Reuse Methodology and Implementation Appnote

The methodology developed for design reuse in the RASSP environment is composed of two areas:

1. design-for-reuse
2. design-with-reuse

1. Identification of a desgin object for inclusion in the reuse repository based on criteria established by the organization
2. Submittal and approval of the design object by a peer review board (i.e., for quality, utility and generality assessment)
3. Evaluation of the design object by a local reuse administrator for classification and collection of meta-data
4. Integration of the design knowledge with the repository, and release for general access
5. If an appropriate class is not found, process-driven steps are taken to create a new class or modify existing classes in order to accommodate the new object

1. search for and select candidate reusable designs, based on form, fit, and function
2. copy the candidate designs into the designer's local workspace
3. integrate and test the various candidates to select the optimal design for the requirements
4. make any adjustments required to the selected design as needed
5. reintegrate and test the new design

The methodology document provides additional detail for each of the processes highlighted above. Adaptation of these processes may require integration and use of corporate standard taxonomies and engineering process improvement guidelines within the common vocabulary, the addition of corporate and domain-specific knowledge to the templates and methods to reflect cost, reliability, manufacturability, and other process information, for example. Customization of the generic Design-With-Reuse process may also include performing tradeoffs between designing from scratch versus modifying the selected design object, the addition of lessons-learned knowledge to the reuse repository, and so forth.