Network-based Modeling and Analysis in Design

In the last two decades, network science has emerged as a vibrant interdisciplinary field and has affected our understanding in many domains, including biology, physics, computer science, economics, and social sciences.One might claim that networks are now considered as a common metaphor to describe various aspects of our social and economic lives, as well as many new technologies of the last decade.Despite its success, applications of network science have, to a large extent, focused on understanding various mechanisms related to complex systems, and to a lesser extent on using this understanding as an engineering tool.As network science is coming of age, and as engineering systems are becoming more complex, it is an appropriate time to highlight network-based modeling and analysis as an important area in design research.It is in light of such a need that we introduce this Thematic Collection.Networks and network methods can contribute to the existing science and practice of design in multiple ways, and they can offer significant contributions to design science.Existing research in network-based modeling and analysis in design generally falls under the following three areas:(I) Networks and Architecture: Networks can help us create abstract models of structural dependencies within products and systems.More importantly, they can help us to have dynamic models of physical and cyber architectures of systems.As a result, network-based modeling can help us to understand better the structural dynamics of systems in the face of various kinds of failure and exogenous shocks, and the evolution of products in response to technology changes.(II) Networks and Design Decisions: Networks can also help us to better model, understand, and engineer the design process.Networks can not only represent design decisions and their dependencies, but they can also represent designers and their communication, cooperation, and competition with each other.Key questions here are related to understanding the dynamics of the design process for each of those networks (i.e., networks of design decisions and networks of designers), as well as the interaction dynamics of these two types of networks.