Open Access

Rolf Steinbuch, Iryna Kmitina, Nico Esslinger

• If we review the research done in the field of optimization, the following topics appear to be the focus of current development: – Optimization under uncertainties, taking into account the inevitable scatter of parts, external effects and internal properties. Reliability and robustness both have to be taken into account when running optimizations, so the name Robust Design Optimization (RDO) came into use. – Multi-Objective Optimization (MOO) handles situations in which different participants in the development process are developing in different directions. Typically we think of commercial and engineering aspects, but other constellations have to be looked at as well, such as comfort and performance or price and consumption. – Process development of the entire design process, including optimization from early stages, might help avoid inefficient efforts. Here the management of virtual development has to be re-designed to fit into a coherent scheme. ... There are many other fields where interesting progress is being made. We limit our discussion to the first three questions.