F-granular Design Information Based Information Axiom

Design-relevant information is sometimes vague or linguistic (technically speaking, f-granular) (e.g., design a slim shaft with light weight where dimensions are critical than weight). This puts obstacle in practicing the information axiom (minimize the information content of the design) of axiomatic design theory, a theory that establishes a science base for design. In such a situation, how one should practice the axiom is an important issue for investigation. This paper proposes a version of information axiom, suitable for f-granular information, as follow: “maximize the coherency (overall definiteness) of design information.” It is the consequence of two linear measures of definiteness of f-granular information. As axiomatic design farther moves into the age of design automation, various machine intelligence techniques capable of computing words rather than numbers will be a matter of investigation. The proposed version of information axiom might help achieve the goals of such investigation.