View article

In recent years, groundbreaking work in design science has identified that prototyping is one of the most critical factors leading to successful development. Many decisions regarding the detail of a design and the allocation of resources are made during design prototyping. Extant studies provide foundational insights in strategic prototyping. This work explores prototypes for developing services and systems that are complex. A framework is proposed to visualise strategic prototyping to search design spaces that span multiple domains. We define three phases of system prototyping: partitioning, search, and implementation. The framework illustrates the relationship between individual techniques and associated cost versus performance outcome. This new framework is supported through two commercial development case studies that demonstrate the approach. The first is a subsystem from a hybrid launch vehicle development effort at Gilmour Space Technologies, the second is a service centre design case from the SUTD-MIT International Design Centre.