Rapid one-of-a-kind product development via the Internet: a literature review of the state-of-the-art and a proposed platform

The historical background of Internet-based product design and manufacturing systems for rapid development of one-of-a-kind (OKP) products is systematically reviewed. By reviewing the existing OKP systems and recent approaches of Internet-based design and manufacturing systems, the requirements for the next generation of OKP systems and the current techniques that can be used to implement Internet-based product design and manufacturing systems for the rapid production of OKP products will be discussed. The problems that emerged from recent developments are reviewed and sorted. The future trends of Internet-based collaborative design, decision support, manufacturing support, supply chain management, workflow management, Internet techniques for product design and manufacturing, product modelling, STEP-based data environment, concurrent engineering, etc., will also be discussed. The reviewed state-of-the-art approaches are used directly or indirectly as references for the development of a new generation OKP systems. A reference system structure for building an Internet-based integrated product development system is then proposed to facilitate rapid development of OKP products.     

Module partition for 3D CAD assembly models: a hierarchical clustering method based on component dependencies

Reusing previous CAD assembly models directly in new product development is almost impossible in One-of-a-Kind Production (OKP) in which customer requirements vary from one to another. As such, modularisation of CAD assembly models is required to facilitate modular design for OKP. However, to the authors’ best knowledge, there has been no research carried out on modularisation of CAD assembly models so far. To bridge this gap and make the best use of existing CAD models, this paper proposes a novel module partition approach, to group existing CAD assembly models into modules based on component dependencies. In this approach, an extraction algorithm was developed to extract assembly information from a given assembly model directly, by using automated programmable interfaces of CAD software tools. The extracted information is processed to generate the component design structure matrix (DSM) representing hierarchical relations and dependency strengths between components. Four popular hierarchical clustering methods were used to work with the component DSM to produce results of module partition. A case study was carried out to illustrate the proposed methods and demonstrate their feasibility. It enables OKP companies to respond rapidly to changing customer requirements and develop customised products in a short period.     

Identification of the domain of opportunities for a market of resources for virtual enterprise integration

In the aggressive and competitive business environment of today, enterprises are expected to achieve competitive advantages in synergy, under the format of reconfigurable global networked structures, such as the virtual enterprise (VE) organizational model, integrating the optimal resources (products, operations, services) for each of the functions that the enterprise undertakes, in order to produce a product that meets the market requirements. The literature shows that several Internet-based tools can be used to enable some activities of VE integration. However, as we demonstrate, these do not support the reconfiguration dynamics required by this organizational model. Alternatively, the authors propose the market of resources (MR) as an environment to fully support VE integration, coping with its intrinsic requirement of high reconfigurability. Based on a demonstrator developed for the MR and on cost models traducing VE integration, one for the (traditional) Internet-based tools and the other for the MR, to support an analytical simulation, the paper validates the thesis that the traditional tools cannot support agility and dynamics, presenting the MR as a VE enabler, and identifying the domain of situations where the utilization of the MR reveals increased efficiency in terms of search and selection time and cost—designated as opportunities domain.     

Agile manufacturing: Enablers and an implementation framework

Tougher competitive situations have led to increasing attention being paid to customer satisfaction, of which timely and customized services are the key concepts. As the product life cycle becomes shortened, high product quality becomes necessary for survival. Markets become highly diversified and global, and continuous and unexpected change become the key factors for success. The need for a method of rapidly and cost-effectively developing products, production facilities and supporting software, including design, process planning and shop floor control system has led to the concept of agile manufacturing. Agile manufacturing can be defined as the capability to survive and prosper in a competitive environment of continuous and unpredictable change by reacting quickly and effectively to changing markets, driven by customer-designed products and services. This article details the key concepts and enablers of agile manufacturing. The key enablers of agile manufacturing include: (i) virtual enterprise formation tools/metrics; (ii) physically distributed manufacturing architecture and teams; (iii) rapid partnership formation tools/metrics; (iv) concurrent engineering; (v) integrated product/production/business information system; (vi) rapid prototyping tools; and (vii) electronic commerce. A conceptual framework for the development of an agile manufacturing system and future research directions are presented in this paper. This framework takes into account the customization and system integration with the help of business process redesign, legal issues, concurrent engineering, computer-integrated manufacturing, cost management, total quality management and information technology.     

Advanced product development integration architecture: an out-of-box solution to support distributed production networks

This paper presents novel collaboration methods implemented using a centralized client/server product development integration architecture, and a decentralized peer-to-peer network for smaller and larger companies using open source solutions. The product development integration architecture has been developed for the integration of disparate technologies and software systems for the benefit of collaborative work teams in design and manufacturing. This will facilitate the communication of early design and product development within a distributed and collaborative environment. The novelty of this work is the introduction of an ‘out-of-box’ concept which provides a standard framework and deploys this utilizing a proprietary state-of-the-art product lifecycle management system (PLM). The term ‘out-of-box’ means to modify the product development and business processes to suit the technologies rather than vice versa. The key business benefits of adopting such an approach are a rapidly reconfigurable network and minimal requirements for software customization to avoid systems instability.     

Agent-based distributed scheduling for virtual job shops

Nowadays, market globalisation and stiff world-wide competition require flexible, demand-driven, and reconfigurable production systems that can adapt to the requirements of the increasing reduction in product life cycle and rapid changes in market demand. The advent and development of network technology (especially the Internet) and distributed computing technology make it possible for geographically dispersed manufacturing resources to be integrated and deployed effectively and efficiently. In addition, manufacturing enterprises can expand their throughput within a short time and rapidly reduce the production cycle via transferring certain jobs to other available manufacturing resources in the globalised manufacturing environment, viz., manufacturing enterprises can expand their throughput through the dynamic formation of virtual job shops according to the production requirements. Owing to more open manufacturing environments and rapid changes of market demands, the traditional centralised scheduling approaches are not suitable for this open distributed manufacturing environment. This paper proposes a distributed scheduling approach in which a multi-agent solution towards a ‘task-machine’ assignment is presented. The main points of discussion are the formation of a virtual job shop that is based on market mechanism and the distributed scheduling approach based on negotiation.     

Advanced machine service support using Internet-enabled three-dimensional-based virtual engineering

In the era of globalization, one of the key factors for manufacturing machine builders/suppliers to remain competitive is their capability to provide cost-effective and comprehensive machine service and maintenance for their clients at anytime, anywhere. Previous research has highlighted the role of virtual engineering tools in the design and development life cycle of manufacturing machinery systems. Virtual engineering models created during the development phase can potentially be used to provide valuable functions for many other tasks during the operational phase, including service and maintenance support. This paper introduces an innovative Internet-enabled three-dimensional-based virtual engineering framework that can be used for such purposes. Specifically, it addresses a system architecture that is designed to facilitate the tight integration between virtual engineering tools and a set of Internet-based reconfigurable modular maintenance supporting tools. This system architecture has been verified by implementations using different toolsets atop of various Internet technologies (e.g. XML Web services and LabView's Datasocket). Implementation details and successful industrial-based test cases are also provided in this paper.     

Configuration design of scalable reconfigurable manufacturing systems for part family

Intense global competition, dynamic product variations, and rapid technological developments force manufacturing systems to adapt and respond quickly to various changes in the market. Such responsiveness could be achieved through new paradigms such as Reconfigurable manufacturing systems (RMS). In this paper, the problem of configuration design for a scalable reconfigurable RMS that produces different products of a part family is addressed. In order to handle demand fluctuations of products throughout their lifecycles with minimum cost, RMS configurations must change as well. Two different approaches are developed for addressing the system configuration design in different periods. Both approaches make use of modular reconfigurable machine tools (RMTs), and adjust the production capacity of the system, with minimum cost, by adding/removing modules to/from specific RMTs. In the first approach, each production period is designed separately, while in the second approach, future information of products’ demands in all production periods is available in the beginning of system configuration design. Two new mixed integer linear programming (MILP) and integer linear programming (ILP) formulations are presented in the first and the second approaches respectively. The results of these approaches are compared with respect to many different aspects, such as total system design costs, unused capacity, and total number of reconfigurations. Analyses of the results show the superiority of both approaches in terms of exploitation and reconfiguration cost.     

amePLM: a platform providing information provision in engineering

The procedure for the engineering of products and production systems in manufacturing companies is often distributed over several organisational units. The different units involved in these procedures use their respective methods and tools, resulting in silo-like and distributed information and data sources for engineering. In this paper, the open platform amePLM is introduced. This platform is based on a semantic data model. The ontology as explicitly formulated data model allows an integrated view on data and information available in the systems used along the product lifecycle, and the automatic provision of suitable information to the user. Furthermore, this open approach allows the linking of the solution to existing engineering software systems in the sense of a continuous flow of information.     

Distributed product and facility prototyping in extended manufacturing enterprises

In order to reduce the cost at the early product development stages, the planners need methodologies and tools that would allow them to judge upon the implications of the product design on the required manufacturing processes and facilities for their production. This paper reports on a new theoretical platform and a pilot implementation of a decision-making environment for distributed product and facility prototyping in an extended enterprise. The approach is based on an exchange of requests and information between collaborative autonomous agents that support the design, manufacturing planning and facility formation activities. The decision-making is formalized as iterative matching of design, process and facility attributes using multilevel resource capability representation within the extended enterprise. The system is implemented as an XML/CORBA-based environment for conveying design and manufacture messages across traditional technology boundaries. The reported research aims to provide the designers with a rapid manufacturing feasibility assessment tool to be used at different design and planning stages in extended manufacturing enterprises.     

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.     

Operator allocation planning for reconfigurable production line in one-of-a-kind production

In a one-of-a-kind production (OKP) company, the operation routing and processing time of an order are usually different from the others due to high customisation. As a result, an OKP company needs to dynamically adjust the production resources to keep the production lines reconfigurable. Through a proper assignment of operators in different sections of a production line, bottlenecks and operator re-allocation during production can be reduced effectively. In this paper, a mathematical model is introduced for optimal operator allocation planning on a reconfigurable production line in OKP. The optimisation objectives are to minimise the total number of the operators, total job earliness and tardiness, and the average work-in-process storage. A branch-and-bound algorithm with efficient pruning strategies is developed to solve this problem. The proposed model and the algorithm are empirically validated by using the data of a windows and doors manufacturing company. A software system based on the proposed approach has been implemented in the company.     

Multi-objective multi-unit process plan generation in a reconfigurable manufacturing environment: a comparative study of three hybrid metaheuristics

Low costs, high reactivity and high quality products are necessary criteria for industries to achieve competitiveness in nowadays market. In this context, reconfigurable manufacturing systems (RMSs) have emerged to fulfil these requirements. RMS is one of the latest manufacturing paradigms, where machines components, software or material handling units can be added, removed, modified or interchanged as needed and when imposed by the necessity to react and respond rapidly and cost-effectively to changing. This research work addresses the multi-objective single-product multi-unit process plan generation problem in a reconfigurable manufacturing environment where three hybrid heuristics are proposed and compared namely: repetitive single-unit process plan heuristic (RSUPP), iterated local search on single-unit process plans heuristic (LSSUPP) and archive-based iterated local search heuristic (ABILS). Single-unit process plans are generated using the adapted non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II). Moreover, in addition to the minimisation of the classical total production cost and the total completion time, the minimisation of the maximum machines exploitation time is considered as a novel optimisation criterion, in order to have high quality products. To illustrate the applicability of the three approaches, examples are presented and the obtained numerical results are analysed.     

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.     

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 .     

Concurrent process planning and scheduling in distributed virtual manufacturing

With the fast development of the world economy, distributed virtual manufacturing is becoming increasingly important since it can respond rapidly to market changes and make resource sharing more efficient among manufacturing partners. In this environment, partners may be located at different geographical locations, and co-operation among partners is a vital task and thus concurrent planning and scheduling has become a challenging research topic. This paper presents a computerized model that can integrate these manufacturing functions and resolve some of the critical problems in distributed virtual manufacturing, such as virtual cooperation, optimal partner selection, etc. This integration model is realized through a multi-agent approach that provides a practical approach for software integration in a distributed environment. A cost function is proposed and adopted for optimal partner selection in a virtual enterprise, which not only considers a partner's manufacturing capability and process requirements, but also the processing time, partner's location and product due date. Through establishing a virtual manufacturing model in a simulated environment, the proposal was validated with a case study. It shows that the proposed methodology can satisfy the distribution and agility requirements. This approach is able to contribute to the reduction of product cost, improving product quality and shortening lead time, compared to the sequential approach in the normal engineering and production practice.     

Reconfigurability consideration and scheduling of products in a manufacturing industry

Reconfigurable manufacturing system is a new type of manufacturing system which can change its capacity and functionality very easily and quickly whenever required. RMS (reconfigurable manufacturing system) has capacity and functionality exactly what is required. RMS is adjustable to the fluctuating demands and it can be easily upgraded with new process technology. Reconfigurability of a manufacturing system is measured in terms of cost, effort and time. It is the ability of a manufacturing system to be reconfigured quickly with low reconfiguration effort at low cost. In the present work, reconfigurability has been considered in Continental Automotive Components Pvt. Ltd. on the basis of RMS principles. A modified reconfigurable layout has been proposed for an assembly line and scheduling of the products has been done for the criteria reconfiguration effort, profit over cost and due date. Scheduling of the products has been done using the integrated approach of Shannon entropy and RIM (Reference Ideal Method). R program has been written for scheduling. Sensitivity analysis has been conducted for the problem.     

Marketing/Manufacturing Trade-Offs in Product Line Management

A critical decision facing firms across industries is the selection of a mix of products to offer in the marketplace. Both in practice and in the academic literature, the product line design problem has typically been considered from a marketing perspective, with a focus on how alternative sets of products interact and compete in the marketplace. The operational implications of product line decisions have been largely ignored, even while the importance and complexity of interactions among products in the manufacturing environment increase with broadening product lines. Furthermore, consideration of manufacturing synergies among products in product line design is increasingly beneficial given efforts in many industries to improve co-ordination of manufacturing activities across products. In this work we examine the benefits of integrating marketing implications of product mix with more detailed manufacturing cost implications. Traditional product line models are extended to capture both individual product costs and relevant cost interactions among products. The relevant marketing and manufacturing elements are considered in a mathematical programming formulation that identifies a profit maximizing mix of products. The resulting normative model of the product line design problem is used to generate insights into important cross-functional issues in product line management. Specifically, we examine the impact of alternative manufacturing environment characteristics on the composition of the optimal product line.     

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.     

面向网络化协同设计的合作对象管理研究

针对敏捷制造及其模式,提出一个以协同设计思想为指导的产品协同设计环境,用于支持分布式异地协同设计,协调设计过程中各设计人员之间交换、共享产品设计信息和知识的过程.在此基础上,从CSCW支撑平台的角度分析角色-权限管理功能,进而提出应用系统所需要的角色定义及其合作伙伴管理功能.通过对应用工具集成、协同过程控制、通信与信息共享、产品数据管理等功能的实现达到信息集成、过程集成和组织集成的目的,从而提高产品设计过程及其设计决策的效率和质量.