1. In the Research Clarification stage, the literature was searched and complemented with insights obtained from discussions with the supervisors of this research as well as industry collaborators from the author’s group to define the research goal and develop an overall research project plan (Chapter 1).
2. In the Descriptive Study I stage, the literature on ECs and related areas was reviewed to increase understanding of the research problem (Chapter 2). ECM methods were searched in literature, and the associated publications and tools were reviewed to establish a state-of-the-art in ECM (Chapter 3).
3. In the Prescriptive Study stage, the understanding obtained from literature in the previous stages was complimented with industry experience from the author’s group to develop a set of requirements for ECM methods, and use them as criteria to assess eight promising ECM methods (Chapter 4). A concept for a design support method was formulated (Chapter 5), and this concept was detailed into the proposed FBS Linkage method (Chapter 6).
4. In the Descriptive Study II stage, an initial evaluation of the developed method was conducted based on case study applications and expert interviews (Chapter 7). The method was applied to two complex designs and the results were demonstrated to industry experts, who then assessed the method