Product redesign to align with production processes

Abstract

The development of products destined to cover specific needs plays an important role when it is possible to have feedback, in terms of functionality, on the part of the final user for the consolidation of the product. Seeking such consolidation and identifying opportunities for improvement, in this paper a redesign was made based on specific criteria to align the manufacturing to mass production. The following premises were raised: 1) validation of the de-sign proposal; 2) comparative and operational analysis; 3) geometry optimization for weight and production cost reduction. This paper proposes a new design of the drawbar body of a tractor (case study) and the theoretical framework is established taking the bases of the concurrent engineering to define and characterize the final architecture configuration. Is reported the methodology used for the development of this research and the results obtained by finite element analysis for architecture optimization. Finally, are presented the defined strategies for aligning manufacturing to production.