Multi-index analysis with readiness levels for decision support in product design

The Technology Readiness Level (TRL) was introduced by NASA in 1974 to measure the technical maturity of equipment deployment in space missions. It has since been widely adopted for the assessment of technical readiness in novel products and systems across many sectors. But TRL does not capture all the dimensions needed to assess the maturity and suitability for production of a given product concept. Additional metrics have been proposed to measure other design parameters, but we note the lack of a comprehensive mechanism capable of assessing together all the parameters that affect the potential for success or failure of a product. In this article we propose the novel Multi-Index Analysis (MIA) methodology that maps existing metrics onto one comprehensive single index. In this work we demonstrate the application of MIA with 10 known metrics comprising 39 design dimensions to demonstrate that this approach enables a multi-factor analysis that is not possible with individual metrics. We detail four general cases for the application of this index including the single evaluation of one or more product design concepts, and the multiple evaluations of one or more product concepts made over time. Multiple evaluations yield trend data and this can aid in predicting the likely success of a product concept over its lifecycle. Modelling and predicting the evolution of MIA scores for different product concepts at an early stage of design enables an optimum solution to be selected and crafted. We provide a software tool to enable convenient MIA assessment.