A reconfigurable platform in support of one-of-a-kind product development

In recent years, a variety of Internet-based systems has been developed for the purpose of Rapid One-of-a-Kind or customized Product Development (ROKPD). They can be applied in different stages of the product development process such as to rapidly capture customer requirements, and help produce high-quality products at low cost and short lead-time. Many of the systems, however, do not support rapid adaptation or dynamic reconfiguration of systems and tools for supporting ROKPD in a distributed manufacturing environment. To the authors’ knowledge, the infrastructure of such a reconfigurable platform for supporting distributed manufacturing has never been directly studied. This paper proposes an Internet-based reconfigurable ROKP platform that has been prototyped to serve as a substrate for integrating innovative tools and systems for One-of-a-Kind Production (OKP) companies in New Zealand. The main emphasis of this paper is to investigate how to build the Internet-based reconfigurable ROKPD platform and to design appropriate intelligent tools and systems for the purpose of rapidly and economically producing OKP products in the global environment. A number of recent developments are discussed, including the four open-domain infrastructure of the ROKPD platform, Internet-based data management systems, an integrated product data environment and a cost/lead time control tool.     

Recent research on developing Web-based manufacturing systems: a review

A comprehensive review is given of recent research on developing Web-based manufacturing systems. First, the key issues in developing Web-based manufacturing systems, including collaboration among product development partners, data modelling, system architecture design, and security management, and researches to address these key issues are presented. Then various approaches of developing Web-based manufacturing systems are introduced to show how these approaches can improve the efficiency and quality in product design, production, life-cycle integration, enterprise management and customer service. Problems of the currently developed Web-based manufacturing systems and future work for developing the next-generation Web-based manufacturing systems are subsequently discussed.     

A modular architecture for rapid development of CAPP systems for agile manufacturing

Current manufacturing planning software systems, such as computer aided process planning (CAPP) systems, are general and in a closed form. It is very difficult to modify these systems to respond to a user's dynamically changing needs. These systems are no longer suitable for agile manufacturing. This paper presents research aimed at developing a novel architecture for the rapid development of CAPP systems. The architecture supports the construction of CAPP systems from prepackaged, plug-compatible software components. Specifications of the architecture and its building blocks are defined. Several important issues in architecture implementation are discussed, and an experimental system is illustrated. Finally, an Internet-based distributed CAPP system architecture is presented as a preview of next generation CAPP system development.     

基于网络的产品设计系统

在分析了企业产品设计的现实需求的基础上 ,指出基于网络的产品设计系统是敏捷制造企业联盟的重要组成部分 ,是企业开展创新产品设计、降低成本、实施并行工程的现代产品设计手段 .并对基于互联网和统一产品数据模型的产品设计系统进行了可行性分析、系统结构分析以及系统实现关键技术分析 .     

Hybrid approach in prototyping functional medical safety devices: A case study

Utilisation of functional prototypes during the upstream design stage is able to shorten the product development cycle of a medical device and quicken the transfer process to mass manufacturing. Innovative synergy of conventional manufacturing techniques and rapid prototyping techniques is thus needed to fabricate functional prototypes successfully. This case study reports on the development of an automatically activated safety needle using different prototyping approaches for the fabrication of functional prototypes. The approaches include rapid prototyping, computer numerical control (CNC) machining and vacuum casting. The challenges of each technique are discussed and solutions are presented. A hybrid technique involving CNC machining and vacuum casting is adopted to fabricate the prototypes. This hybrid prototyping approach was able to expand the choices for materials to fabricate the prototypes and thus enabling the validation of the design mechanism in a shorter time.     

Hybrid approach in prototyping functional medical safety devices: A case study

Utilisation of functional prototypes during the upstream design stage is able to shorten the product development cycle of a medical device and quicken the transfer process to mass manufacturing. Innovative synergy of conventional manufacturing techniques and rapid prototyping techniques is thus needed to fabricate functional prototypes successfully. This case study reports on the development of an automatically activated safety needle using different prototyping approaches for the fabrication of functional prototypes. The approaches include rapid prototyping, computer numerical control (CNC) machining and vacuum casting. The challenges of each technique are discussed and solutions are presented. A hybrid technique involving CNC machining and vacuum casting is adopted to fabricate the prototypes. This hybrid prototyping approach was able to expand the choices for materials to fabricate the prototypes and thus enabling the validation of the design mechanism in a shorter time.     

The Internet as a tool with application to agile manufacturing: A web-based engineering approach and its implementation issues

This paper presents a novel approach to implementing agile design and manufacturing concepts by using Internet-based technology. The underlying philosophy of the approach is to use web-based design and manufacturing support systems as smart tools from which design and manufacturing customers can rapidly and responsively access the system's built-in design and manufacturing expertise. The approach is described in detail with application examples. The major issues in implementing the approach are discussed with particular reference to using Java programming, client-server technology and open computing of design and manufacturing requirements. The paper concludes with a discussion on the potential of the proposed approach.     

Decision support for design of reconfigurable rotary machining systems for family part production

To remain competitive in currently unpredictable markets, the enterprises must adapt their manufacturing systems to frequent market changes and high product variety. Reconfigurable manufacturing systems (RMSs) promise to offer a rapid and cost-effective response to production fluctuations under the condition that their configuration is attentively studied and optimised. This paper presents a decision support tool for designing reconfigurable machining systems to be used for family part production. The objective is to elaborate a cost-effective solution for production of several part families. This design issue is modelled as a combinatorial optimisation problem. An illustrative example and computational experiments are discussed to reveal the application of the proposed methodology. Insight gained would be useful to the decision-makers managing the configuration of manufacturing systems for diversified products.     

A polychromatic sets approach to the conceptual design of machine tools

Currently very few computer-aided conceptual design systems are available to support the initial development of a machine tool and its structure (concept, calculation, design) and the verification of the prototype. In recent years, polychromatic sets have emerged as a promising approach for mathematical modelling. The theory, techniques, and approaches of polychromatic sets are capable of playing an important role in the conceptual design of a variety of products including machine tools. In this paper, the concept of polychromatic sets is introduced, and a polychromatic sets approach for the conceptual design of machine tools is proposed. The usefulness of the proposed method is illustrated by a conceptual design example of a machining centre of drilling, milling, and boring. Applying the proposed approach to machine tools helps to make right decisions in the conceptual design stage. Due to its powerful mathematical modelling capability, the polychromatic sets technique proposed in this paper may possibly be extended and applied to design evaluation problems encountered in other design tasks in manufacturing systems including process planning.     

快速产品与过程实现

研究了实现下一代制造的（ＮＧＭ）企业的关键使能技术－－企业间的快速产品与过程实现（ＲＰＰＲ）技术的体系结构,建立了基于过程管理系统的异地协同设计与制造的集成机制,并在实践中取得了较好的效果。     

Motion generation and virtual simulation in a digital environment

The growing complexity in product design and manufacturing processes has made virtual prototyping an important new approach that enhances products and process development. Considering the ergonomic issues evident in product lifecycles, digital human modelling (DHM) is adopted for virtual simulation and proactive evaluation. A motion generation from semantics (MGS) system is proposed in this research. The MGS system features include virtual prototyping, natural language instruction, a method time measurement (MTM) translator and motion generator. The system was implemented using product lifecycle management (PLM) software and validated in an automotive manufacturing company. The practice of intuitively generating manual operations and conducting virtual simulations enables the system planners to quickly respond to manufacturing process changes and recursively improve the tooling and process design flexibility and efficiency.     

Methods for the capture of manufacture best practice in product lifecycle management

The capture of manufacturing best practice knowledge in product lifecycle management systems has significant potential to improve the quality of design decisions and minimise manufacturing problems during new product development. However, providing a reusable source of manufacturing best practice is difficult due to the complexity of the viewpoint relationships between products and the manufacturing processes and resources used to produce them. This paper discusses how best to organise manufacturing best practice knowledge, the relationships between elements of this knowledge plus their relationship to product information. The paper also explores the application of UML-2 as a system design tool which can model these relationships and hence support the reuse of system design models over time. The paper identifies a set of part family and feature libraries and, most significantly, the relationships between them, as a means of capturing best practice manufacturing knowledge and illustrates how these can be linked to manufacturing resource models and product information. Design for manufacture and machining best practice views are used in the paper to illustrate the concepts developed. An experimental knowledge based system has been developed and results generated using a power transmission shaft example.     

Recent development on product modelling: a review

Product modelling is a pivotal activity in product development (PD) processes. Well-defined product models organize product data, production information and knowledge to satisfy the requirements of the rapid changes of the PD environment. In this paper, a comprehensive review is carried out on the recent development of product modelling technology. Four types of product modelling methodologies are discussed in detail. Two object-oriented product modelling methods: STEP-based product modelling and UML-based product modelling are reviewed and compared. The research gaps and issues are identified. To implement the product modelling into current integrated manufacturing environment, a generic product modelling framework is proposed. The future research trend of product modelling is also discussed.     

A Conceptual Framework for Increasing Innovation through Improved Selection of Specialized Professionals

Engineering managers involved in product development and manufacturing are responsible for proposing and developing ideas and concepts that will benefit new or existing products and processes. Improved methods are required to identify, prioritize, and integrate the opinions, ideas, and concepts proposed by specialized professionals (SP) or subject matter experts into their existing product development and process improvement. Identifying the optimal SPs and utilizing these for concept generation efforts can lead engineering management working in the new product/technology development space toward an improved idea/concept generation, increased innovation, and ultimately, superior products and processes. Methods for locating, assessing, and ranking SPs vary with every organization, but in general, systematic methods and processes are not considered, which results in the reliance on internal or limited external experts. This study aims to directly impact the engineering managers by bridging the gap between the traditional business management and core engineering management for providing guidance and improving the way in which the practicing engineering managers deal with new product development and management of technology. This experimental study is derived using a real-world engineering problem, which is faced in the field of engineering management, and the results support the implementation of a conceptual SP-focused framework that provides an increased quality of the concept generation outputs, improved preparation for future product development stages, and reduced costs.     

基于CAD／CAM的复杂曲面产品设计

以现代产品设计发展现状和趋势为依据,深入探讨了不同造型类别产品的设计方式与制造过程。在此基础上,提出了如何整合设计方法,合理利用现代先进的CAD/CAM技术,实现复杂曲面产品在造型和结构上的设计,以适应现代社会发展的需求。     

Identification of the optimal product configuration and parameters based on individual customer requirements on performance and costs in one-of-a-kind production

One-of-a-kind production (OKP) aims at manufacturing products based on the requirements from individual customers while maintaining the high quality and efficiency of mass production. This research addresses the issues in identifying the optimal product configuration and its parameters based on individual customer requirements on performance and costs of products. In this work, variations of product configurations and parameters in an OKP product family are modeled by an AND-OR tree and parameters of the nodes in this tree. Different product configurations with different parameters are evaluated by performance and cost measures. These evaluation measures are converted into comparable customer satisfaction indices using the non-linear relations between the evaluation measures and the customer satisfaction indices. The optimal product configuration and its parameters with the maximum overall customer satisfaction index are identified by genetic programming and constrained optimization. A case study to identify the optimal configuration and its parameters of window products in an industrial company is used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the introduced approach.     

Simulation in the design and operation of manufacturing systems: state of the art and new trends

As the industrial requirements change at a rapid pace due to the drastic evolution of technology, the necessity of quickly investigating potential system alternatives towards a more efficient manufacturing system design arises more intensely than ever. Manufacturing systems simulation has proven to be a powerful tool for designing and evaluating a manufacturing system due to its low cost, quick analysis, low risk and meaningful insight that it may provide, improving thus the understanding of the influence of each component. Simulation comprises an indispensable set of IT tools and methods for the successful implementation of digital manufacturing. It allows experimentation and validation of product, process, and system design and configuration. This paper investigates the major historical milestones in the evolution of manufacturing systems simulation technologies and examines recent industrial and research approaches in key fields of manufacturing. It describes how the urge towards digitalisation of manufacturing in the context of the 4th Industrial revolution has shaped simulation in the design and operation of manufacturing systems and reviews the new approaches that have arisen in the literature. Particular focus is given to technologies in the digitalised factories of the future that are gaining ground in industrial applications simulation, offering multiple advantages.     

Multi-agent systems applications in manufacturing systems and supply chain management: a review paper

This paper offers a review of the development and use of multi-agent modelling techniques and simulations in the context of manufacturing systems and supply chain management (SCM). The objective of the paper is twofold. First, it presents a comprehensive literature review of current multi-agent systems (MAS) research applications in the field of manufacturing systems and SCM. Second, it aims to identify and evaluate some key issues involved in using MAS methods to model and simulate manufacturing systems. A variety of different MAS applications are reviewed in three different classified research areas: production design and development, production planning and control, and SCM. In presenting a detailed taxonomy of MAS applications, the paper describes MAS application domains from five different perspectives. The review suggests the MAS approach represents a feasible framework for designing and analysing real-time manufacturing operations, since the approach is capable of modelling different levels of agent behaviour and dynamical interactions. The paper also highlights a number of key issues which have to be taken into account in attempting to design MAS-based research paradigms for future applications in manufacturing systems.     

Information sharing in multiviewpoint injection moulding design and manufacturing

Global competitiveness challenges manufacturing industry to bring to market well designed and manufactured new products at competitive prices in as short a lead-time as possible. To achieve this, inputs are needed from experts in a multitude of disciplines as well as from customers and suppliers. While the use of design teams is achieving success, there is a need for modern software tools that support design and manufacture to be radically improved. Typically, design for manufacture software systems does not support the multiple views of information needed for information systems to be able to support multiple manufacturing perspectives. This paper proposes a linked, multiviewpoint, product model structure as a means of supporting the many views of product information necessary in team-based design and manufacturing systems. To test the ideas developed, an experimental product model has been implemented using an object-oriented database that focuses on views related to the design and manufacture of injection-moulded products. The experimental system explores the relationships between three views: mouldability, cavity design and cavity machining views.     

Optimising product configurations with a data-mining approach

Customers benefit from the ability to select their desired options to configure final products. Manufacturing companies, however, struggle with the dilemma of product diversity and manufacturing complexity. It is important, therefore, for them to capture correlations among the options provided to the customers. In this paper, a data mining approach is applied to manage product diversity and complexity. Rules are extracted from historical sales data and used to form sub-assemblies as well as product configurations. Methods for discovering frequently ordered product sub-assemblies and product configurations from ‘if-then’ rules are discussed separately. The development of the sub-assemblies and configurations allows for effective management of enterprise resources, contributes to the innovative design of new products, and streamlines manufacturing and supply chain processes. The ideas introduced in this paper are illustrated with examples and an industrial case study.