Cyber-Physical-Social Systems (CPSS's)...

We hypothesize that sustainable development is a wicked problem since it is virtually impossible to solve on account of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements. In this paper we introduce the Dilemma Triangle Method for social entrepreneurs to develop value propositions for sustainable development. The method is described and illustrat...

In this paper, we address the following question: How can instructors leverage assessment instruments used to process information gleaned from design, build, and test courses to simultaneously improve student outcomes and assess student learning well enough to improve the course in the future? A Take-away is unstructured text written by students in...

Decision support problems (DSPs) are used to model design decisions. In this article, a decision classification scheme, the multilevel decision scenario matrix (MDSM), is presented. The concept of horizontal and vertical coupling for modelling concurrent and hierarchical decisions is illustrated. The elements of the MDSM are used to develop design...

In this paper, we address the following question: How can instructors leverage assessment instruments used to process information gleaned from design, build, and test courses to simultaneously improve student outcomes and assess student learning well enough to improve the course in the future? A Take-away is an unstructured text written by students...

Surrogate models have been used to replace computationally expensive analysis models in engineering design problems. However, time-dependent variables and historical data are usually ignored in the surrogate modeling process. For instance, in a dam network design, using hydraulic simulations to estimate the water flow is computationally expensive,...

As climate change makes it essential for the industry to move away from fossil fuels it is important to reconceptualize the entire system of energy production and distribution. In engineering design practice we focus on creating solutions and designs that may be highly effective and efficient without taking into account evolving market structures....

In this paper, we address the issue of solving problems with multiple components, multiple objectives, and target values for each objective. There are limitations in managing these multi-component, multi-goal problems such as the need for domain expertise to combine or prioritize the goals. In this paper, we propose a domain-independent method, Ada...

When patients visit primary care clinics, they can be subject to long wait times due to operational inefficiencies and bottlenecks, decreasing patient satisfaction and sometimes leading to worse health outcomes. The existing literature models primary care clinics primarily as agent-based models, which are excellent at tracking individual patients a...

Can we provide evidence-based guidance to instructors to improve the delivery of the course based on students' reflection on doing? Over three years at the University of Oklahoma, Norman, US, we have collected about 18,000 Take-aways from almost 400 students who participated in an undergraduate design, build and test course. In this paper, we illus...

We suggest that there are two primary decisions, namely, selection and compromise. These decisions can be mathematically modeled and coupled to model a process for designing a complex system. In this chapter, we deal with modeling and capturing knowledge related to selection, compromise, and coupled hierarchical decisions in design using template-b...

In this chapter, we present a knowledgeKnowledge-based PlatformKnowledge-based Platform for Decision Support in the Design of Engineered Systems (PDSIDESPDSIDES). PDSIDESDSIDES is built on the ontologies developed in Chap. 3, which are the primary constructs of the platform for decision support. Based on these primary constructs, we introduce the o...

In the era of Industry 4.0, with the increase of machine intelligence and the internet of things/services in production systems, one of the ramifications is that it will foster a highly customized and dynamically changing market where more and more customers demand personalized or individualized products. This imposes a challenge to designers who a...

Utilizing the enterprise capital related to the knowledge of the design processes has become crucial to improving the enterprise’s agility and ability to respond to market shifts or changes. The complexity and uncertainty of design processes raise the challenge of capturing tacit knowledge and aid in designing design processes. This chapter involve...

In this chapter, we revisit the problem, summarize the approach to address the problem, review the validation strategy, and identify the main benefits and contributions of this monograph. Based on the summary of this monograph, we speculate about the opportunities for improving PDSIDES by proposing a framework for a Cloud-Based Platform for Decisio...

Understanding and predicting process behavior in complex engineering systems design is important, primarily when incomplete and inaccurate models with unequal fidelity are employed. Indeed, this case requires designers to have the ability to make robust, modifiable, and flexible design decisions, especially in the early design stages. To address th...

In this chapter, we introduce the foundations for the decision support platform architecture proposed in Chap. 1. The foundations include (1) primary constructs in decision-based design, (2) frameworks for robust decision-making, (3) the PEI-X diagram for designing decision workflows, and (4) knowledge-based techniques for decision support. After i...

Coupled Engineered Systems can be characterized by the inherent interactions among design decisions. These interactions define the influence that one design decision exerts over another and require appropriate method to model such interactions. Robust design enables designers to design a product or process that is relatively insensitive to uncertai...

Coupled Engineered Systems can be characterized by the inherent interactions among design decisions. These interactions define the influence that one design decision exerts over another and require appropriate method to model such interactions. Robust design enables designers to design a product or process that is relatively insensitive to uncertai...

Electricity suppliers have introduced time-of-use (TOU) metering and pricing in residential buildings in recent years. By increasing the price of electricity during on-peak hours (e.g., 2 pm to 7 pm in summer months), suppliers expect to regulate the energy usage from homeowners when the grid is near capacity. Therefore, homeowners are motivated to...

With increasing concerns about global warming caused by greenhouse gasses (GHGs), organizations have become more responsible for their operations. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), companies with a supply chain (SC) generate about 42% of GHGs in their transportation (30%) and inventory systems (12%), which makes mitigatin...

Many villagers in India suffer from multiple socio-economic challenges, such as, low-income, unemployment, and lack of access to clean water and energy that hinder their overall development. Social entrepreneurs can assist with the design and implementation of policies that help villagers achieve overall sustainability. Previously, a framework to s...

Primary Question – How can smart appliance networks integrate human preference to enhance appliance scheduling? To deal with user preference variability, where the physical network interacts with human behavior, the most effective method is a flexible Graphical User Interface (GUI), or dashboard. In this work a dashboard is developed to make a more...

This special issue is motivated by the trend of smart factories of the future towards the fourth Industrial Revolution, which makes it possible to better leverage capabilities and resources in a human-cyber-physical production environment. This emerging paradigm of Industry 4.0 poses new systems design problems at the interface of smart manufacturi...

Industry 4.0 is based on the digitization of manufacturing industries and has raised the prospect for substantial improvements in productivity, quality, and customer satisfaction. This digital transformation not only affects the way products are manufactured, but also creates new opportunities for the design of products, processes, services, and sy...

In this paper we present an extension to the traditional compromise Decision Support Problem (DSP) formulation. In this formulation we use Bayesian Statistics to model uncertainties associated with the information being used. In an earlier paper we have introduced a compromise DSP that accounts for uncertainty using fuzzy set theory. In this paper...

How can instructors leverage assessment instruments in design, build, and test courses to simultaneously improve student outcomes and assess student learning to improve courses? A Take-away is one type of assessment method. It is unstructured text written by a student in AME4163: Principles of Engineering Design, the University of Oklahoma, Norman,...

Process knowledge is of considerable significance to the digitalization and intelligentization of the manufacturing industry. Current research on the process knowledge representation of decision-making in engineering design has predominantly focused on either mathematical models of individual decisions at the micro-level or organizational models of...

Digitization is disrupting our world and shaping the challenges that newly minted graduates will need to address in their professional careers. The solution to manage such disruptions is anchored in the principles of sustainability and values that are foundational to mitigating inequities by managing the tensions between the pulls of people, planet...

ABSTRACT Digitization is disrupting our world and shaping the challenges that newly minted graduates will need to address in their professional careers. The solution to manage such disruptions is anchored in the principles of sustainability and values that are foundational to mitigating inequities by managing the tensions between the pulls of Peopl...

The supercapacitor is a booming technology whose popularity is increasing as the number of electric vehicles are increasing. The supercapacitor is a technology which will be a supporting pillar for electric vehicles and hydrogen vehicles to take the market. Supercapacitors will reduce stress on the main energy storage device thereby increasing thei...

The design of a connected engineered system requires numerous design decisions that influence one another. In a connected system that comprises numerous interacting decisions involving concurrency and hierarchy, accounting for interactions while also managing uncertainties, it is imperative to make robust decisions. In this article, we present a me...

To promote a new mode of production and a changed lifestyle in a relatively closed, underdeveloped community, critical interventions should be explored, and, as appropriate, implemented. Different scenarios are identified and explored so that decision support can be provided to social entrepreneurs (SEs). Here, agent-based modeling (ABM) is used to...

Composite materials are heterogeneous materials, and are hierarchical in nature consisting of multiple length scales. In the design of structures with composite materials, the micro-structure of the materials have a direct bearing on the final behavior of the structure. The deviations in the bulk material properties are caused due to uncertainties...

Uncertainty pertaining to multiple parameters is a critical issue in designing complex systems. Whether or not to acquire more information to reduce uncertainty, and how to acquire information are the meta-level decisions to be made. Key challenges in making such decisions are that there are multiple information sources to choose from, and the cost...

In this paper we address the following question: How can instructors leverage assessment instruments in design, build, and test courses to simultaneously improve student outcomes and assess student learning well enough to improve courses for future students? A learning statement is a structured text-based construct for students to record what they...

In supply chain network design, a retailer may determine the number and locations of facilities based on the cost of opening the facility, a customer driving to the facility, and a replenishment truck driving to the facility from a warehouse. However, this does not include the system’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Given the existential threat po...

Zhenjun Ming is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the School of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering of University of Oklahoma. He is working with Professor Farrokh Mistree and Professor Janet K. Allen at the Systems Realization Laboratory @ OU. His research interest is to create knowledge-based decision support methods and tools to facilitate d...

In the age of Industry 4.0, manufacturing enterprises are under pressure to improve methods of mass customization to satisfy evolving demands in different markets. One challenge is to fulfill orders swiftly at an acceptable cost, while maintaining service quality. To do this, the customer order decoupling point, where the value-adding activities ta...

Achieving integrated materials and product design in the digitized world necessitates facilitating a network of participants (material scientists, systems designers, software developers, end customers) to share material/product/manufacturing process/market data, information, knowledge, and resources instantly and in an integrated fashion, and there...

In this chapter, the requirements for the systems-based design architecture for the integrated design of materials, products, and associated manufacturing processes—“rendering conceptual materials design more systematic”, “providing systematic, domain-independent, goal-oriented and multiobjective decision support”—are addressed. The component of th...

In this chapter, we review the current trends and practices in the integrated design of materials, products, and manufacturing processes. In Sect. 2.1, we discuss the field of integrated materials and product design. A detailed discussion on the current capabilities, the associated limitations, and the research opportunities that are worthy of inve...

The objective in this chapter is to introduce and review the design foundations based on which the systems-based design architecture for integrated design of materials, products, and manufacturing processes design is developed. Besides the underlying decision-based design, systems design, and robust design approaches, methods and tools reviewed are...

Many have highlighted the challenges associated with the top-down (goal-oriented/inverse) approach of materials design (see McDowell et al. 2009; Horstemeyer 2012, 2018; McDowell 2018).

Steel mills are involved in the production of semi-products such as sheets or rods with certain grades of steel. Process designers are very much aware of the operating constraints and process requirements for each of the operations as they are involved in the whole process day-in and day-out.

In practice, “design” involved the selection of a suitable material for a given application (Nortan 1996; Shigley 1972; Ashby and Cebon 1993, Pahl and Beitz 2013). The performance of many engineered systems involving materials and products is limited by the available properties of the constituent materials. The difficulty here with material selecti...

Steel manufacturers focus on developing new grades of steel with improved properties and performance. The careful managing of material processing during steel manufacturing will lead to the development of steels with a range of mechanical properties resulting in the improved performance of products. A round rod is produced after passing the raw ste...

The adaptive linear programming (ALP) algorithm is an extension of the sequential linear programming algorithm where nonlinear formulations are iteratively approximated as linear formulations linearized about an iteration starting point. In the ALP algorithm, heuristics are used to determine the value of a critical parameter, namely, the reduced mo...

Food, energy, and water are the significant factors necessary for the social and economic well-being and prosperity of people, particularly to accelerate rural development. In order to attain sustainable development in off-grid villages, the issues associated with the Food-Energy-Water (FEW) nexus must be addressed with respect to social, economic...

In simulation-based realization of complex systems, we are forced to address the issue of computational complexity. One critical issue that must be addressed is the approximation of reality using surrogate models to replace expensive simulation models of engineering problems. In this paper, we critically review over 200 papers. We find that a frame...

A reconfigurable manufacturing system (RMS) can provide a customised manufacturing process to complete changes in operational requirements or machine status. The effective development of an RMS is supported by dynamic reconfiguration management that detects errors in the process and explores the reconfiguration strategy. However, existing studies o...

In this monograph we address the challenges in architecting networked engineered systems that are anchored in the Industry 4.0 construct. Global markets, rapidly evolving technologies, and changing customer preferences have all given rise to distributed manufacturing connected by internet technologies. While digitization helps in connecting erstwhi...

The Industry 4.0 construct is characterized by a digital model of end-to-end supply chain, all the manufacturing processes and provides a mechanism to transfer autonomy from the physical realm to the cyber-physical realm. Central to the implementation of the Industry 4.0 construct is the concept of the ‘Digital Twin’

The design of Networked Manufacturing Systems (NMS) can be looked at as a two-stage operation where a computational model and a decision support framework are first used to identify the space of feasible solutions. Then, a performance index is selected that allows for dynamic management of NMS to account for uncertainties arising from variations in...

In Chap. 2, we presented the DFDM framework for the design of Networked Manufacturing Systems (NMS).

In Chap. 2, we introduced Design for Dynamic Management (DFDM), a computational framework for designing flexible, operable and rapidly reconfigurable manufacturing processes. DFDM has three critical components, namely, adaptable and concurrent design, operability analysis, and reconfiguration strategies.

In global economy characterized by dynamic markets changes in customer preferences necessitate timely adjustments in manufacturing. Conventional manufacturing processes are designed for mass manufacturing and are not suited for agile, flexible and highly reconfigurable smart manufacturing. Industry 4.0 attempts to address the design of smart manufa...

While steady-state operability analysis, that is, operability with fixed models and parameter values is important, it is equally important to investigate the dynamic operability, that is, the operability of the NMS under variations in assumed models and parameter values.

In this paper, we extend our previous work on a goal-oriented inverse design method to carry out inverse robust design by managing the uncertainty involved to embody the introduction of specific robust design goals and new robust solution constraints anchored in the mathematical constructs of Error Margin Indices (EMIs) and Design Capability Indice...

To save time and resources, many are making the transition to developing their ideas virtually. Computer-aided gear production realization is becoming more and more desired in the industry. In order to produce gears with custom qualities, such as material, weight, and shape, the trial and error approach yields the best results. However, the trial a...

15.1 Introduction Predicting material properties using computational models is a major challenge as demonstrated by many chapters in this book. In this chapter, we conceptually address two fundamental questions that need to be considered for each length scale of simulation: 1. What are the fundamental principles that underlie the realization of con...

In this monograph, the authors demonstrate how the integration of adaptability, operability, and re-configurability in the design of complex systems is indispensable for the further digitization of engineering systems in smart manufacturing. Globalization of the customer base has resulted in distributed and networked manufacturing systems. However,...

Facilitating integrated computational materials engineering (ICME) in the digitized world necessitates facilitating a network of participants (material scientists, systems designers, software developers, service customers) to share material/product/manufacturing process/market data, information, knowledge, and resources instantly and collaborate so...

Design processes for complex engineered systems are inherently complex due to the dependencies among subsystems at the same level and between levels of a partitioned hierarchy. In decision-based design, this results in interactions among sets of design decisions. Representing and capturing the knowledge related to the decision interactions is criti...

In engineering design, surrogate models are often used instead of costly computer simulations. Typically, a single surrogate model is selected based on the previous experience. We observe, based on an analysis of the published literature, that fitting an ensemble of surrogates (EoS) based on cross-validation errors is more accurate but requires mor...

The research reported in the paper is from a decision-based design perspective wherein the principal role (but not only) role of a designer is to make decisions. Decision workflows are the processes by which the solutions pertaining to the design of complex systems are generated. Decision workflows are core to design processes, in which a set of de...

The formal representation and capturing of uncertainty knowledge are always essential but difficult. Typically, the uncertainties due to incompleteness and inaccuracies of model information in engineering design necessitate the designing of robust decision workflows to improve the quality of process/product in variations. This requests extending a...

We design two components of an American football helmet (composite shell and foam liner) to illustrate the efficacy of a goal-oriented, inverse decision-based design method for multi-component product design. The method is goal-oriented because we first identify the end performance system level goals for the helmet, namely, dissipate impact energy,...

As globalization continues, manufacturing enterprises need to do mass customization with a short lead-time, to satisfy evolving market demands in different regions. One challenge of mass customization is to fulfill orders swiftly at an acceptable cost, meanwhile maintaining the service quality. To do this, the customer order decoupling point – CODP...

Composite materials are increasingly being used in load bearing structures due to their high specific stiffness and strength. Designing composite structures involve solving multiple conflicting objectives (e.g weight and deflection) and constraints (e.g failure stress and strain), which is a challenging task. In the absence of an optimal solution,...

Over 250 million people in India currently lack access to basic services needed to live a rudimentary lifestyle. Most of these people reside in rural parts of the country. Lack of employment, economic opportunities, and development in rural areas are foundational to low socio-economic levels in these communities. Added to this are environmental iss...