Showing papers on "Product design specification published in 2000"

Product Design: Techniques in Reverse Engineering and New Product Development

Abstract: 1 Journeys in Product Development 2 Product Development Process Tools 3 Scoping Product Developments: Technical and Business Concerns 4 Understanding Customer Needs 5 Establishing Product Function 6 Product Teardown and Experimentation 7 Benchmarking and Establishing Engineering Specifications 8 Product Portfolios and Portfolio Architecture 9 Product Architecture 10 Generating Concepts 11 Concept Selection 12 Concept Embodiment 13 Modeling of Product Metrics 14 Design for Manufacture and Assembly 15 Design for the Environment 16 Analytical and Numerical Model Solutions 17 Physical Prototypes 18 Physical Models and Experimentation 19 Design for Robustness

A Method for Architecting Product Platforms

Abstract: Consider a group of products sharing common parts and assemblies. The products in question we call a product family, and the common elements, the platform. In this paper, we present a method for designing product platforms and the derived family that takes into consideration both the technical performance requirements as well as the cost of the product family. The design of a platform-based product family is formulated as a general optimization problem in which the advantages of designing a common platform must be balanced against the constraints of the individual product variants and constraints of the family as a whole. This optimization approach forms the basis for a practical implementation as an interactive, team-based negotiation model for designing a family of interplanetary spacecraft based on a common platform. The approach is used to consider and specify different subsystems that could be made common to all the missions. It is also used to evaluate the impact of those platform design decisions on the performance of the product family, and thus be able to select from among feasible platform designs.

Understanding product family for mass customization by developing commonality indices

Abstract: While the rationale of developing the product family as a means to achieve economy of scale and standardization of production has been well recognized in both industry and academia, the fundamental concern regarding developing the product family lies in the fact that a company must optimize the internal complexity and external variety. With this view, this paper recognizes the necessity to understand the product family through developing commonality measurements. The goal of the paper is to present design and process engineers with insight into product family design and its manufacturability. In this paper, two sources of commonality are identified: the component part commonality and the process commonality. The formulation of the component part commonality is based on the mindset of counting the average applications per component part and takes into account product volume, quantity per operation, and the price/cost of the component part. The process commonality index incorporates such concerns as process...

System and method for allocating manufactured products to sellers

Abstract: A software system is provided for managing available to promise (ATP) and making promises to fulfill customer requests. The software system includes a plurality of generic product models (600) each representing a generic product. Each generic product model (600) specifies one component of a plurality of possible components. A plurality of specific product models (602) each represent a specific product and each specify all components of the specific product. Each component specified by each specific product model (602) is specified by one of the generic product models (600) such that each specific product model (602) is related to a subset of the generic product models (600). A customer request matching a specific product then can be fulfilled by available-to-promise of the specific product or by available-to-promise of all related generic products. In addition, an organization in a seller hierarchy can retain product and designate first-come-first-served product. The organization also can define an ATP horizon to specify when forecasted product is actually available. Further, the organization can use an automatic allocation policy to allocate to members, and some forecast entries can be designated zero-ATP entries.

System-On-A-Chip: Design and Test

Abstract: From the Publisher: Starting with a basic overview of system-on-a-chip (SoC), including definitions of related terms, this new book helps you understand SoC design challenges, and the latest design and test methodologies. You see how ASIC technology evolved to an embedded cores-based concept that includes pre-designed, reusable Intellectual Property (IP) cores that act as microprocessors, data storage devices, DSP, bus control, and interfaces — all "stitched" together by a User's Defined Logic (UDL). Part One features a discussion of SoC-related design difficulties including hardware-software co-design, reuse design, and cores design. You get practical, real-world design guidance referencing actual product specifications, delivery requirements, and system integration requirements in use by commercial enterprises and under evaluation by the SoC community. Significant attention is paid to the rules and guidelines for making SoC design reusable, including RTL coding guidelines and design validation. Part One concludes with the information you need to develop test benches at both the cores and SoC level. Part Two contains a review of the challenges you face in testing SoC and test methodologies for overcoming these hurdles. Test methods for embedded logic cores, microprocessor cores, micro-controller cores and large memory blocks are included, as well as methods for testing embedded analog and mixed-signal circuits, and Iddq testing on SoC. You also get an overview of material handling, speed-binning, and production flow to apply your knowledge to actual production processes. System-on-a-Chip: Design and Test is an excellent, one-stop reference for SoC and ASIC designengineers, IP designers and providers, and test engineers seeking comprehensive information on SoC design, testing, and production.

Time-Cost Trade-Offs in Overlapped Product Development

Abstract: Increasingly shorter product life cycles impel firms to design, develop, and market more products in less time than ever before. Overlapping of design and development stages is commonly regarded as the most promising strategy to reduce product development times. However, overlapping typically requires additional resources and can be costly.Our research addresses the trade-off between product development time and costs and introduces an algorithm to determine an appropriate overlapping strategy under different scenarios. The methodology developed was successfully employed at Rocketdyne Division of Rockwell International.

Design for variety: a methodology for developing product platform architectures

Abstract: Developing a robust, product platform architecture brings an important competitive advantage to a company. The major benefit is reduced design effort and time-to-market for future generations of the product. This paper describes a step-by-step method that aids companies in developing such a product platform architecture. Using the concept of specification "flows" within a product development project, the design for variety (DFV) method develops two indices to measure a product's architecture. The first index is the Generational Variety Index (GVI), a measure for the amount of redesign effort required for future designs of the product. The second index is the Coupling Index (CI), a measure of the coupling among the product components. The design team uses these two indices to develop a decoupled architecture that requires less design effort for follow-on products.

Fundamentals of product family architecture

Abstract: Recognizing the rationale of a product family architecture (PFA) with respect to design for mass customization (DFMC), this paper discusses the fundamental issues underlying a PFA, including product information modeling, structural implications of product families, functional variety versus technical variety, class‐member relationships inherent in variety, modularity and commonality, PFA design spaces, and PFA composition. The background research is reviewed in terms of product architecture and modularity, product platform and product families, and product modeling and design process models. To organize product varieties in DFMC, a PFA should be described from three different perspectives, namely the functional (as seen from customer, sales and marketing viewpoints), behavioral (as seen from the product technology or design engineer perspective) and structural (as seen from the fulfillment or manufacturing and logistic perspective). Meeting diverse customer requirements and achieving volume economy simultaneously can be best achieved by synchronizing these three perspectives. In fact, the mappings between PFA views manifest the cooperative effort among different business functions, whilst three PFA views facilitate the integration of different phases of product development.

Quality control of fungal and viral biocontrol agents - Assurance of product performance

Abstract: An essential feature of the production of all microbial control agents is an effective quality control system. Well-defined product specifications with accompanying quality control procedures help to maximize product performance, ensure product safety, standardize manufacturing costs and reduce the risks of supply failure, thus building user confidence. A production system that does not have a quality control system is one whose output is uncontrolled and a lack of thorough quality feedback can result in batches of product with variable concentrations of active agent. This results in products with variable performance leading to control failures by users and serious loss of user confidence. Strict quality control procedures are not only essential for product consistency, but also for safety. Where quality control is inadequate, microbial contamination of the final product is inevitable. In most of such cases this will merely lead to a loss of efficacy due to dilution of the active ingredient by competing ...

Product catalog for use in a collaborative engineering environment and method for using same

Abstract: A collaborative engineering environment (CEE) enables the effective capture, management, communication, and exploitation of all product related information to a project team. The systematic employment of this information offers substantial improvements in productivity, cost savings, cycle time reductions, product integrity, and lifetime supportability of the system. Advanced CEE capabilities exploit and leverage the engineering, architectural and technological expertise of enterprise subject matter experts (domain experts) across multiple complex systems development and integration activities. The CEE provides a tightly coupled process automation using reusable product elements for coupling information with engineering processes and ensuring adherence to repeatable and traceable engineering processes. A product catalog provides a single information management point for intrinsic complex product characteristics and facilitates the propagation of that information to engineering teams incorporating the complex product into their system designs. The intrinsic complex product characteristics are augmented with implementation specific information to fully describe the complex product in the system design.

Software product lines: a case study

Abstract: A software product line is a family of products that share common features to meet the needs of a market area. Systematic processes have been developed to dramatically reduce the cost of a product line. Such product-line engineering processes have proven practical and effective in industrial use, but are not widely understood. The Family-Oriented Abstraction, Specification and Translation (FAST) process has been used successfully at Lucent Technologies in over 25 domains, providing productivity improvements of as much as four to one. In this paper, we show how to use FAST to document precisely the key abstractions in a domain, exploit design patterns in a generic product-line architecture, generate documentation and Java code, and automate testing to reduce costs. The paper is based on a detailed case study covering all aspects from domain analysis through testing. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A Variation-Based Methodology for Product Family Design

Abstract: In recent years, considerable research has been directed towards the development of methods for designing families of products. In this paper, we present a Variation-Based Platform Design Methodology (VBPDM), which aims to satisfy a range of performance requirements using the smallest variation of the product designs in the family. In the first stage of the VBPDM, the common product platform around which the product family is to be developed is identified. A ranged set of solutions is found, represented by the mean and standard deviation of the input design variables, to meet a range of the different performance requirements for the product family. During this first stage, a compromise Decision Support Problem (DSP) is used to optimize the commonality goal that seeks to minimize the deviation of the input design variables, while satisfying the range of performance requirements. Those design variables that show small deviations are held constant to form the product platform. In the second stage of the VBPDM, each individual product is designed around the common platform such that the functional requirements of the product are best satisfied. As an example, the proposed method is used to develop a family of universal electric motors designed to meet a range of torque requirements. The results are compared against previous work.

Proving Consistency Assertions for Automotive Product Data Management

Abstract: We present a formal specification and verification approach for industrial product data bases containing Boolean logic formulae to express constraints. Within this framework, global consistency assertions about the product data are converted into propositional satisfiability problems. Today"s state-of-the-art provers turn out to be surprisingly efficient in solving the SAT-instances generated by this process. Moreover, we introduce a method for encoding special nonmonotonic constructs in traditional Boolean logic. We have successfully applied our method to industrial automotive product data management and could establish a set of commercially used interactive tools that facilitate the management of change and help raise quality standards.

Computer Modelling of Design Specifications

Abstract: This paper presents a new object-oriented generic model that, together with a new method, supports specification of product needs and mapping of influencing surrounding factors The goal of the method is that individuals involved shall be able to handle and view more information related to concept selection and thereby be able to make more accurate decisions A direct link to downstream product testing and the possibility to highlight conflicting criteria at an early stage is also desirable The model is applicable both for new design and re-design tasks It has, however, so far only been tested in re-design of an existing product, and it has been developed while collecting information about that particular problem Specification handling of today often results in large and 'hard-to-grasp' quantities of paper documents The research goal in this work has been to create a specification model for the future, which will be handled by computer tools and provides relevant information to the right user at the r

Adaptable integrated-content product development system

Abstract: A product development system having application with respect to products and services across multiple industries and markets which reduces development time and increases probability of product or service success. The invention focuses on apparatus and methods of integrating sufficient information into product development cycles to help ensure successful product creation, and to help ensure that the product development cycle may be successfully repeated with respect to the development of additional products and services. A computer implement product planning tool provides a main project planning application having a hierarchical product planning architecture configured to be interactive with project planning tool user.

Architecture of product family for mass customization

Abstract: The rationale of developing product families with respect to mass customization has been well recognized in both industry and academia. This paper investigates the concept of architecture of product family (APF). Fundamental issues underlying the APF are discussed. Common bases, differentiation enablers and configuration mechanisms from both sales and engineering views are defined. Variety generation methods with regard to producing custom products based on the modular product architecture are introduced. To represent a family of products instead of a collection of individual products, a general product structure (GPS) is proposed. Accordingly, family based product design is studied. The APF and the associated GPS capture both compositional and generative aspects of product family design, thus providing the constructs for generating product variants automatically.

A customer‐focused planning approach to make‐to‐order production

Abstract: Presents a customer‐focused approach to effective planning of make‐to‐order production, in which production activities are driven by customer orders and all products are made to customers’ specifications. The approach plans, schedules, and co‐ordinates production activities, based on the needs of individual customer orders. In particular, an integrated bill of material and routeing data structure is used to effectively organise production data in response to product specifications of customer orders. It facilitates the creation of production jobs with varying routeings and material requirements. A job‐oriented finite capacity scheduling system is used to effectively accommodate specific needs of individual customer orders. It allows for realistic setting of delivery dates and negotiation of order changes. Key features of the approach presented show its effectiveness in planning multi‐item customer orders and multi‐level products.

Single board computer quotation and design system and method

Abstract: The present invention is a virtual product designer that allows a user to provide specifications for a custom board level product and receive an instantaneous cost quotation and feasibility assessment of the product. The user may connect through the Internet to a virtual product designer to obtain a cost quotation and design feasibility assessment for a specified product. Functional modules that serve as building blocks for a custom design are defined and stored in a library. Attributes and design parameters associated with the functional modules are used to calculate a cost quotation and evaluate design feasibility. As the user changes design requirements while interacting with the virtual product designer, the user is continually updated on the relevant functional, electrical, mechanical and cost parameters.

Design for production: a tool for reducing manufacturing cycle time

Abstract: This paper describes a decision support tool that can help a product development team reduce manu- facturing cycle time during product design. This design for production (DFP) tool determines how manufacturing a new product design affects the performance of the man- ufacturing system by analyzing the capacity requirements and estimating the manufacturing cycle times. Perform- ing these tasks early in the product development process can reduce product development time. The paper presents a comprehensive DFP approach and describes the compo- nents of the DFP tool, which gives feedback that can be used to eliminate manufacturing cycle time problems. We present an example that illustrates the tool's functionality.

Modelling for process planning: the links between process planning entities

Abstract: In an integrated design framework, each actor of the design process must have his own view of the product to efficiently participate and co-design. The product model used by the process planner is presented here: it is in fact extracted from the global product model of the whole design system by filtering. The links of dependence among the different entities of the model – links of availability, accessibility and quality – are particularly emphasised in this text. Their efficiency has been tested in process planning and product designing.

An infrastructure for inter-organizational collaborative product development

Abstract: Inter-organizational collaborative product development relies heavily on Internet-based technology. As heterogeneous computer environments are typically used in such cases, problems related with data sharing and work coordination at the global level are basic obstacles for widespread implementation of the concept of virtual engineering teams in global product development. In this paper, a software infrastructure is proposed to solve the addressed problems. An event-driven software component framework called the STEP Object Management Framework (SOMF) enables the sharing of common STEP-based product model data, manages collaborative and distributed workflows and provides interfaces to OMG compliant product data management (PDM) systems and workflow management systems. The component framework is based on open standards (CORBA, STEP, Java) and permits a flexible configuration to meet the specific requirements of organizations involved in joint product development projects.

Integrating product design and manufacturing: a game theoretic approach

Abstract: One approach for increasing the quality of a product and the efficiency of its realization is to pay attention to the integration of product design and manufacturing. An integrated product realization process must be able to accommodate sequential stages of activity along a product realization time-line, independent information flow between stages, and trade-offs between various activities and factors. In this paper, a decision-based approach that is consistent with such characteristics is explored. This approach is anchored in game theory and a decision construct, namely, the Compromise Decision Support Problem. The merging of these two elements provides a mathematical and systematic basis for coordinating product design and manufacturing. This approach is illustrated via an example, namely, the redesign of a common component platform for a family of absorber-evaporator modules for absorption refrigeration, in order to reduce their costs and production times. The focus is on the method rather than the re...

An approach to architectural analysis of product lines

Abstract: This paper addresses the issue of how to perform architectural analysis on an existing product line architecture. The con tribution of the paper is to identify and demonstrate a repeatable product line architecture analysis process. The approach defines a “good” product line architecture in terms of those quality attributes required by the particular product line under development. It then analyzes the architecture against these criteria by both manual and tool-supported methods. The phased approach described in this paper provides a structured analysis of an existing product line architecture using (1) formal specification of the high-level architecture, (2) manual analysis of scenarios to exercise the architecture's support for required variabilities, and (3) model checking of critical behaviors at the architectural level that are required for all systems in the product line. Results of an application to a software product line of spaceborne telescopes are used to explain and evaluate the approach.

Intelligent product manuals

Abstract: Intelligent product manuals are designed to allow product users to utilize a product as easily, effectively and with as little additional care as possible while minimizing support costs for manufacturers and suppliers. It is first shown how intelligent product manuals address these objectives by utilizing electronic, multimedia and knowledge-based technologies to provide active assistance to the user of the product during tasks such as installation, operation and maintenance. An architecture for the creation and deployment of an intelligent product manual is then proposed and general design considerations are outlined. Finally, four implementation approaches, based on XML, SGML, HTML and PDF technologies, are compared against a set of selection criteria. It is concluded that simple, low-cost solutions are available, which can provide significant benefits for appropriate businesses, including smaller companies.

Design for Disassembly, Reuse, and Recycling

Abstract: Publisher Summary Rapid product development coupled with a consumer appetite for latest models of products have caused consumers to discard outdated products even though they are still operational. Products made with reusable components, retrieved from discarded electronic products, can not only be cheaper but better. Reuse and recycling of electronic products is driven not only by the return on capital concept but also by the return to nature concept. The concept of design for disassembly, reuse, and recycling (DfDRR) is intended for end-of-life (EOL) product management. This chapter discusses the current techniques used for DfDRR. It also explores a variety of “design for” concepts that can guide product designers toward a specific design goal. The chapter explores some product design guidelines, and outlines the steps required for the development of DfDRR. It describes the tools to evaluate product designs, and presents some case examples from the major electronic product manufacturers in the United States and other countries.