Christoffer E Levandowski

An integrated approach to technology platform and product platform development

Platforms may enable offering a variety of products to the market while keeping the development cost down. Reusing design knowledge is a key concept, whether manifested as reusing parts, ideas, concepts, or technologies. This article describes processes and information technology solutions for holistically working with both technology platforms and product platforms. A platform framework was developed for managing information and to support the processes. The use of the framework is illustrated through a case study performed at a subsupplier in the aerospace industry focusing on technology development, platform-based product development, and platform configuration. A wiki system supports the technology platform, containing electronic guidelines, methods, and information about the technologies. To support the product platform, a product lifecycle management architecture is created. A turbine rear structure from a turbofan engine is used as an example, requiring several different analysis technologies to be used and coordinated when creating a variant. The solution is a product lifecycle management architecture created based on the technology platform. It integrates a product data management system, a computer-aided design tool, two computer-aided engineering tools, and a configurator.

A two-stage model of adaptable product platform for engineering-to-order configuration design

Product platforms are used to enable mass customisation to serve a large number of different market segments. The products are configured-to-order, meaning they are compiled using a variety of pre-developed building blocks. However, the building blocks that make up a traditional platform can only serve customer requirements that are known. Engineering-to-order (ETO) development serves companies where customer requirements vary frequently. Here, designs are tailored to fit specific customer requirements upon request, an approach which is time consuming if serving a large number of different customers. This paper presents an approach for ETO configuration design. It comprises a two-stage model that enables design reuse while simultaneously maintaining flexibility to manage changes in customer requirements. The proposed artefact model is configured modularly to progress the design work and to create an architecture to work with, and scalable flexibility is maintained until the customer requirements are considered stable enough to optimise the final design. An illustrative case shows the approachs feasibility to a two-stage configuration of a rear frame of a jet engine. While using overall design considerations to select modules, trade-off curves are used for final scalable configuration. A change in customer requirements is accommodated by scalable flexibility, thereby creating an adaptable product platform.

Set-based development using an integrated product and manufacturing system platform

A platform is commonly used as a basis for generating a number of derivative products, after which it is replaced by a new platform. For some companies, a more viable approach is to adopt a continuous platform that is sustained and expanded over time. This applies to companies that have to provide highly customized products while not in control of interfaces, suppliers in the aerospace industry, for example. For them, the traditional part-based generation of platforms is not sufficient, and more flexibility must be built into the platform. This article proposes an approach for continuous platform development, based on an integrated artifact model and connected development processes. The processes apply set-based concurrent engineering to develop derivative products and to extend the bandwidth of the platform. The artifact model serves as a basis for development and connects products and manufacturing systems to enable informed design decisions that span across the lifecycle. The proposed approach incorporates two modes of platform use. Mode I is applied for configuring products to order within the bandwidth of the platform. This includes automatic concept evaluation using a pallet of computer-aided engineering tools and supporting tools. Mode II is applied when the bandwidth does not suffice to cover the required functionality and therefore needs to be expanded. This article exemplifies the approach through a case from a supplier in the aerospace industry.

Set-Based Concurrent Engineering for Early Phases in Platform Development

Set-Based Concurrent Engineering (SBCE) is a comprehensive approach to achieve efficiency in product development by providing guidelines to align the development activities. Given a certain range in a design problem, a set of design solutions is defined. Eliminating infeasible regions gradually narrows the set down to a working solution. Similar to platform-based development, SBCE further aims to reuse design knowledge from past development efforts. Although they share the goal of design reuse, there is a fundamental difference between SBCE and platform-based design. The SBCE design process produces one solution while the creation and use of a platform produces a product family. This paper elaborates an approach for platform concept development. It uses set-based concurrent engineering and its principles to develop a platform based on functions and design solutions while preserving the bandwidth. It shows how function-means trees and trade-off curves can represent solution spaces. Further, these spaces are narrowed down to manageable and desirable size to represent a product platform in line with current technology and available manufacturing capabilities. The approach is illustrated with a case from the aerospace industry showing how a manufacturer of parts for a jet engine can develop comprehensive concepts for a platform. The design space is narrowed down using desired bandwidth and compatibility between design solutions. While the approach has proven feasible in the test case, it requires manufacturing and technology development to produce trade-off curves. This implicitly requires technology development and manufacturing development to precede product development. Alternatively, product development, production development and technology development need to be perfectly coordinated in a concurrent manner.

Set-Based Concurrent Engineering for Preserving Design Bandwidth in Product and Manufacturing System Platforms

Assembling products to order or applying straightforward configuration, such as scaling, allow the reuse of ready-designed physical components in high volumes. However, not all companies can exploit economies of scale in this way. They are burdened with additional design work, as requirements on functionality and performance differ among product variants or change over time. Such companies need artifact models and engineering processes that help them manage and develop for variety. Set-based concurrent engineering has been proposed for dealing with a variety of concepts during development that lead to a single product while storing knowledge gained. This paper adapts this thinking to the preparation and use of product and manufacturing system platforms. Here, the output is not a single product. Rather, a set of design solutions for products and manufacturing systems is designed that delivers flexibility in functionality and performance. In this paper, we call this built-in flexibility design bandwidth. The paper builds on an integrated artifact model for products and manufacturing systems. The model captures the rationale behind existing designs with their functionality. Here it is combined with principles of set-based concurrent engineering to outline a process for its preparation and use in cases of insufficient bandwidth that require additional designing. The preparation and use are illustrated by applying the model to an example where bandwidth is expanded and preserved.

Modelling and assessing platform architectures in pre-embodiment phases through set-based evaluation and change propagation

The establishment of a platform architecture is a critical task but there is no methodological support for this in the first phases of development. There are several approaches for evaluating designs and architectures when an initial design is present, however, not for the phases foregoing the embodiment of ideas into concepts. This paper fills this void by introducing a new design methodology for modelling, assessing and narrowing down the architectural design space. It allows exploration of more alternatives in the earliest phases of development, which ultimately may produce better designs. The result is a design space of a manageable and desirable size for subsequent embodiment and detailed design with traditional engineering tools. The advantage is that feasibility of the candidate platforms have been established to a high degree of certainty. The approach is illustrated with a case of redesign showing how a manufacturer of parts for a jet engine can use the methodology to model and assess platform concepts in the earliest phase of development.

PLM Architecture for Optimization of Geometrical Interfaces in a Product Platform

Product platforms can be used as an enabler for offering a wide variety of products to the market, while keeping the development cost down. Reusing knowledge in new designs is a key concept of product platforms, whether it is about reusing entire parts, or reusing ideas and concepts. The Configurable Component (CC) concept is one way of describing a product platform, and is based on autonomous subsystems that are not fixed, but have a bandwidth within which they can vary. These systems are configured to fit the set of requirements resulting in product variants. Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) as a complementing business strategy deals with integrating processes, information, systems and people across the product lifecycle to support the development of complex products. This paper describes a case study where the CC concept is successfully implemented in a PLM environment to allow configuration of the systems in relation to each other. The focal point of this paper is configuration of the geometrical interfaces between sub systems. A car door from a Swedish car manufacturer, known for the tight fit in assembly, is used as an example. In this case, there are two requirements on the assembly. First, the assembly cannot be far from nominal, thus requiring robust interfaces between the ingoing parts. Second, the window must be mountable. The result is a PLM architecture with a Product Data Management (PDM) system, a Computer Aided Design (CAD) tool, two Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) tools and a configurator, all integrated.

Development of product platforms: Theory and methodology

There is a trend toward increased customization of goods to satisfy a wide range of customers using product platforms. However, there is an erroneous notion that product platforms can only be used to provide economic viability in production thanks to the reuse of physical components among a family of products. Yet, this is a limited perception of the potential of a product platform. In this article, an object-oriented approach to support the development of product platforms is proposed to increase efficiency through reuse and flexibility of designs among a family of products. Two modes of the platform development process are addressed: platform preparation and platform execution. Platform preparation prescribes the methods needed to model platform objects, using enhanced function-means models and set-based concurrent engineering processes. During the platform execution process, sets of design alternatives can be configured concurrently throughout the conceptual, system, and detailed phases of the platform development. Three cases illustrate how the same approach may be used in different design scenarios: design space exploration and extension, supply-chain collaboration, and configure-to-order. The approach supports system architects and design engineers in making design decisions that propel the platform development work by enabling analysis in stages where designs are immature and evaluating the goodness of the alternatives early. Ultimately, product platforms can be efficiently developed for modularity and scalability to find feasible product variants and meet the needs of a multitude of customers.

A Method to Identify Risks Associated with a PLM Solution

Not all investments in PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) are successful. Measuring the business effects of a PLM is essential, but can only be applied subsequent to solution deployment. It could be more powerful to make an early evaluation of the PLM solution, resulting in the business benefits, making corrections possible prior to deployment.

Bridging the gap between functions and physical components through a structured functional mapping chart

Functional modelling can be challenging to integrate with physical CAD-modelling, since the natures of these representations are quite different. This paper presents a methodology seeking to bridge these representations in a product platform context. The contribution of this work is a pragmatic way to improve the connections between Functional Requirements and CAD models. It does so by structuring functions, features and components and by linking these through tags in CAD-models. The methodology thereby associates the CAD models to the functional knowledge used when creating them. The result is the functional mapping chart, which is illustrated by an example from the automotive industry.