Stellan Gedell

Integrated Model for Co-Development of Products and Production Systems - A Systems Theory Approach

The seamless co-development of products and production systems is still an unresolved challenge. Undoubtedly, progress has been made through the proposal and application of new methodologies in the collective of concurrent engineering. Still, there is a gap between modeling approaches in product development and in production system design. This gap is an obstacle, especially if many interdependencies exist among the constituents of products and production systems. This article aims at closing this gap by modeling these constituents in an integrated model. This model represents the product and the production plant as co-equal systems with subsystems, interactions, and behavior. It allows modeling every subsystem in all its lifecycle phases together with the rationale behind its design. A class model is refined for purpose of laying a structured basis for modeling that can be implemented in computer-based support. A real-life example from the automotive industry illustrates the application of an integrated model and highlights its benefits for co-development.

Design rationale and system description aspects in product platform design: Focusing reuse in the design lifecycle phase

One key to efficient and effective reuse in product-developing companies is platform-based design. Future platforms need to more efficiently deal with: concurrency, information-rich designs and fast realization of design derivates. This calls for new ways to describe platform-based designs. The configurable component framework is intended to support concurrent, complex, and variant-rich system design considering the complete product life cycle. This article presents case studies where an extended function-means model, acting as a design rationale, is incorporated into the configurable component concept. This includes an adaptation to handle design bandwidth, a more transparent and explicit constraint handling, and the composition of a system design rationale based on multiple function-means models. This approach enables the description of complex, encapsulated configurable systems composed using multiple (sub) systems and supports concurrent engineering in a supply chain.

Knowledge based configurable product platform models

AbstractProduct platform development faces problems with inefficient knowledge management and reuse, as well as configuration strategies leading to intolerable part number growth. In order to address these problems a system oriented and abstract knowledge based approach is proposed to define and to describe configurable product platforms. A modeling procedure and a new fully configurable platform model concept, consisting of linked fully configurable generic and autonomous sub-systems, have been developed. The model has been implemented as a separate platform configuration (PFC) system being the base for system configuration. The proposed platform model has been partly verified and validated in cooperation with the industrial partners participating in the referred research project.

Supply-Chain Product Development Collaboration Using Configurable Product Platform Models

Collaborative product platform development in the supply chain faces problems not only with inefficient knowledge management and information exchange between collaborating partners, but also with configuration and carry-over strategies - both of which result in large amounts of system variants to maintain, and restrained reuse. To address these problems, this article proposes a new, more system-oriented and abstract, knowledge-based approach to define and describe configurable product platforms. A new platform model concept with a new modeling procedure, consisting of linked, fully configurable generic and autonomous sub-systems, has been devised. The model has been implemented as a separate platform configuration (PFC) system within an envisioned product lifecycle management (PLM) system architecture. The PFC system is the common base for system configuration as well as for information and knowledge exchange between collaborating partners. The proposed platform model and collaborative modeling procedure have been partly verified and validated, in cooperation with the industrial partners participating in a joint research project.