Product design improvement by a new similarity-index-based approach in the context of reconfigurable assembly processes

Abstract

An increased and ongoing trend to more product variety can be observed in manufacturing industries. This trend implies that enterprises have to deal with more and more differing products which leads to challenges on both sides, the product design and the production. The improvement of production being an important factor, the challenge on the side of the design department is not minor. Between design for manufacturing/assembly and increasing demands in terms of customisation, the management of highly varying products and the generation of coherent product families is of great importance. This article presents a new design improvement methodology based on two physical and functional architecture similarity indices and two assembly technology similarity indices. It aims to guide the designer in the analysis of product similarity, the identification of product subassemblies to optimise and the choice of consistent assembly solutions for an easier product family generation and optimised production. A case study from automotive industry is presented to illustrate the application of this approach.

CDFA method: a way to assess assembly and installation performance of aircraft system architectures at the conceptual design

“…The improvement of a given product architecture usually requires the analysis of modularity. From the literature, it emerged that modular product architecture can positively impact the assembly phase (Stief et al 2020 ). While the benefit of modularity is acknowledged for these technical aspects the over-increasing degrees of modularity in design decisions may lead to opposite results (i.e., increment of costs) (Engel and Reich 2015 ; Engel et al 2017 ; Bonvoisin et al 2016 ).…”

A methodology for production system design driven by product modelling and analysis – application in the automotive industry

“…An exhaustive overview of literature concerning the use of commonality analysis in product family design is proposed by (Simpson et al 2014), in particular the contribution (Pirmoradi, Wang, and Simpson 2014). An analysis of similarity indices and a set of four new ones are proposed in (Stief et al 2020).…”

“…(i) Either it can be used for the product redesign in order to identify variations in product design and to increase product architecture similarity for product family members; application detailed in (Stief et al 2020). (ii) Or it can be used to analyse product variations oriented to the manufacturing system to identify where differences due to product variety may cause difficulties in the manufacturing system design.…”

“…The methodology and its applications presented in this article are imbricated into the research project and related publications as indicated in Figure 1. Previous publications have detailed the aspects of product modelling (Stief et al 2018;2019), a new way to assess product similarity (Stief et al 2020), and one application oriented to product design improvement in product families (ibid.). This article focuses on the applications of similarity assessment for production system design.…”

Aspects of Industrial Design and Their Implications for Society. Case Studies on the Influence of Packaging Design and Placement at the Point of Sale

“…An increased and ongoing trend toward a greater variety of products can be observed in manufacturing industries [3]. The impact of the industrial transformations exceeds the production systems themselves; that is to say, they affect the entire value chain, from the product design and development process (PDDP) through manufacturing to marketing, and disposal [4,5].…”