Concurrent Engineering recent issues

Signal-to-Noise Ratio for Operating Window Using Unified Methodology

Sharma, N. K., Cudney, E. A. — 2009-09-08

Operating window is a particular case of multi-variate system in which the objective is to make the system robust with respect to one particular factor in the presence of others. The signal-to-noise ratio of an operating window is the addition of the signal-to-noise ratios at the lower and upper thresholds of the window. Linear transformation on the lower threshold and reciprocal transformation on the upper threshold tend to render different weights at these thresholds, which results in an imbalanced optimization of a nondynamic operating window. In this article, a new signal-to-noise ratio for an operating window based on the unified methodology is proposed to reduce or eliminate this bias. Advantages of this methodology are discussed and an example is used to demonstrate the proposed methodology and compare with an existing methodology.

A Concurrent Design Method Based on DFMA--FEA Integrated Approach

Giudice, F., Ballisteri, F., Risitano, G. — 2009-09-08

This article proposes a methodological statement and a design procedure based on an integrated approach combining finite element analysis (FEA) tools, and an instrument oriented at improving the design solutions in terms of ease of production, according to the principles of design for manufacture and assembly (DFMA). The result of an overview on product development theoretical models, with particular regard to the evolutionary mechanisms for converging on the final solution which characterize the design process, and of a review on the implementation of concurrent engineering principles, the proposed approach was expressly devised to introduce integrated and simultaneous interventions into design practice, in a way that makes the use of FEA and DFMA instruments as proactive as possible, consequently favoring the effectiveness of design choices, in order to limit the iterative processes of improvement and thereby reduce the burden they present. As evidenced by the results of a case study, this approach can allow the principal constructional characteristics of the preliminary design to be redefined in a way which simplifies manufacture and assembly processes, while guaranteeing and sometimes improving the structural functionality of the product, to the full advantage of product quality and the containment of production times and costs.

Multi-response Problem with Adaptive Weight Consideration by Using Weight Aggregator and ANNs

Hsieh, K.-L. — 2009-09-08

This study proposes a procedure incorporating artificial neural networks technique with adaptive weight consideration to address parameter optimization of a multiple responses problem. No matter what type of the experimental designs being employed, the proposed approach can be directly employed. Besides, the consistency and difference among several evaluations among those multiple responses can also be studied via the designed aggregation weight values in our proposed procedure. An illustrative example owing to the lead frame manufacturer in Taiwan is also employed to demonstrate the feasibility and rationality of the proposed procedure.

Past Projects Memory: Knowledge Capitalization from the Early Phases of Innovative Projects

Marcandella, E., Durand, M.-G., Renaud, J., Boly, V. — 2009-09-08

In order to improve the innovation process, concurrent engineering may be associated with knowledge capitalization methods. The objective is to reuse knowledge having emerged during previous innovative projects. This article brings a methodological contribution to project feedback within new product development tasks. First, the interests of project feedback activities are underlined. More particularly, the impact of project feedback on knowledge management cycles is discussed. Then, a methodology based on a specific information extraction approach from past projects is detailed. The TRIZ theory constitutes the theoretical background of this research. An experiment in the field of machinery development is presented. To conclude, this article discusses the assets and limits of the approach and gives some practical advice concerning the use of memorized data within innovative projects.

Project-driven Concurrent Product Development

Duhovnik, J., Zargi, U., Kusar, J., Starbek, M. — 2009-09-08

When entering the global market, companies encounter several difficulties, the most severe being long product development times and too high costs of sequential product and process development. In order to overcome this problem, the companies will have to make a shift from sequential product development (which is wasteful regarding time and costs) to a project-driven concurrent product development as soon as possible.

The article presents a procedure for project-driven concurrent product development by taking into account three strategic management methods: parallelness, standardization, and integration of product development processes. Also presented are the changes in organizational concept of the company, organization of processes, organization of work and organization of IT, which are required for a transition from sequential to concurrent product development.

Finally, an analysis is presented on concurrent product development teams in a company; this analysis is a prerequisite for a transition to a new method of product development.

Special issue on: Collaborative and Multi-disciplinary Product Design

Weidong Li, , Yongsheng Ma, — 2009-05-20

An Information Support Approach for Machine Design & Building Companies

Ding, L., Matthews, J., McMahon, C.A., Mullineux, G. — 2009-05-20

The recording of information regarding machine function, performance, and failure, which is generated during the machine development, commissioning, and service is vital to an organization. Previous research has shown this information is often poorly recorded or even missed during these critical stages. The work presented in this article offers a solution based on the core product model, offering the potential to be revisit and retrieved the information throughout the product life cycle and into any next iteration of the design. An industrial case study presenting the operation of the approach is presented.

Towards Semantic Interoperability of Collaborative Engineering in Oil Production Industry

Ma, Y.-S. — 2009-05-20

This article presents a new approach to investigate the interoperability in collaborative engineering across design, manufacturing, operation, maintenance, and end-of-life stages with an expanded generic feature paradigm. The fundamental strategy is to develop a unified and consistent interoperable semantic scheme in order to support an open and flexible knowledge realization system. Oil production industry is aimed as the application field.

An Uncertainty Analysis Approach to Multidisciplinary Design Optimization

Chu, X.Z., Gao, L., Li, W.D., Qiu, H.B., Shao, X.Y. — 2009-05-20

Uncertainty management is an important research issue in multidisciplinary design optimization (MDO), especially at the conceptual design stage. The good uncertainty management can significantly improve the quality of product design. In this research, three types of uncertainties of MDO in conceptual design are analyzed, and a novel systematic approach is proposed to reduce these uncertainties. Uncertain variables are represented by probabilistic forms to reduce the variable uncertainties. A rough sets theory-based method is utilized to deduce the knowledge that can assist designers making configuration decisions. Furthermore, a re-sampled method is developed according to mean square error for reducing the uncertainties of the advanced kriging model. Finally, the validity and necessity of the proposed approach are demonstrated through the conceptual design of a bulk carrier.

Enhancing Axiomatic Design with Design Structure Matrix

Dunbing Tang, , Renmiao Zhu, , Sheng Dai, , Guangjun Zhang, — 2009-05-20

Axiomatic design (AD) is a popular creative design method, which provides a systematic and scientific basis for making design solutions. The AD method is concentrated on how to find suitable design parameters to meet the needs of functional requirements, while certain system interaction factors and constraints (such as physical connectivity) are not catered directly. As a structured modeling method, more recently the design structure matrix (DSM) model has been regarded as a good roadmap of system interactions. DSM is a good tool representing interactions among design objectives and facilitating analysis of these interactions. Based on the complementarities between AD and DSM, it is proposed to enhance the AD method with DSM. The underlying logic is transforming the AD's design matrix into corresponding DSM for system interaction evaluation, thereby improving the feasibility of AD result. A design example of friction drive conveyor is given to illustrate the proposed design method.

Aircraft Tooling Collaborative Design Based on Multi-agent and PDM

Yingguang Li, , Jianbang Jian, , Ruijie Yan, , Wenhe Liao, — 2009-05-20

In airplane research and development, tooling design is desired to be undertaken with airplane product design concurrently together with the considerations of downstream processes such as manufacturing and assembling. However, so far, collaborative design for aircraft tooling, especially in large-sized one, is difficult. To solve this, a self-adaptive collaborative design method of aircraft tooling based on a natural neuron-endocrine-immunity system, multi-agent and product data management (PDM) technologies has been developed and is presented in this article. Firstly, with the similar working principle of the neuron-endocrine-immunity system model that is able to manage cells and tissues of a human body in a self-adaptive means, a tooling collaborative design model has been developed to enhance the responsiveness and adaptability for changes during aircraft design. Secondly, a collaborative design framework has been proposed by applying the multi-agent and PDM technologies to implement this model. The multi-agent technology focuses on managing the frequent changes, and the PDM has been used to manage the mass aircraft product design and tooling. This framework incorporates the PDM Client/Server architecture and adopts a federated structure for effective collaboration in terms of unified data sharing, convenient tool wrapping, decentralized control, coordination, etc. Finally, a multi-agent-based prototype system, developed, and testified in an aircraft manufacturing enterprise, is demonstrated for aircraft tooling collaborative design. Case studies show that optimized and re-configurable aircraft tooling design can be achieved with the help of the developed collaboration framework.

Representation and Propagation of Engineering Change Information in Collaborative Product Development using a Neutral Reference Model

Hwang, J., Mun, D., Han, S. — 2009-05-20

As modular production becomes increasingly widespread in globalized manufacturing industries, many components constituting a final product are being developed and produced by collaborating part suppliers who have the ability to design their own parts by themselves without aid from the original equipment manufacturer (OEM). In this collaborative product development, the important aspect to expedite engineering changes is that engineering change information should be represented precisely in a designer-friendly form and shared among participating companies in an effective manner. However, all part suppliers and an OEM typically do not use the same computer-aided design (CAD) system and they are reluctant to share their CAD data with other cooperating companies owing to the policy of protecting corporate intellectual property. These circumstances make it difficult for collaborating companies to conduct engineering changes, since a part supplier who is responsible for one part of a product needs other CAD part model data designed by other companies for the engineering changes in the typical CAD assembly modeling of a product. In this article, a neutral reference model that consists of a neutral skeleton model and an external reference model is proposed as a new medium for the sharing and propagation of engineering change information among collaborating companies.

OMBMDID: A Preliminary Attempt at Automatic Utilization of Knowledge Contained in Mechanical Design Documents

Jiang Liang, , Sun Tiebing, , Qu Fuzheng, — 2009-05-20

Studies show that, in engineering design, above 70% of designer's working time is spent on the searching of design documents and the execution of simple but repeating design tasks like looking up table, calculation, simple reasoning, etc. Can we develop a kind of intelligent design document to make these simple tasks done by computers instead of designers? For this purpose, by borrowing idea from the Semantic Web vision and employing ontology and multi-agent system (MAS) technologies, an architecture of Ontology- and MAS-Based Mechanical Design Intelligent Documents (OMBMDID), which can enable intelligent agents to locate needed document segments oriented by their content, grasp the knowledge contained in documents and put it into use automatically, is proposed. First, similar works are reviewed. Then, aiming at knowledge contained in mechanical design documents, semantic annotation granularity and semantic annotation categories are analyzed. On the basis of above works, the architecture of OMBMDID is proposed. In the end, by studying a case about a piece of shaft design document, the feasibility of this architecture is proved.

A Modular Decision-centric Approach for Reusable Design Processes

Panchal, J. H., Gero Fernandez, M., Paredis, C. J. J., Allen, J. K., Mistree, F. — 2009-02-25

The reusability of design processes modeled in existing Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) frameworks has been limited to the level of flow charts or activity-based diagrams that serve as planning and organizational aids. Current simulation-based design frameworks provide limited support for reuse of design processes at a level where design processes are networks of computational operations, specifically the capabilities to reuse (a) design processes for different products, and (b) collaborative design strategies. In this article, we address these limitations by providing a modeling approach for simulation-based design processes so that they can be archived in a generic modular fashion and reused for collaborative design of different products. The proposed approach is based on four foundations: (a) modeling design processes as hierarchical systems, (b) separation of declarative and procedural information, (c) modeling design processes as decision-centric activities, and (d) modeling interactions between decision makers using game theoretic protocols. These four fundamentals of the approach are instantiated in the form of generic computational templates for products, processes, decisions, and pertinent interfaces. The approach is illustrated using a proof of concept implementation in ModelCenter. The implementation is validated by showing the reusability of design processes for two different products, a spring and a pressure vessel, in individual and collaborative design scenarios. The approach has potential for supporting reusability of broader PLM processes.

MEMPHIS: New Framework for Realistic Virtual Engineering

Sang Su Choi, , Herter, J., Bruening, A., Sang Do Noh, — 2009-02-25

In the manufacturing industry, they are using various concepts and solutions in order to reduce time and costs in the product development. This article introduces an approach that enables Virtual Engineering and links engineering applications with Virtual Reality (VR) solutions. Thus an environment is provided to implement virtual design reviews and enable the application of virtual prototyping methods. Middleware for Exchanging Machinery and Product Data in Highly Immersive Systems (MEMPHIS) enables interoperability between the IT infrastructure for engineering and VR applications to interconnect existing information and extend that knowledge to a VR application. MEMPHIS provides several interfaces for integrating commercial Product Lifecycle Management applications and provides enriched VR data in standard formats. Interoperability and enriched VR information during product development can reduce the Time to Market. Development/ manufacturing costs are reduced by avoiding geometrical defects and errors in product design, product assembly, and usability through simulation of product production processes. Productivity can be increased by providing an environment for collaboration where there is convenient and transparent access to the information required for the manufacturing process.

An Eigenvalue Based Approach for Assessing the Decomposability of Interdependent Design Project Tasks

Bashir, H. A., AlZebdeh, K., Abdo, J. — 2009-02-25

The Concurrent engineering process is characterized by executing a large number of interdependent project tasks. One effective way of managing such tasks is to decompose them into groups. However, not all tasks are decomposable. Without the need to apply a decomposition method, this paper describes a simple, quantitative approach to test whether an underlying pattern of relationships exists between interdependent project tasks, such that they may be rearranged into groups. In addition, a grouping efficiency index is introduced to predict how good the best possible decomposition is. The proposed approach and the grouping index are applied to simple hypothetical projects and a sample project adapted from the literature. Both the approach and the grouping index are proved to be powerful yet very easy to use.

A Dynamic Planning Approach for New Product Development

Luh, D.-B., Ko, Y.-T., Ma, C.-H. — 2009-02-25

This paper presents a quantifying and reordering method for new product development based on the concurrent engineering concept. We propose to establish a fuzzy design structure matrix (FDSM) by quantifying the information flow of activity factors of new product development and employing the fuzzy clustering method. Utilizing the proposed partition and tearing algorithm to reorder matrixes, we can realize deeply the inner hierarchy workings of concurrent engineering in the new product development process. The purpose of this paper is to develop a dynamic planning method that is innovative, efficient and flexible for new product development by using the concurrent design concept and FDSM analysis. It ultimately helpful to designers and managers to grasp the interactive information flow between each of the activity factors for planning an optimum design process in new product development. One case study is employed to illustrate this method and the result validates that it can reduce the iterations of design process and shorten the product development time.

The Value of Organizational Structures

Linghua Kong, , Bhuiyan, N., Thomson, V. — 2009-02-25

Mathematical models are developed using the maximum expected payoff method to determine the value of organizational structures. An information modeling approach is used to study the value added by lateral information sharing and intensity of interaction to a functional hierarchy for new product development (NPD). Similarly, a model is developed for the case of a functional hierarchy with cluster integration (grouping of functional units), which considers cluster size (number of projects times functional breadth) and the correlation of information that is exchanged between vertically organized functions. Model results are compared to industry data for NPD projects with good agreement.

Collaborative Design and Modeling of Complex Opto-mechanical Systems

Basdogan, I. — 2009-02-25

In this article, we propose a concurrent design methodology that employs physics-based high fidelity computational models together with analysis methods to predict the performance of complex opto-mechanical systems. For this purpose, we developed a web-based collaborative design and modeling environment for the simulation of complex opto-mechanical systems (SIMCOMS). The analysis tools and the methodology presented in this article provide a systematic and quantitative way to investigate the end-to-end system performance of such systems, perform sensitivity analysis, and identify the critical components of the system that degrade the performance. The SIMCOMS integrates all the modeling and analysis tools in a common MATLAB computational environment and it can be accessed through standard web browsers. Through the use of structural, optical, and controls modules, SIMCOMS allows modeling and SIMCOMS. The analysis modules of SIMCOMS provide the means for predicting the performance of such systems and diagnosing the problematic components that degrade the performance. The web interface of SIMCOMS provides a flexible and robust environment for designing such complex opto-mechanical systems and keeps an archive of models to compare different design configurations. The design can be conducted concurrently by multidisciplinary teams located physically at different sites, which leads to savings in time and cost. We demonstrated the use of SIMCOMS through a case study which includes the redesign process of a siderostat mirror; one of the main optical components of the SIM PlanetQuest (formerly called Space Interferometry Mission). SIM will determine the positions and distances of stars several hundred times more accurately than any previous program. SIM provides a good example case for testing the functionality of SIMCOMS since the precise tolerance required by the SIM instrument facilitates the investigation of many design options, trades, and methods for minimizing interaction between the actively controlled optics and the structure.

Thanks to Reviewers

2009-02-25

Special issue on: New Research Advances in Product Lifecycle Management

Jun Qi Yan, , Xin Guo Ming, , Wen Feng Lu, , Xuan Fang Zha, — 2008-12-17

An Extensible Product Structure Model for Product Lifecycle Management in the Make-to-Order Environment

Ni, Q.F., Lu, W.F., Yarlagadda, P. K. D. V. — 2008-12-17

This article presents a product structure model for developing product lifecycle management systems that is flexible for make-to-order environment. In the make-to-order business context, each product could have a number of variants with slightly different constitutions to fulfill different customer requirements. All the variants of a family have common characteristics and each variant has its specific features. A master-variant pattern is proposed for building the product structure model to explicitly represent common characteristics and specific features of individual variants. The model is capable of enforcing the consistency of a family structure and its variant structure, supporting multiple product views, and facilitating the business processes. A prototype as a proof-of-concept system is presented to illustrate the capability of the proposed extensible product structure model.

Collaborative Project Management with Supplier Involvement

Wang, X.H., Ming, X.G., Kong, F.B., Wang, L., Zhao, C.L. — 2008-12-17

Under the trend of lean product development thinking, more parts of a product were out-sourced or off-shored, which brings the challenges of collaboration between core enterprise and its suppliers. Both the OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) and its suppliers are moving toward quickly providing better products in shorter time by establishing the virtual enterprise. So, effective and efficient collaboration between them throughout the entire product and project lifecycle is becoming significantly important for the win-win situation. To address this need, a scenario for collaborative project management with supplier involvement is proposed in this article. What and how to collaborate with supplier are proposed as well. The system architecture, and the corresponding function, information, process collaboration methods are developed and implemented in this study. Indeed, it is hoped that the development of such a system for the collaboration of project lifecycle in virtual enterprise will lay the frontier basis for the further research of effective project management within virtual enterprise to pursue the most advanced competitiveness.

Web Service-oriented Electronic Catalogs for Product Customization

Yongsheng Ma, , Jianxin Jiao, , Yimin Deng, — 2008-12-17

This article is about online product customization, which potentially connects multiple customers and suppliers throughout an entire supply chain. This article proposes a web service-oriented approach, such that users can source competitive offers and generate feature-based CAD models from different vendors over the Internet. The key technique is to create feature markup descriptions for the requested library elements. Group technology is applied to classify and control the geometry configurations of component models. The approach enhances traditional un-parameterized and platform-dependent electronic catalogs by avoiding hard coding of catalogs within specific CAD systems, and thereby facilitates the updating of databases.

International Standard Development for Knowledge Based Engineering Services for Product Lifecycle Management

Fan, I.-S., Bermell-Garcia, P. — 2008-12-17

In September 2005, the international information technology standard body Object Management Group (OMG) published a Request for Proposal (RFP) for an international standard for Knowledge Based Engineering (KBE) Services for Product Lifecycle Management (PLM). The standard aims to facilitate the integration of KBE applications in a PLM environment. KBE has been used in key engineering industry to deliver significant business benefits and has been a catalyst for changes in engineering processes. In recent years, mainstream CAD vendors begin to incorporate KBE functionalities in their solutions. PLM is evolving from the platform to manage engineering data to the repository of complete enterprise knowledge. As CAD becomes more knowledge based, the convergence of KBE and PLM is expected to happen soon. The OMG standard RFP is an action to accelerate this convergence. The RFP is the result of an international effort with a team that includes engineering end users, software vendors and researchers. This paper presents the essence and the development process of the RFP to widen the engagement with the engineering research community.

Development Life Cycle for Semantically Coherent Data Exchange Specification

Kulvatunyou, B., Morris, K.C., Ivezic, N., Frechette, S. — 2008-12-17

In enterprise integration, a data-exchange specification is an architectural artifact that evolves along with the business. Maintaining a coherent, data-exchange, semantic model is an important, yet nontrivial task. A coherent, semantic model of data — exchange specifications supports reuse, promotes interoperability, and, consequently, reduces integration costs. Components of data-exchange specifications must be consistent and valid in terms of agreed upon standards and guidelines. In this article, we propose an activity model for the creation, test, and maintenance of a shared semantic model that is coherent and supports scalable standards-based enterprise integration. While it frames our research and the development of tools to support those activities for semantic models implemented using XML (Extensible Markup Language) Schema, the activity model presented in this article is independent of the data-exchange technology.

Tracking Online Workpiece Machining Procedure in a Mobile Collaborative Environment

Huibin Sun, , Pingyu Jiang, — 2008-12-17

To increase the agility in manufacturing, we propose a method of tracking the online workpiece machining procedure in a mobile collaborative environment. Here, how to enable both machining quality tracking and machining information tracking are two key problems that need to be solved in this research. The first problem deals with information handling and visualizing technologies related to SPC-based quality controlling and error sourcing for big-batch production and Bayesian-forecasting-based dynamic quality controlling for small-batch production. The second problem depends on information searching and managing mechanisms for visualizing time, task, batch and equipment data synthetically based on several machining information engines. As a result, a ubiquitous machining tracking implementation is unified under the mobile collaborative infrastructure. Then users with different roles-playing are able not only to track the machining quality and progress, but also to cooperate with each other, despite of their geographical places where they stay and collaborative tools they are using. Finally, a running example is given to verify the feasibility of the proposed method.

Ontology-based Multi-layered Knowledge Framework for Product Lifecycle Management

Lee, J.-H., Suh, H.-W. — 2008-12-17

This paper proposes an ontology-based multi-layered knowledge framework for a product lifecycle management. Participants in a product life cycle want to share comprehensive product knowledge without ambiguity or heterogeneity. However, previous knowledge management approaches are limited in providing these aspects. Our knowledge framework has a systematic lattice structure with three product knowledge types and four layers. The three knowledge types are axioms, knowledge maps, and specialized knowledge for a domain. The four layers consist of a product context model, a product specific model, a product planning model, and a product manufacturing model. These layers represent different abstraction levels of the product knowledge conceptualization. Each layer includes the aforementioned three knowledge types in order to accommodate comprehensive knowledge and is represented with first order logic for a uniform representation. We provide formal definitions of the framework to manage comprehensive knowledge according to the proposed knowledge framework. In addition, we develop a prototype system for realization of the framework. The system will help knowledge engineers create, edit, and visualize product knowledge according to the framework and infer new knowledge with a prolog inference engine.