Showing papers in "Concurrent Engineering in 2006"

Customer Requirement Management in Product Development: A Review of Research Issues

Abstract: The importance of customer requirement management in product development has been well-recognized in both academia and industry alike. This article provides a comprehensive review of the state-of-the-art research in this field. Customer requirement management entails various issues related to requirement elicitation, analysis, and specification, as well as the requirement management process. With respect to a holistic view of customer requirement management, key challenges and future research directions are identified.

Customer Emotional Needs in Product Design

Abstract: Most studies on product design have focused on customer needs concerning functionality and utility. Rarely has the issue of customer emotions been investigated. Traditional cognitive approaches to ...

Classification of Product Requirements Based on Product Environment

Abstract: Effective management of product requirements is critical for designers to deliver a quality design solution in a reasonable range of cost and time The management depends on a well-defined classification and a flexible representation of product requirements This article proposes two classification criteria in terms of different partitions of product environment based on a formal structure of product requirements The first criterion classifies the product requirements by partitioning product environment in terms of the product life cycle whereas the second classifies them by partitioning the product environment into natural, built, and human environments A case study is used to show the feasibility of this approach This research is the core of a web-based distributed product management system

Neuro-Genetic Design Optimization Framework to Support the Integrated Robust Design Optimization Process in CE:

Abstract: This article describes an integrated and optimized product design framework to support the design optimization applications in concurrent engineering (CE). The significant consideration is given to show the effectiveness of hybrid approaches and how they can be used to improve the performance of integrated design optimization applications. The proposed approach is based on two-stages which are (1) the use of neural networks (NNs) and genetic algorithm (GA) with feature technology for integrated design activities and (2) the use of Taguchi’s method and GA for design parameters optimization. The first stage resulted in better integrated design solutions in terms of computational complexity and later resulted in a solution, which leads to better and more robust parameter values for multi-objective shape design optimization. The effectiveness and validity of the proposed approach are evaluated with examples.

A Strategy for Managing Customer-oriented Product Design:

Abstract: Customer requirements play an important role in securing the competitive advantages of a company’s new product development endeavors. Based on the concept of quality function deployment (QFD), this article presents a novel procedure to effectively link customer requirements with design characteristics for product design. The proposed procedure comprises an analytic hierarchy process (AHP), which is adapted to evaluate the importance of customer requirements, and an interpretive structural modeling (ISM) technique, which is used to tackle the interdependency of customer requirements so as to clarify their structural relationships. The procedure is validated using a case study on the design of functional clothes. The details of the validation are presented and discussed.

Cost Estimation of Machined Parts within an Aerospace Supply Chain

Abstract: A generic, hierarchical, and multifidelity unit cost of acquisition estimating methodology for outside production machined parts is presented. The originality of the work lies with the method’s inherent capability of being able to generate multilevel and multifidelity cost relations for large volumes of parts utilizing process, supply chain costing data, and varying degrees of part design definition information. Estimates can be generated throughout the life cycle of a part using different grades of the combined information available. Considering design development for a given part, additional design definition may be used as it becomes available within the developed method to improve the quality of the resulting estimate. Via a process of analogous classification, parts are classified into groups of increasing similarity using design-based descriptors. A parametric estimating method is then applied to each subgroup of the machined part commodity in the direction of improved classification and using which...

Affective Consumer Requirements: A Case Study of Moisturizer Packaging:

Abstract: Tools for eliciting and managing product requirements are now well-established in some fields of engineering. These tools primarily focus on linking objective, functional customer requirements to the product’s properties. Whilst there have been advances in identifying human factors requirements, the elicitation of the customers’ subjective requirements of a product remains a challenge. This article reports a comprehensive case study in the use of affective engineering to elicit the subjective requirements for moisturizer packaging. The methodology uses focus groups and surveys to elicit subjective requirements. The results of semantic questionnaires are reduced using principal components analysis to translate the subjective requirements into values for physical properties of the packaging. The resulting requirements for surface textures, shape, and color were validated using questionnaire responses to prototype packaging. The study highlights research issues associated with recombining stimuli that have b...

Federated Grid Computing with Interactive Service-oriented Programing:

Abstract: Improvements in distributed computing, and the technologies that enable them, have led to significant advancements in middleware functionality and quality, mainly through networking and protocols. However, the distributed programing style has changed little over the years. Most programs are still written line per line of code in languages such as C, C++, and Java. These conventional programs that can provide grid operations and grid data can be considered as common grid resources and shared by research and education communities worldwide. However, there are no relevant programing methodologies to utilize efficiently these shared service providers as a potentially vast grid repository, except through the manual writing of code. Realization of the potential of grid computing requires significant improvements in grid programing methodologies. The Grid interactive service-oriented (GISO) methodology presented provides a programming environment with development tools that permit true interactive grid programmi...

Applying the Mahalanobis–Taguchi System to Vehicle Handling

Abstract: The Mahalanobis–Taguchi system (MTS) is a diagnosis and forecasting method using multivariate data. Mahalanobis distance (MD) is a measure based on correlations between the variables and patterns that can be identified and analyzed with respect to a base or reference group. The MTS is of interest because of its reported accuracy in forecasting using small, correlated data sets. This is the type of data that is encountered with consumer vehicle ratings. MTS enables a reduction in dimensionality and the ability to develop a scale based on MD values. MTS identifies a set of useful variables from the complete data set with equivalent correlation and considerably less time and data. This article presents the application of the MTS, its applicability in identifying a reduced set of useful variables in multidimensional systems, and a comparison of results with those obtained from a standard statistical approach to the problem.

Application of Function Deployment Model in Decision Making for New Product Development

Abstract: In this study, a novel model called Function Deployment Model (FDM) for decision making in new product development is introduced. To demonstrate its usefulness pragmatically, the model is applied to the design problem of development of the micro/nano injection molding machine. Based on the Quality Function Deployment (QFD) technique, this model translates the customer needs to engineering characteristics. An Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is used to prioritize customer requirements while a Linear Programing (LP) optimization method is used to determine the feasible solution of the design variables within limited resources. Also, a program with a tailor-made graphical user interface (GUI) using MATLAB library and Microsoft Component Object Model (COM) technology is implemented to guide the design engineers to employ the proposed methodology for decision making.

An Approach to Measuring Coupled Tasks Strength and Sequencing of Coupled Tasks in New Product Development

Abstract: To manage a new product development process is difficult because of the coupled tasks. Design structure matrix (DSM) is an effective tool to resolve this problem. The early research on DSM describes the task's relationships by Boolean sign, and the focus of further research is how to measure the coupled strength and how to sequence the coupled tasks module. Based on the existent research, we construct a new method to measure the coupled strength and to calculate the first iteration's gross workload of a different sequence of coupled tasks, thereby ascertaining the best sequence of coupled tasks. The method is illuminated by an example of a mechanical product design process, whose result suggests that the method can be manipulated in the real development process of a new product easily, and it overcomes the disadvantage of the existent research on measuring coupled strength subjectively.

Development Mode Based on Integration of Product Models and Process Models

Abstract: Product development process modeling consists of two interrelated aspects: product model and process model. The coupling of these two aspects is very important to integrated product and process development, which not only avails to manage and control the whole process efficiently, but also avails to organize a multifunctional team to develop product concurrently and cooperatively. In this article, the integrated development architecture is established based on the detailed analysis of coupling relations between the product model and its corresponding process model. The integrated development method of coupling the product model main line and process model main line is presented. In this method, both the product model and process model are modified synchronously, and this modification is dynamic and mutual. The interrelationships and coupling mechanism between product model and process model are analyzed and established, and the algorithm was also given to evaluate the model coupling effect. Application ve...

Development Process with Regard to Customer Requirements

Abstract: Today, it can be maintained that the customer is a ‘king’ as he will buy only the products that satisfy his needs and wants. The companies of today are facing new challenges: global business and local operation, standardization, and individualization of products, demanding customers and fierce competition. The company wants to achieve shorter product development time, lower costs, high quality of the product, and finally, customer satisfaction. In order to achieve the set goals, the company has to take into account the customers wants and needs during the new-product-development process. This article presents the mode of description of processes that allow recognition of suitable natural systems and their transformation into technical systems and a model for management of development process. The phases of quality functions deployment (QFD) during the new product development process along with the location for collecting customer needs and wants are presented. A detailed description is given on informatio...

Estimation of Project Completion Time and Factors Analysis for Concurrent Engineering Project Management: A Simulation Approach:

Abstract: In concurrent engineering projects, tasks are usually interdependent among each other that require much iteration before completion where the critical path method/program evaluation and review technique (CPM/PERT) may not be applicable to help estimate the project duration. In addition, carrying out a large-scaled project in a dynamic environment has to deal with various factors at the same time. When estimating the project completion time, previous research often focused on one subject of interest and assumed the other factors causing little effect on the overall project duration. The objective of this article is to develop a research framework to help estimate the project completion time and analyze the major factors that affect the estimation for complex concurrent engineering projects. The framework consists of three major components: (1) data collection, where the needed data for simulation are prepared including project task structure, task relations, and quantified team member characteristics; (2) simulation, where tasks are dynamically assigned to the appropriate members/engineers according to each member's knowledge level of the task, teamwork capability, work schedule availability, and learning curve improvement; and (3) data analysis, where significant factors to the project completion time are studied by the ANOVA analysis based on the simulation results. The effectiveness of our framework and the simulation model is demonstrated by an illustrative example.

Modeling of Non-linear Relations among Different Design and Manufacturing Evaluation Measures for Multiobjective Optimal Concurrent Design

Abstract: This research introduces a new approach to model the non-linear relations among different design and manufacturing evaluation measures for multiobjective optimal concurrent design. In this approach, different design and manufacturing evaluation measures are mapped to comparable evaluation indices. The non-linear relation between an evaluation measure and its evaluation index is identified based on the least-square curve-fitting method. The weighting factors for different design and manufacturing evaluation indices, representing the importance measures of these indices in the multiobjective design optimization, are achieved using the pair-wise comparison method. An example case study of automobile caliper disc brake design considering 3 design evaluation measures and 1 manufacturing evaluation measure is given to illustrate the effectiveness of the introduced approach.

Modeling the Product Development Process as a Dynamic System with Feedback

Abstract: Effective product development process modeling can help manage the overall process efficiently and organize multi-functional team to develop product concurrently and cooperatively. In this paper, the development process is viewed as a dynamic system with feedback on the basis of feedback control theory. The dynamic model and its design structure matrix are developed. The model and its design structure matrix can be divided farther to reflect the interaction and feedback of design information. The mode and direction of the development process can be selected to satisfy constraints of process data flow and process control. A fuzzy evaluation method is presented to evaluate the performance of the dynamic development process; this allows the development process to be optimized based on re-organizing design constraints, re-organizing design processes and re-organizing designer’s preferences. An application shows that modeling the product development process as a dynamic system with feedback is a very effective method for realizing life cycle design, optimizing the whole development process, improving the degree of concurrent, speeding information flow and reducing modification frequency.

Remote Control of Quality Using Ethernet Vision and Web-enabled Robotic System

Abstract: A dynamic, globalized and customer driven market brings opportunities and threats to companies, depending on the response speed and production strategies. One strategy is concurrent engineering (CE) that focuses on improving the product development process, by the consideration of various factors associated with the life cycle of the product from the early stages. Design for manufacturing (DFM) has proven to be an effective approach to implement CE concept. Recently, an important DFM concept in product quality has drawn much attention from both academia and industry. This is because intense domestic and international competition has put more emphasis on quality. This study investigates the feasibility of integrating Ethernet-based vision system and assembly robot for the purpose of remote quality control. The accuracy and repeatability of the system were tested and verified over the Internet, prior to the quality inspection. The web-enabled quality check and robotic operations present many benefits, such ...

Design for ‘X’-abilities of RTM Products - A Graph Theoretic Approach

Abstract: The resin transfer molding (RTM) process has been widely accepted for fabricating automobile, aircraft, and spacecraft components with high strength and stiffness to weight ratios of the composite products. This process is widely acceptable in various industries, i.e., wherever low manufacturing cost with high mass production is required compared to other processes like compression molding and hand lay-up. Designing the composite products requires a lot of skill with multidisciplinary knowledge. Considering the design and the manufacturing strategies as well as the product development, every aspect of the design is to be considered in a single approach without losing any information. The present approach gives a new methodology for combining all the design aspects together in concurrent design methodology, which finally leads to the achievement of the six-sigma limits i.e., almost defect-free products from the RTM technology. The present paper utilizes the advantages of the graph theoretic approach to con...

Customer Requirement Management in Product Development

Abstract: Customer requirement management has been wellrecognized as the principal factor for developing a successful product in the marketplace. This has been acknowledged in an exponentially increasing number of publications in the field of customer satisfaction and requirement management, as well as in many endeavors in industrial applications. This research topic shows a multidisciplinary characteristic involving such fields as business studies, marketing research, psychological studies, human factors, software requirement engineering, and of course product and engineering design. In recent times, the importance of these front-end issues has been catalyzed by enormous e-commerce applications. This special issue is dedicated to the recent advances in customer requirement management. While requirement engineering has been intensively studied in the field of software and information systems, the focus of this special issue is given to the design and development of consumer and capital products. Based on the thorough and strict peer reviews, a total of eight papers are selected for publication from 38 submissions. These papers represent a snapshot of the cutting-edge research progress and aim to disseminate information on recent developments in the field of customer requirement management. The article by Jiao, Chen, and Fung, ‘Customer Requirement Management in Product Development: A Review of Research Issues’, provides a comprehensive literature review. It substantially extends this editorial discussion on the status quo of approaches and techniques for customer requirement management in product development. The article discusses the general process of customer requirement management. The emphasis is on a holistic view and system-wide solutions that encompass requirement elicitation, analysis, and specification. In the article, avenues for future research are highlighted along with technical challenges. Henson, Barnes, Livesey, Childs, and Ewart, in their article, ‘Affective Consumer Requirements: A Case Study of Moisturizer Packaging’, apply affective engineering approaches to the elicitation of customers’ subjective requirements. A case study of moisturizer packaging is reported, demonstrating how to recombine stimuli that have been tested separately. The results of focus groups and semantic questionnaires are fine-tuned based on the principal component analysis in order to translate the subjective requirements into values for physical properties of the packaging. The elicited requirements regarding surface textures, shape, and color are validated through the questionnaire responses to prototype packaging. The article by Khalid and Helander, ‘Customer Emotional Needs in Product Design’, emphasizes on the emotional aspect of customer requirements. The characteristics of customer emotions are discussed in detail, along with issues concerning their measurement and evaluation. They present a framework of articulating customer emotions in relation to the designer’s environment. As part of the product development life cycle, the framework enables customer needs and measured emotions to be fed early in the design process, so as to achieve a pleasurable and satisfying product. With focus on the relationships between consumers’ Kansei feelings and products’ formal elements, Chen *Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: jiao@pmail.ntu.edu.sg

Integration of CAD/CAM/CAE in Product Development System Using STEP/XML:

Abstract: Everyday the companies make strategic business decisions to improve their position in the market. They examine the business value chain to improve the product innovation, customer intimacy, and operational efficiency. Product development is one of the key weapons in the war for a competitive advantage. Policy in product development is in the form of five ‘rights’, viz. the right information, in the right format, for the right people, in the right location, and at the right time. The design and development of the product in small-scale and large-scale industries are managed with CAD/CAM/CAE systems. All the systems are heterogeneous. The Standard for the Exchange of Product (STEP) model data [1] is used as the standard format for models created in the CAD/CAM/CAE systems. In this research, an interface program to communicate the product data in the client/server environment has been developed. The interface program converts the STEP file into an XML file. The XML format is the lightweight web-based communi...

Lead Time Estimation Method for Complex Product Development Process

Abstract: As the lifecycle of a product gets shorter, the timely introduction of new products becomes an invaluable asset to most manufacturing firms. It is needless to say that the competitive edge is given to a firm with the better knowledge on how to estimate the product development (PD) process because reducing the product development time is a critical issue for manufacturing firms. However, it is difficult to estimate the performance of the PD process because of its complexity. So far, in spite of its strategic importance, only a few studies have been done. To overcome this limitation, in this study, the authors provide a heuristic algorithm that can estimate the lead time of a complex PD process by series–parallel network transformation and network reduction methods with estimates of the makespans of branch–merge types. To show the usefulness of this method, computational experiments have been carried out.

Internet-based Framework to Support Integration of Customer in the Design of Customizable Products

Abstract: A necessary element to design and produce customer-centric products is the integration of customers in the design process. Challenges faced during customer integration into the design process include generating models of the customized product, performing analysis of these to determine feasibility, and optimizing to increase the performance. These tasks have to be performed relatively quickly, if not in real time, to provide feedback to the customer. The focus of this article is to present a framework that utilizes CAD, finite element analysis (FEA), and optimization to integrate the customer into the design process via the Internet for delivering user customized products. The design analysis, evaluation, and optimization need to be automated and enhanced to enable operation over the Internet. A product family CAD/FEA template has been developed to perform analysis, along with a general formulation to optimize the customized product. The CAD/FEA template generalizes the geometry building and analysis of e...

Product Development Process Modeling Based on Information Feedback and Requirement Cooperation

Abstract: The objective of product development process modeling is to satisfy the process requirements. There exist both conflicting and cooperative relationships among the process requirements and these relationships could deeply affect the development process modeling. In this study, the macro-feedback and micro-feedback models of product development process are developed based on information feedback. By analyzing the conflicting or cooperative relationships among the process requirements, the reasoning scheme for inferring the relationships between the requirements and information, and the feedback control mechanism are developed. Using the proposed method, three reorganization activities, reorganizing the constraints, reorganizing the process, and reorganizing the structure of a designer’s preference, can be carried out to transfer the balance point of the development process from one point to another or be optimized at the initial place. The case study shows that the macro-feedback and micro-feedback modeling...

Customer-driven Collaborative Product Assembler for Internet-based Commerce

Abstract: In this study, a real-time collaborative 3D assembling system (Co-assembler) has been described that allows casual customers to interactively and virtually configure the 3D products over the Internet. It provides a framework for a web-based 3D assembly system that uses a customizable product model to significantly simplify the configuration and the assembly process, and a customer-driven recommendation helper to assist the customers make their design decisions. Two assembly-specific data formats - Assembly ML and Parametric Product ML are developed for archival and data transfer. The system aims to capture the customers’ needs and convert them into technical specifications, indirectly helping to promote e-commerce for manufacturing enterprises.

Maps of Dispersions for Machining Processes

Abstract: During product design, the design office defines dimensional and geometrical parameters according to the use criteria and product functionality. The manufacturing department must integrate the manufacturing and the workpiece position dispersions during the choice of tools and the machine operating modes and parameter values to respect the functional constraints. In this article, the authors suggest a model for the turning dispersions taking into account not only geometrical specifications of position or orientation, but also the experience of method actors. A representation using the principle of know-how maps in two or three dimensions is privileged. The most interesting aspect is that these maps include tacit and explicit knowledge. An experimental study realized on a machine tool (HES 300) allows one to elaborate knowledge maps especially for the turning process.

Multilayer Architecture in Collaborative Environment

Abstract: Recently, there are products that have been carried out to develop distributed CAD systems with collaborative methodologies. But how to integrate between horizontal and hierarchical collaboration is difficult. In order to prevent problems occurring while integrating horizontal and hierarchical collaboration, a flexible and multilayer architecture based on Java and solid modeling kernel–Spring Solid–is proposed in this article. By implementing this architecture, we change the system's communication types into three types–‘Stand Alone’, ‘Thin Client-Thick Server’, and ‘Peer to Peer’. The data passed among this architecture are referenced from the concept of macro data. By utilizing this type of data, an asynchronous collaboration can easily be carried out. As these communication types are changeable and can also achieve asynchronous collaboration, we can integrate the horizontal and hierarchical collaboration more easily.

Constrained Spatial Layout and Simultaneous Production Evaluation for a Production System

Abstract: This paper proposes a mathematical model called Multi-objective Production System Design (MOPSD) model and a two-staged solving procedure. The MOPSD model not only considers the two-dimensional layout of a production system under the constrained factory space to achieve the minimal total material transportation flow but also determines the optimal assigned number of workstations and the optimal system cycle time concerning a simultaneous production situation. The first major objective of MOPSD model is regarded as a Quadratic Assignment Problem (QAP), but it considers the size of operation element, the multiple production lines, and the constrained two-dimensional factory space where traditional QAP studies are seldom mentioned. The second objective of the MOPSD model is to determine the optimal system cycle time as well as the optimal assigned number of workstations under the simultaneous production situation for preventing the underestimation of the system production rate.The first-stage solving procedu...

Using Canonical Correlation to Optimize Taguchi’s Multiresponse Problem:

Abstract: A conventional and efficient approach, the Taguchi method, is applied to an off-line quality control so that the experimental design is combined with quality loss in order to optimize a single response problem. Three stages, system design, parameter design, and tolerance design, are included in the Taguchi method. In the real world, more than one quality characteristic should be considered for most of the industrial products; i.e., most applications customers are concerned with multiresponse problems. Therefore, the Taguchi method is not appropriate to optimize a multiresponse problem because engineering judgment and experience are the main optimization scenario in Taguchi’s method. In order to overcome this gap, this study proposes the effective procedure, canonical correlation, to optimize the multiresponse problem. Using canonical correlation, multiple responses in each experiment are transformed into a performance index. Therefore, the optimal factors/levels combination for the multiresponses can be d...

A Study on the Cognitive Thresholds of Formal Styles

Abstract: Formal styles have been recognized as an effective marketing segmentation marker for differentiating various preferences among consumer groups. In recent years, research that focuses on mapping the relationships between consumers’ Kansei feelings and products’ formal elements has become a hot topic in design fields. However, how consumers differentiate one particular product form style from the other is still vaguely understood. The objective of this study is twofold: (1) to search for and verify the range of cognitive thresholds for formal styles and (2) to construct a formal language for better describing formal styles, through scientific processes and such techniques as semantic differential analysis and fuzzy sets theory. To achieve the objective, two experiments are conducted in this study. The first experiment gathers raw data via performing semantic differential analysis on a series of well-perceived-style products by experienced designers. The data gathered are then converted and fine-tuned using ...

A Knowledge Discovery Method to Predict the Economical Sustainability of a Company

Abstract: In this study, we are building a prototype of a machine-learning system using an inductive supervised approach to predict the logistical performance of a company. Focus lies on the learning phase, the handling of different types of data, the creation of new concepts in order to provide better measurable information. In this system, numeric financial data are combined with categorical data creating symbolic data, distinguishing the phase of model generation from examples, and the phase of model classification and interpretation. The system has been implemented in vector spaces. Our data are benchmarking surveys on concurrent engineering (CE), measuring the usage of in total 302 best practices in Belgian manufacturing companies. The general purpose for implementing a best practice is the statement that the company will improve its product processing, and that in this way the company will establish its economical existence on the market. Our model processes a limited number of predefined steps, generating va...