Assessing Producibility of Product Platforms Using Set-Based Concurrent Engineering

Paper in proceedings, 2016

This paper presents a method to facilitate model-based producibility assessments of product variants in the early phases of platform development. The approach uses set-based concurrent engineering principles to explore and narrow down a design space towards feasible alternatives. A case including tool accessibility and assembly robustness of an aerospace sub-system platform is used to demonstrate the approach. The assessment activities can be prepared in parallel, and support the concurrency needed, across design and manufacturing, to serve improved process efficiency. Ultimately, the approach may reduce late design modifications thanks to increased reuse of manufacturing knowledge, as well as reduce cost thanks to less physical prototyping and testing.