A decision support methodology for embodiment design and process chain selection for hybrid manufacturing platforms

Abstract

This paper presents a methodology for the transformation of a product concept into a detailed design and manufacturing process chain for hybrid manufacturing platforms. Hybrid platforms offer new capabilities and opportunities for product design. However, they require high levels of process expertise for effective design and effective process selection. Design for hybrid manufacture is challenging as there is a requirement to understand a number of technologies, which may be highly varied. To address this challenge, a knowledgebased decision-support system developed in this paper enables manufacturing expertise to be integrated into procedures for product design and process chain selection. This formalised numerical methodology is able to consider a wider range of varied manufacturing processes than any previous study. A feature-based design method is developed, which guides the designer towards an optimised product design during the embodiment design phase, and a process-chain selection program is utilised to enable the effective analysis of a product design based on product evaluation criteria. The methodology has been successfully applied to the design of an LED product with internal geometries and electronics.A decision-support methodology for embodiment design and process chain selection for hybrid manufacturing platforms 2 Key words:Design for manufacture, process chain selection, hybrid manufacture, feature-based design, decisionsupport. Acknowledgements:The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007(FP7/ -2013 under grant agreement number 314580.