Abstract: To comprehensively consider multi-stage decision-making information of product styling design, the complex network theory was introduced and a multi-stage network coupling decision-making process of product styling design was proposed. The relationship of multi-stage decision-making information of product styling design was modeled with coupled association. Based on the consistency analysis of decision-makers’ scores, the adjacency matrix of design decision-making network was identified. The decision-makers’ weights were obtained by calculating changes in network cohesion. Through analyzing the stability of decision-making network cohesion and the consistency of decision-makers’ opinions, the number of decision-making rounds was determined. To compute the weights of each stage in the decision-making process of product styling design, a programming function was constructed, and the aggregation of multi-stage decision-making information was realized through linear coupling. Taking the decision-making of numerical control grinder styling design as an example, the effectiveness of the method was verified. Results show that the proposed method can help realize the aggregation of multi-stage decision-making information of product styling design and improve the quality of design decision-making in an overall and scientific way. 

Key words: product styling design, design decision-making, complex network, network cohesion, multi-stage coupling