Mass customization and product individualization are driving factors behind design automation, which in turn are enabled through the formalization and automation of engineering work. The goal is to offer customers optimized solutions to their needs timely and as profitable as possible. The path to achieve such a remarkable goal can be very winding and tricky for many companies, or even non-existing at the moment being. To succeed requires three essential parts: formally represented product knowledge, facilities to automatically apply the product knowledge, and optimization algorithms. This paper shows how these three parts can be supported in engineer-to-order businesses through the concept of knowledge objects. Knowledge Objects are human readable descriptions of formalized knowledge bundled with corresponding computer routines for the automation of that knowledge. One case example is given at the end of the paper to demonstrate the use of knowledge objects. © 2019, Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature.

In this paper a method is introduced that supports reuse and maintenance of design information. The method allows sharing design information in different levels of details tailored for the stakeholders according to their needs. In addition, it is possible to share the information in multiple formats to suite different purposes. The results are demonstrated in an industrial partner which is a supplier of tooling for manufacturing industry.

This paper aims to present a methodology to predict the anisotropic and non-linear behaviour of glass fibre reinforced plastics using finite element methods. A material model is implemented in order to remedy the need of multiple material definitions, and to control the local plastic behaviour as a function of the fibre orientation. Injection moulding simulations traditionally provide second order orientation tensors, which are considered together with a homogenization scheme to compute local material properties. However, in the present study, fourth order tensors are used in combination with traditional methods to provide more accurate material properties. The elastic and plastic response of the material model is optimized to fit experimental test data, until simulations and experiments overlap. The proposed material model can support design engineers in making more informed decisions, allowing them to create smarter products without the need of excessive safety factors, leading to reduced component weight and environmental impact. 

Product platform development is a well-established approach for reusing product knowledge in the form of geometry and its configuration rules and constraints. Explicitly defining all platform components is not always possible however. This is why a product platform approach where the processes of realising platform components also are supported is needed, instead of exclusively relying on their results. The work presented here works toward this, with a focus on automated tool development enabled by extending design assets from different tools.

During the casting process and solidification of ductile iron castings, a heterogeneous microstructure is formed throughout the casting. This distribution is strongly influenced by the item geometry and the process related factors, as chemical composition and local solidification conditions. Geometrical changes to the geometry of the casting thus alters the local mechanical behavior and properties, as well as the distribution of stresses and strains when the casting is subjected to load. In order to find an optimal geometry, e.g. with reduced weight and increased load-bearing capacity, this interdependency between geometry and local material behavior needs to be considered and integrated into the optimization method. In this contribution, recent developments in the multidisciplinary integration of casting process simulation, solidification and microstructure modelling, microstructure-based material characterization, finite element structural analyses with local material behavior and structural optimization techniques are presented and discussed. The effect and relevance of considering the local material behavior in shape optimization of ductile iron castings is discussed and evidenced by an industrial application. It is shown that by adopting a multidisciplinary optimization approach by integration of casting simulation and local material behavior into shape optimization, the potential of the casting process to obtain components with high performance and reliability can be enabled and utilized. 

Many manufacturing companies are suppliers that deliver unique solutions to different business customers. Intense quotation work, with a high demand on accuracy and quick response, and development projects executed in close collaboration with customers and other actors characterize these companies. The projects can run for years or a few weeks depending on the business. Changes of requirements are frequent and technology development required for improved functionality, sustainability and competitiveness. The use of a product platform has been acknowledged as a strategic enabler for product family development and mass customization. However, companies struggle with adopting the common platform approach building upon pre-defined modules and components as it constraints the fulfilment of unique customer requirements and the introduction of new technology at high pace. This work reports the results from case studies conducted in collaboration with four companies. They are in many ways different but face the same challenges when it comes to customization, fluctuating requirements and need of high pace in technology advancement. The focus of this paper is on their initial states; including how they work with their product concept before the customer entry point, the work that is initiated when an order is accepted, the character of requirements and the adoption of product platforms. Criteria on, and identification of, new platforms models, termed Design Assets, are presented followed by a mapping to the Design Platform concept pointing out areas upcoming work, both scientifically and at the companies.

Product development is an iterative process, partially due to changes in both company internal and external product requirements, resulting in changes to the product under development. These changes might require recapitulation of design rationale and result in re-doing assessments and syntheses of different kinds. One way to support this work is to proactively model in such a way that as much as possible of the previous work can be re-used. Not only within one product development project but also across and to future ones. Modelling for re-use can be done by documenting design rationale and formalising performed activities as design guidelines or computer scripts. To be able to find and re-use this information it could be attached to the product features which it relates to. Since geometry is such a core product characteristic, especially within the mechanical industry, and is often modelled as CAD-models, this paper presents a review of CAD-model capabilities and restrictions to serve as a carrier of multidisciplinary information. This is done by; enquiring three Swedish companies, exploring an automated Finite Element Analysis method utilising the CAD-model as a carrier of information, and reviewing different CAD software capabilities. Results show that there are at least seven extension techniques, out of which all are currently being used or considered to be in the future, by at least one company. Further, depending on the extension technique, extendibility and human-comprehension of the added information differ.

Mass-customization has forced manufacturing companies to put significant efforts to digitize and automate their engineering and production processes. When new products are to be developed and introduced the production is not alone to be automated. The application of knowledge regarding how the product should be designed and produced based on customer requirements also must be automated. One big academic challenge is helping industry to make sure that the background knowledge of the automated engineering processes still can be understood by its stakeholders throughout the product life cycle. The research presented in this paper aims to build an infrastructure to support a connectivistic view on knowledge in knowledge based engineering. Fundamental concepts in connectivism include network formation and contextualization, which are here addressed by using graph theory together with information filtering techniques and quality assurance of CAD-models. The paper shows how engineering knowledge contained in spreadsheets, knowledge-bases and CAD-models can be penetrated and represented as filtered graphs to support a connectivistic working approach. Three software demonstrators developed to extract filtered graphs are presented and discussed in the paper.

Custom engineered products require an engineer-to-order approach in development, quotation preparation and order processing. This work reports the result of a three-and-a-half-year project were the objective was to develop means for implementation and management of computer support for engineering design and production engineering of customized products. Efficient re-use is essential for success and decision is identified as the core concept to trace tasks executed, knowledge used, design rationale and artefacts developed throughout the product realization process.

The local material behaviour of cast metal and injection moulded parts is highly related to the geometrical design of the part as well as to a large number of process parameters. In order to use structural optimization methods to find the geometry that gives the best possible performance, both the geometry and the effect of the production process on the local material behaviour thus has to be considered.

In this work, a multidisciplinary methodology to consider local microstructure-based material behaviour in optimizations of the design of engineering structures is presented. By adopting a knowledge-based industrial product realisation perspective combined with a previously presented simulation strategy for microstructure-based material behaviour in Finite Element Analyses (FEA), the methodology integrates Computer Aided Design (CAD), casting and injection moulding simulations, FEA, design automation and a multi-objective optimization scheme into a novel structural optimization method for cast metal and injection moulded polymeric parts. The different concepts and modules in the methodology are described, their implementation into a prototype software is outlined, and the application and relevance of the methodology is discussed.