Computer-Supported Design for Producibility : Principles and Models for System Realisation and Utilisation

Doctoral thesis, 2007

For many products, the adaptation to customer specifications is essential and requires flexible product design and manufacture while maintaining competitive pricing. Engineering design is often concerned with striking a good balance between product properties, e.g. performance, and the resources required to manufacture and assemble the product. When different courses of action are to be evaluated, even seemingly small changes in customer requirements, product design, and manufacturing properties have to be handled with caution. Small changes can entail products with: low level of conformability with the manufacturing system, highly increased cost, and extended manufacturing lead-time. For most companies, the manufacturing system is a valuable asset that is more or less fixed and only minor adaptations are allowed. This implies that the product design has to be adapted to the manufacturing system to a large extent. Design for producibility (DFP) is the process in which a systematic method is used to reach the required functional properties of the product at the same time as good compliance with the manufacturing system is ensured. The DFP process usually needs to involve several persons simultaneously for the purpose of sharing information and knowledge. For many manufacturing companies, the collaboration between engineering design and production engineering is a critical issue and they have to improve their methods and tools for ensuring and enhancing producibility. This can be achieved by introducing computer-supported design for producibility. The present research is intended to contribute to the development and utilisation of different application systems that can be used as such computer support. The aim is to provide companies with support in application system development and to show how different application systems can be used in a systematic way as means to ensure and enhance producibility. The competitive advantages to gain from introducing computer-supported design for producibility are: product designs with high level of conformability with the production system, shortened manufacturing lead-time, and decreased manufacturing cost. This work contributes to the achievement of these advantages by introducing a framework with principles and models supporting application systems development. Three types of application systems are presented and their practical usefulness is examined, showing practitioners how producibility aspects can be assessed systematically. The main scientific and theoretical contribution of the work comprises: the descriptions concerning how to structure and describe the product and product-related information (manufacturing requirements, costs, process plans and production resources), the foundation of different information models, and the clarification of the models’ interrelationships. This is perceived as a contribution to a better understanding of the domains and how they relate to each other.Design for producibility (DFP) is the process in which a systematic method is used to reach the required functional properties of the product at the same time as good compliance with the manufacturing system is ensured. The DFP process usually needs to involve several persons simultaneously for the purpose of sharing information and knowledge. For many manufacturing companies, the collaboration between engineering design and production engineering is a critical issue and they have to improve their methods and tools for ensuring and enhancing producibility. This can be achieved by introducing computer-supported design for producibility. The present research is intended to contribute to the development and utilisation of different application systems that can be used as such computer support. The aim is to provide companies with support in application system development and to show how different application systems can be used in a systematic way as means to ensure and enhance producibility.