Mikael Cederfeldt

Documentation and Management of Product Knowledge in a System for Automated Variant Design: A Case Study

A business strategy based on customized products with a high level of variety requires systems for efficient generation of product variants. The development of a system for automated variant design is a significant investment in time and money. To maintain the system’s usefulness over time, frequent updating of design rules and execution control will normally become a necessity. Significant efforts are required for maintenance and adapting an established system to changes in product technology, new product knowledge, production practices, new customers and so forth. Another important aspect that has been identified, is the reuse of the system encapsulated generic product family descriptions, for example design rules, when developing a new product family. In this paper a case study is presented with the objectives to provide an understanding and an insight into a real industrial case. A focus is put on the documentation and management of product related knowledge for the purpose of revealing problems related to the current state of practice at the company to identify areas for improvements. The results are based on the experiences from a case study at a company with long experience of systems for automated variant design.

Cost-based producibility assessment: analysis and synthesis approaches through design automation

Abstract The demand on high levels of reliability and accuracy of cost estimation increases in a competitive environment and as the products are getting more optimized. When different courses of action are to be evaluated, changes in customer requirements, design features and parameters, and production properties have to be handled with caution. Even small changes can imply: low level of conformability with the production system, highly increased cost, and extended manufacturing lead-time. It is of paramount importance for the product success and the companys profit that a system for automated producibility assessment is sensitive and can reflect these effects. Two central tasks in the development of such a system are the definition of a cost model and the modelling of producibility rules. Each organization is very different and therefore has to define their individual cost model and set of producibility rules. This work presents an approach that provides a framework for the development of company specific automated producibility estimation systems. Further, the concepts of analysis driven and synthesis driven producibility estimations are described and some examples of their use are given.

Variant Design Automation : Strategy and Procedure for Storing Design Process Information

When creating a design automation system for a mature product there already exists a complete and functional product design and the task is to retrace the initial design process to find the input parameters, algorithms, rules, relations and solution strategies (design process information) that govern this initial design. This paper presents strategies and procedures for retracing, naming, classifying and storing the design process information governing the design variables of a mature product design, seen from a CAD representation perspective. Emphasis is on strategy for storing the design process information for use with the CAD representation as well as system transparency and efficient reuse of the documented and stored information.