Manufacturing companies are continuously faced with requirements regarding technology novelty, shorter time to market, a higher level of functionality, and lower prices for their products. This is especially true of suppliers that develop and manufacture highly customized products within the automotive industry. It is not uncommon that a request for a new product or subsystem goes out to several suppliers and that the one that can deliver the product most quickly and at the lowest price receives the contract. It is therefore vital for any supplier to answer to quotation requests rapidly and with a high level of precision while also ensuring that company assets are used efficiently. Other issues that apply to suppliers in the automotive industry are heavily fluctuating requirements during development projects, each customer’s individual preferences, and the ever changing interfaces with the OEM product with which the supplier’s product is to be integrated. Platform strategies have been widely accepted in industry to serve a wide product variety while maintaining business efficiency. However, the challenge of applying a platform strategy at the supplier level in the face of the reality described above has not been fully investigated. Platform approaches tend to require a focused development of the platform, which in turn requires some knowledge about which future variants are to be derived from the platform. The research presented in this thesis investigates the state of practice in industry regarding the challenges, needs, and current use of platforms. To respond to the identified need, a platform approach is proposed that expands the scope of what a product platform has traditionally contained. This is undertaken to aid in the development of highly customized products when physical modules or component scalability does not suffice. The platform approach provides a coherent environment for heterogeneous design assets to be used in product development, supporting both the activity of designing and off-the-shelf solutions. The approach is based on identifying and modelling generic product items that are associated with descriptions governing their design. By describing the outcome of technology and product development like finished designs, design guidelines, constraints, etc., in a standardized format, the platform continues to evolve. To aid in using the platform approach, a support system called Design Platform Manager is introduced at a company active as a secondtier supplier in the automotive industry. The system enables the creation of generic product items that can be structured, instantiated, and associated with descriptions, which aids in realizing product variants. The aim of the platform approach and tool is to support the quotation and continued design processes by identifying valid knowledge to use as circumstances, such as requirement changes or new design iterations, warrant. The support tool and overarching model have been evaluated by company representatives, who reported good results.

The separation of technology development (TD) and product development (PD) is adding to the challenge that suppliers face. They are to conduct long term TD and at the same time tailor products when the order arrives. This paper proposes a platform approach in order to describe some conceptual knowledge. An example from the automotive business where early simulations of concepts are performed during TD is presented. The focus is on how these simulations can support the transfer of knowledge from TD to PD and how they are to be described in order to communicate the technology’s ability to adapt.

System suppliers, e.g. original equipment suppliers, are important for the success of many products. They design a unique solution, often in close collaboration with other companies, based on different product concepts and/or core technologies. The solution can then be manufactured in different quantities depending on the client’s need. High level of customization is required as the interfaces are not standardized, the performance is not negotiable, requirements are not initially fixed and the specific system interacts with, is affected by, or affects other systems that are simultaneously developed. A system supplier commonly designs and manufactures solutions for different OEMs and must support many models and variants in their product portfolios. Efficiency, short lead-time, continuous technology development, and adaptability are essential for the competitive edge. A product platform approach has been a success for many companies to enable variety at low cost, however, it is not applicable for system suppliers. This work describes the result from a case study where a platform approach enabling a new way of structuring, publishing and managing design assets and processes was introduced at a company with the purpose to improve the ability to respond to changing requirements in the quotation process and the subsequent product development activities.

Companies developing highly customised products are continuously faced with fluctuating requirements during the early and late stages of the product development (PD) process. This differs from companies that develop end-consumer products, which uses fixed specifications and where product platforms have been a successful enabler for efficient customisation. However, in the past, product platforms have not been able to fully support companies working in an engineer-to-order business environment. This article outlines the results from a three-year collaborative research project between academics within the area of engineering design and practitioners from the engineer-to-order industry. The research introduces a design platform (DP) that aims to support the development of customised products when traditional platform concepts do not suffice. The platform approach provides a coherent environment for heterogeneous design assets to be used in PD by supporting both the design activity and the finished solutions. The needs and abilities regarding such a platform were investigated through a series of interviews and workshops at four companies. Then, the DP was modelled and support tools were developed. Finally, company representatives evaluated the complete DP and its applications, reporting promising results.

Companies developing highly customized products within the supplier industry are continuously faced with fluctuating requirements during both the quotation process and continued development. This research proposes a platform approach to aid suppliers when modularity or platform scalability do not suffice. The platform approach, Design Platform, focuses on descriptions that not only contain information about tangible components and systems but also information, knowledge and methods supporting the actual design of the product. A support system called Design Platform Manager has been developed to aid in using the platform approach and is introduced at a supplier active in the automotive industry. The system enables creation of generic product items that can be structured and instantiated to become product variants as well as Design Elements that are blocks of knowledge that describe a design or supports the activity of designing. A first evaluation is made that overall shows good result according to the company representatives.

Product platforms has been widely accepted in industry as a means to reach both high product variety while maintaining business efficiency. For suppliers of highly customised products, however, the development of a platform based upon predefined modules is a challenge. This is due to the large differ-ences between the various systems their products are to be integrated into and the customer's individual preferences. What is common for most platform descriptions is the high level of concretisation, such as predefined modules, they are built upon, but how can companies act when that is not possible? Are there other principles that can be used for the definition of a product platform? This paper presents a concept to incorporate other types of descriptions of different levels of concretisation into a product platform. Parts of the concept has been realised in a computer support tool and tested at a case company in order to improve their quotation process.

Product platforms play an important role for the efficient customisation and variant forming of products in many companies. In this paper four different companies ranging from OEM to B2B suppliers have been interviewed on how they engage in technology and product development, create and maintain product platforms and how they respond to the changing requirements on the platforms and on the products and product families derived from them. The objective is to find how product platforms are used to meet the demands of efficient product customisation. The companies all have identifiable product platforms and established processes for product development. However, there are differences in how they define technology development, how the platforms are created, maintained, replaced and what the platforms contain. The introduction of new technology into the platforms and how the platforms are used from a Lean product development perspective has been of interest in the survey as reported in the paper.

A rapidlygrowing approach in product design and manufacture, with great potential toimprove customer value, is mass customization. The possibility to design andmanufacture highly customer adapted products brings a competitive edge tomanufacturing companies and is in some areas a necessity for doing business. In this paper, an approach for documentation andknowledge management of systems supporting the design and manufacture ofcustomized products is explored. As the governing framework and models are updated and refined due toshifting prerequisite, the system and hence the solutions generated for asingle specification will change over time. This affects product management andthe ability to meet legislation and customers’ requirements regarding documentationand traceability, as well as the company’s ability to provide services,maintenance and supply spare parts. A solution has been developed for an industrialcase with required functionality for capturing, structuring, searching,retrieving, viewing, and editing a system’s embedded information and knowledge.The objective is to enable and facilitate system maintenance and updating andsupport the reuse of functions and system encapsulated generic designdescriptions in future systems.

Mass customization is a rapidly growing business model that enables companies to deliver products with increased customer value. The ability to design and manufacture highly customer adapted products brings a competitive edge to manufacturing companies and is required for business success in some areas. In this paper, an approach for documentation and knowledge management of systems supporting the design and manufacture of customized products is explored. A system’s encapsulated rules and models have to be updated and refined due to shifting prerequisite and both the system and the solutions generated for a single specification will change over time. These changes affect product management and the ability to meet legislation and customers’ requirements regarding documentation and traceability, as well as the company’s ability to provide services, maintenance and supply spare parts. This work addresses this challenge and introduces a concept with required functionality for capturing, structuring, searching, retrieving, viewing, and editing a system’s embedded information and knowledge. The concept has been developed and applied to a real case in collaboration with a company acting as a sub-supplier in the automotive industry. The objective was to enable and facilitate maintenance and updating of existing system and support the reuse of functions and system encapsulated generic design descriptions in the development of future systems.

The quotation preparation in the manufacturing industry is very important. From a subcontractor view, it is initiated by a customer request for quotation and precedes the order preparation where detailed manufacturing and cost information are generated. Customers are continuously seeking for lower bids and cost reduction and despite the lack of detailed information a fixed price has to be set. Commonly, subcontractors are also acting on a market where the competition of staying in business and submitting a winning bid is intense and the result of the quotation process has a direct influence on the final business success. Hence, it is essential to enable quotations to be based on a higher level of detailed information and introduce support to increase the efficiency in quotation preparation. The purpose of this work is to investigate, explore, and develop a computerized method, i.e. an application system, to support the process planning and cost estimation in the quotation process. The main objective is to reveal concepts and principles to support application system development and utilization. The results are based on the experiences from a case study at a subcontractor of turned components.

Sub-suppliers acting in the supply chain of the car industry have to adopt a strategy of products customization to be at the competitive edge. This is caused by the diversity of client’s requirements that entails customer engineered products with a high level of variety. A business strategy based on engineered-to-order products requires systems for efficient generation of product variants. This also includes a need of decision support in the order preparation process as well as in the quotation preparation process. Decision support that gives access to detailed and accurate information in the quotation preparation enables a high level of product adaptation while ensuring company efficiency. By the introduction of a design automation system, this can be achieved. However, means to manage different application domains, projects, task knowledge and design information are required together with a possibility to perform detailed analyses on the system generated information. The objective of this work is to contribute in that area. Initially, a number of success criteria were identified and explorative work was conducted for the purpose to develop a conceptual model and principles that an application system would reside upon. The result is a framework consisting of an information model and underlying principles to be used when developing a design automation system for quotation preparation. A system founded on the framework supports management and analysis of quotations and product variants. The functionality and usefulness has been demonstrated and validated by a system implementation developed in collaboration with an industry partner.

To adopt an engineer-to-order (ETO) business model when competing on a market where competitors’ products are mass-produced is a challenge. However, a competitive edge can be gained if the principles of ETO and mass production successfully can be combined. High level of customer adaptation requires systems for efficient generation of product variants with associated specifications for automated manufacturing. To maintain these systems’s usefulness over time, frequent updating will normally become a necessity. Of equal importance, is the reuse of the system encapsulated generic product family objects when developing a new product family. In this paper a case study is presented with the main objective to provide a system foundation for modeling and management of product knowledge supporting reuse, expansion and maintenance of system embedded objects. One of the central parts of the framework is the Meta-Knowledge Containers, labeled Descriptions for the case company. A Description contains both a definition of system embedded objects as well as the rationale behind their design. Traceability is gained by linking of Descriptions, individually and to documents, models and items.

Subcontractors are commonly involved in several quotation processes and new requests for quotation are continuously received from clients. To be able to respond with feasible design solutions at competitive price, new ways of working has to be adopted, especially when it comes to quotation preparation. High levels of accuracy of the preliminary design solutions and the cost estimations generated in the quotation process are a necessity. The purpose of this work is to investigate, explore, and develop a computerized method to support quotation preparation. The main objectives are to reveal concepts and principles to support application system development and evaluate the applicability of automated quotation preparation. The results are based on experiences from a case study at a sub-supplier to the car industry. In the case study, a design automation system for quotation preparation of seat heaters was developed. The system supports the pursuit of a valid design solution and the best solution in the individual case enabling the company to respond quickly with a competitive price when receiving a new request. In this paper, principles and concepts supporting system development are introduced and the system’s applicability as a means in quotation preparation explored.

For many companies, it is a challenge to balance product variety and cost, i.e. external and internal efficiency. Product platforms has been the dominant solution for a business targeting mass-customization. The main idea is to dived the product into modules that can be shared among different product variants. This has been a success on the consumer market, however, many manufacturing companies are engineer-to-order (ETO) oriented, such as original equipment suppliers (OES). They design a unique solution, often in close collaboration with other companies, based on different product concepts and/or core technologies. For these companies, there is a strategic need for a platform model influenced by the principles of masscustomization, although, not limited to only include modules. In this work, a novel platform model, called Design Platform is described. The model has been developed and applied in cooperation with four companies. The Design Platform provides a coherent environment for management of heterogeneous design assets to be used in product development and supports an improved ability to master fluctuating requirements and systematic introduction of new technologies.

Product platforms has been a successful enabler for efficient mass customization. However, they cannot fully support suppliers working in an engineer-to-order business environment. This work identifies the need and scope of a different platform model that supports customization and management of fluctuating requirements. A novel plaform model is introduced entitled Design Platform. The model is based on the current state and future target condition at four companies. The model provides a coherent environment for heterogeneous design assets to be used in product development.

The ability to design and manufacture highly customer adapted products brings a competitive edge to manufacturing companies acting on a business-to-business market as suppliers to OEMs. A vital means for success in quotation and order preparation is advanced system support in design, process planning and cost estimation based upon the automation of engineering tasks. A design automation system encapsulates these tasks which are to be executed for specific customer specifications in a sequence specified either by a predefined order or resolved by an inference mechanism in run-time. Commonly, the development of a design automation system is an iterative process alternating between a top-down and a bottom-up approaches. An overall strategy is a necessity for successful system development, however, to successfully define the tasks, retrace all the necessary knowledge and to close gaps in both the tasks and the knowledge definitions require a complete and detailed understanding of the specific domain. In this paper, the concept of Knowledge Object is described together with examples of its use in both the development and system realization of design automation systems enabling product customization. The concept has shown to be useful for modelling of design processes, tasks, and engineering knowledge as well as in system development and realization. It also supports traceability and understanding by relations to other concepts describing associated requirements and design rational.

The ability to efficiently and quickly design and manufacture highly customized product can provide a competitive advantage for companies acting on a market with shifting customer demands. A business model based on highly customized product requires advanced application systems for automating the work of generating product variants based on different customer specification. The establishment of a system for automated design and production preparation is a significant investment in time and money and is expected to give revenues over many years. To maintain a design automation system’s usefulness over time, frequent updating of design rules and execution control will normally become a necessity. Reuse of the system encapsulated generic product family descriptions when developing a new product family is also perceived to significantly increase the efficiency in system development. The scope and the purpose of this research originate from industrial problems and needs which have been identified within research projects carried out in near collaboration with industrial partners. New concepts, perceived as prescriptive models, are in this work introduced, evaluated, and refined which is in accordance with the design modelling approach [Duffy, Andreasen, 1995]. The focus of this paper is a case study carried out at a company with long experience of systems for automated variant design. The main objective is to provide a system foundation for modelling and management of product knowledge in design automation systems to support reuse, expansion and maintenance.

Identification and clarification of relationships between product properties is fundamentally important in industrial product development. The process is however frequently perceived difficult. The presented research aims at clarifying if a visual tool can provide help in this work. The tool is a combination of previously known techniques and has so far been implemented at two product developing companies. Results and reactions from the tests are hitherto positive and the conclusion is therefore that this extended casual diagram can be a useful addition to the product developer's toolbox.

Now a days where technological advancements are growing at a rapid pace, it has become a common norm for all the manufacturing companies to be abreast with these advancements for being competitive in market. This thesis deals with development of one such common norm for one of the products (Roof rack component) for company Thule. The main aim of the thesis is to curtail the products lead time to market and this was achieved by using an artificial intelligence technique i.e., Case-based reasoning (CBR). Roof rack component which is mounted on car roof is mainly constituted by two parts foot pad and bracket, this thesis main interest was concerned with only brackets and its geometry. This thesis is based on contemplating the already implemented concepts in this context, designer requirements and exploring better solutions. The methods of implementation adopted here was using CBR concept which is based on indexing , retrieve, adapt, review, retain and employing these concepts in form of an algorithm. The concept for developing the algorithm was based on Iterative closest point (ICP) approach which emphasise on assigning lower weight to pairs with greater point to point distance. The results portrayed are with respect to geometry and also with respect to application interface developed, which both together provides us a better solution.

Set-based concurrent engineering (SBCE) has been pointed out as a means of enabling customisation and easy adaptation to fluctuating requirements. A feature and script based automation method of Finite Element Analysis has been proposed and developed by [Johansson, 2014] to help support SBCE. This article presents an assessment of the purposed method with respect to its industrial need, scientific novelty, and further work required. Outcomes of which include a new CAD-model tagging technique, positive industrial feedback and further work suggestions.

Product platforms and product family design have been recognized as successful methods to enable masscustomization strategies. However, companies working with products where pre-defined product variants are not feasible require a more generic platform with re-usable components as well as engineering resources. Extended CAD-models is an approach where CAD-models are utilized as carriers of information to support re-usability of both geometric content and engineering activities, decreasing product development lead-time and enabling the definition of a product family within Engineer-To-Order business contexts. The following paper presents the approach in more detail and the results of a multi-case study where three Swedish industrial companies were interviewed. Results show that all companies store information within the CAD-models to support re-usability. Several challenges were expressed such as managing responsibilities and modeling flexible CAD-models. Future trends involve the concept, but to which extent is not clear.

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. 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 effectively re-use design activities, the added support could be attached to or otherwise linked to the product features they relate to. This paper focuses on the native CAD-models which also has been utilized by others as carriers of information for different purposes. For instance, describes the use of annotations on CAD-models, an example is presented where both FEM and CAM specifics were added to the geometry enabling automatic FEA and blank casting geometry creation. The approach was later used to support both constraint based redesign activities and encapsulation of in-development/in-service information for throughout product lifecycle retrieval. 

The aero-engine industry is continuously faced with new challenging cost and environmental requirements. This forces company's, active in the industry, to work toward more fuel efficient engines with less environmental impact at a lower cost. This paper presents a method for assessing producibility of large sets of components within aircraft engines to enable a Set-Based Concurrent Engineering development approach. A prototype system has been developed aimed at enabling weldability analysis at a sub-supplier within the aero-engine industry. It is a part of a multi-objective decision support tool used in early design stages. The tool produces sets of CAD-models reaching the hundreds for different analyses, mainly focusing on performance aspects within structural analysis, aerodynamics and thermodynamics.

Increasing competition in cost efficiency, lead-times, product quality, quotation accuracy, and abilities to provide customization drives companies toward development and adoption of new methods. To re-use knowledge gained from previous projects in order to avoid producing the same knowledge again and to circumvent previously encountered obstacles is an approach which is more or less used by most companies. Utilization of Design Automation (DA) systems in the engineering design process have proven to increase process efficiency and to enable new ways of working by systematic re-use of engineering knowledge. In order to ensure system longevity, industrial practitioners and researchers have pointed at implementation and long term management as important aspects to consider during development. The systems are often built on top of commercial software and legacy systems integrated by different types of scripts and system descriptions which becomes dependent of each other in different ways. Changes made during maintenance in one of these artifacts propagates through the dependency structure making traceability and transparency key factors for keeping the system valid over time. This paper presents a description of the problem in a real industrial setting together with a suggestion of an approach, based on set-up and management of dependencies between sections inside and across different types of system components, which is aimed to aid implementation and management of DA tools. A prototype system which informs the user, of functional sections related to a functional section to be updated, have been developed. The prototype is applied on a multidisciplinary heterogeneous system environment used for simulation based knowledge build up and concept evaluations of jet engine components.

Individualized products, resource-smart design and production, and afocus on customer value have been pointed out as three opportunities for Swedishindustry to stay competitive on a globalized market. All these three opportunitiescan be gained by efficient design and manufacture of highly customized products.However, this requires the development and integration of the knowledge-basedenabling technologies of the future as pointed out by The European Factories ofthe Future Research Association (EFFRA). Highly custom engineered productsrequire an exercising of a very rich and diverse knowledge base about the products,their production and the required resources for design and manufacture. Thedevelopment and implementation of systems for automated design and productionpreparation of customized products is a significant investment in time and money.However, our experience from industry indicates that significant efforts arerequired to introduce and align these kinds of systems with existing operations,legacy systems and overall state of practice. In this paper, support for systemdevelopment in literature has been reviewed in combination with a survey on thestate of practice in four companies regarding implementation and management ofautomated systems for custom engineered products. A gap has been identified anda set of areas for further research are outlined.

Manufactures, developing products, need to adapt and improve their practices taking advantage of technology advancements and simultaneously develop products and solutions to fit a new world. This paper discusses how societal and technological trends drive the need for change and evolution in what is called Systems Engineering Design (SED), indicating a systems view on engineering design. Through an analysis and selected examples it is argued that SED capabilities need to better address the width and complexity of design problem, takes advantages of increased computational power and sensing technologies to master future challenges. An important factor for successful deployment and change in industrial context, is the need for interactive and visual aids and easily accessible support methods. This can pave the way also for advanced SED support.

There is a trend toward increased customization of goods to satisfy a wide range of customers using product platforms. However, there is an erroneous notion that product platforms can only be used to provide economic viability in production thanks to the reuse of physical components among a family of products. Yet, this is a limited perception of the potential of a product platform. In this article, an object-oriented approach to support the development of product platforms is proposed to increase efficiency through reuse and flexibility of designs among a family of products. Two modes of the platform development process are addressed: platform preparation and platform execution. Platform preparation prescribes the methods needed to model platform objects, using enhanced function-means models and set-based concurrent engineering processes. During the platform execution process, sets of design alternatives can be configured concurrently throughout the conceptual, system, and detailed phases of the platform development. Three cases illustrate how the same approach may be used in different design scenarios: design space exploration and extension, supply-chain collaboration, and configure-to-order. The approach supports system architects and design engineers in making design decisions that propel the platform development work by enabling analysis in stages where designs are immature and evaluating the goodness of the alternatives early. Ultimately, product platforms can be efficiently developed for modularity and scalability to find feasible product variants and meet the needs of a multitude of customers.

The focus of the research presented in this article has been an integration of a CAD-system and a FEA pre-processor to automatically develop a complete FEA-models in order to make simulation based design possible. The article presents a prototype system that was developed to automate the simulation of the behavior of ski-racks mounted on cars during collision. This type of simulations requires mesh models containing structured mesh, an issue solved in the presented system and that is presented in the article. It is also shown how to make it possible to introduce contacts, loads, constraints, and other FEM-properties based on CAD-geometry.

The focus of the research presented in this article has been an integration of a CAD-system and a FEA pre-processor to automatically develop a complete FEA-models in order to make simulation based design possible. The article presents a prototype system that was developed to automate the simulation of the behavior of ski-racks mounted on cars during collision. This type of simulations requires mesh models containing structured mesh, an issue solved in the presented system and that is presented in the article. It is also shown how to make it possible to introduce contacts, loads, constraints, and other FEM-properties based on CAD-geometry.

As the era of Knowledge Based Engineering (KBE) and design automation has evolved a big effort has been put to automate CAD-models to quick and accurately respond to changes of customer specifications. The automated knowledge in these KBE-systems is represented as sets of rules, sets that are continuously growing. Parallel to KBE-systems knowledge is also automated in spread sheets (were the cells can be viewed as rules in a KBE system).These spread sheets also tend to grow in number and complexity. The vision of reusing corporate knowledge through automating it in computer systems are now threaten by the fact that the complexity makes it hard to grasp and manage what was automated. Complexity management and graph theory are scientific fields addressing these types of problems. This paper describes how engineering knowledge stored in CAD-models and spread sheets can be analysed through the application of graph theory, visualization and filtering. Information models of CAD-models and spread sheets are developed and applied to a real industrial case to generate and analyse the content.

Intensive competition on the global market puts great pressure on manufacturing companies to develop and produce products that meet requirements from customers and investors. One key factor in meeting these requirements is the efficiency of the product development and the production preparation processes. Design automation is a powerful tool to increase efficiency in these two processes.

The benefits of automating the manufacturability analysis process, a part of the production preparation process, are shortened lead-time, improved product performance, quality assurance, and, ultimately, decreased costs. Further, automation is beneficial as it increases the ability to adapt products to new product specifications with production preparations done in a few or in a single step. During the automation process, knowledge about the manufacturability analysis process is collected and stored in central systems, thus allowing full control over the design of production equipments.

Topics addressed in this thesis include the flexibility of design automation systems, knowledge-bases containing alternative design rules, the automation of the finite element analysis process, manufacturability analysis over several productions steps, and the determination of production limits by looping the automated manufacturability analysis process. These topics are discussed in connection with the rotary draw bending of aluminum profiles.

It is concluded that the concept of design automation can be applied to the manufacturability analysis process at different levels of automation depending on the characteristics of the implemented knowledge. The concept of object orientation should be adapted when implementing a knowledge-base and when developing the geometrical representations of the products. This makes a design automation system flexible enough to edit underlying knowledge and to extend the targeted design space. It is possible to automate the process of setting up, running, and interpreting finite element analyses to a great extent, enabling the design automation system to evaluate its own design proposals. It is also possible to enable such systems to consider sequences of manufacturing steps and loop them to develop decision support guiding engineers early in the design process, saving time and money while still assuring high product quality.

This paper focus on what types of relations exist within CAD-models and in KBE-systems connected to them. It describes how engineering knowledge stored in CAD-models and KBEsystems can be analysed through the application of graph theory, visualization and filtering. The paper is organised as follows: First the information models for CAD-models and KBEsystems are introduced and graph theory in connection with these information models is presented. The theory is then applied to a real case which is a CAD-model that was automated using a commercial KBE-system where the number of rules made it hard to engineers to grasp the model. By applying the concepts presented in this paper it was possible to identify critical design parameters and to inspect the logical model of the product.

Manufacturingcompanies continually need to develop and produce products faster, cheaper,and of better quality to meet requirements from customers andinvestors. One key factor in meeting these requirements is theefficiency of the product development and the production preparation processes.Design automation is a powerful tool for increasing the efficiencyof these two processes. The benefits of automating manufacturability analyses,a part of the production preparation process, are shortened leadtime, improved product performance, and ultimately decreased cost. Further, theautomation is beneficial as it increases the ability to adaptproducts to new specifications since production preparations are done infew or in a single step. Extruded sections of aluminum(aluminum profiles) have many advantages, especially for light weight structuralmembers, and are used in many products. Many times asecondary forming process, such as bending, is required when thesematerials are used. The intention of the work presented inthis article has been to investigate how to automate theprocess of finding manufacturing limits of the rotary draw bendingof aluminum profiles with focus on the system architecture neededto make such systems flexible. Finding the forming limits ofan aluminum profile is not a trivial task. This isbecause the limits depend not only on the profile shapebut also on the layout of the tool. Hence, simulationshave to be done to evaluate different designs. A prototypesystem was developed to explore what was needed to automatesimulation of the rotary draw bending of aluminum profiles, andsubsequently, analyze the simulated production outcome with respect to wrinklingand developed length.

This paper shows how to achieve flexibility in design automat systems through the introduction of knowledge objects and through the adoption of an oriented view of the product structure. To demonstrate the ideas a novel tool called Howtomation^© Suite (for automated know-how) is presented. The new tool handles the addressed issues and has been successfully implemented at one company. That successful implementation is described at end of the paper.

Manufacturing companies tend to separate technology development (TD) from product development (PD) as has been devised by research within the field of innovation management. When a technology is ready it somehow has to be made available to the PD teams so that the engineers working in PD projects can adapt the new technology into new products. The question is how that work can be supported. The ultimate goal of the research presented in this paper is to develop methods and tools to assist the knowledge transfer between TD and PD with a focus on supporting the actual use of the new technology in PD. This paper presents an industrial case along with a proposed method to achieve this. The TD and PD processes in the case company were reviewed with focus on how simulation models evolve over time and how they are used for different purposes. It was discovered that simulation ready CAD-models can be used to transfer the output from TD to PD.

Maintaining products in an automated business includes digitalization and automation of engineering knowledge. When new products are to be developed, and introduced not only has the production processes be automated but also the knowledge regarding how the product should be constituted depending on customer requirements. One big challenge that companies of this kind face is how to make sure that the knowledge automated still can be understood by its stakeholders during the development project and after product release and through the whole product life-cycle, which might last for decades. In this paper, we present a method to navigate and share vast amount of knowledge in businesses with high degree of automated engineering. The method is based on the connectivistic view of knowledge were network formation and filtering are two corner stones which implies the utilization of graph theory together with electronic publishing functionality.

This paper presents a general model for businesses to work with their engineering assessments to challenge fluctuating requirements which is the result of a recently finished research project. The model is presented together with a case study of a company with a product that continuously is and must be adapted to a changing market to be alive at all. The company has developed a streamlined development process that is configured based on current needs from time to time. One keystone to make the mass customization possible to this company is the augmented synthesis and the automated assessment of the product variants rendered through the configured development process. The automated process of making the assessments and how it connects to the general model is also presented in the paper.

Mass customization and product individualization are driving factors behind design automation, which in turn are enabled through the digitalization of engineering work. The goal is to offer customers optimized solutions to their needs timely and with as high profit 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: digitized product knowledge, facilities to automate the digitized 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. Two case examples are also described in the paper.

Due to increasing complexity of modern products it is many times impossible for single individual engineers to fully grasp the product they are a part of developing. Valuable time during the product development is therefore spent searching for knowledge about different aspect of the product. To enable engineers finding right knowledge in different situations, the knowledge must first of all exist. Secondly, it needs to be structured and thirdly, it needs to be accessible. In this paper all of these three aspects of design rationale (reasons for why the product is designed the way it is) are addressed with the main focus on the latter one, accessibility. An information model is presented that can be used to structure the design rationale. It also presents a schematic overview of how a cloud solution could be realized using the information model to make a complete system for instantly capturing, filtering and accessing design rationale in a contextual manner.

To enable the instant and contextual capture, filtering and access of the design rationale, the design rationale management systems should be present to the engineers everywhere in the digital environment, ready for service. It should also include functions that make the design rationale shared to all privileged users making sure everyone has updated versions of the stored knowledge.

In this work the main ideas of a method for instant and contextual capture, filtering and access of the design rationale are introduced and a pilot system described as a proof of concept. The pilot system can be used to capture, filter and access design rationale across and within text-documents, spread sheets and CAD-models.

This paper presents a new way to support early assessment of interacting product and manufacturing technologies based on system maturity. This approach is illustrated by an example from the aerospace industry, where alternative technologies are introduced in an existing product and manufacturing systems platform. By assessing the system maturity of interacting technologies, alternative solutions can be eliminated before early technology commitment. This is beneficial for 1) clarifying the company’s status regarding capability and maturity, 2) eliminating immature technologies within a certain capability bandwidth, and 3) prioritizing advanced technology development initiatives with respect to the risk of implementing a manufacturing technology to interact with a product technology. It may also enable reduction in design rework and manufacturing rework that comes with failed maturity matching of product systems and manufacturing systems, thus possible reduction in lead-time and cost could be met.

For many companies, proficiency in introducing new technologies is central to their business. For instance, for suppliers in the aerospace industry, having extensive knowledge about a specific technology can be crucial for getting to take part in the next airplane project. However, when new technologies emerge as a result of advanced engineering, they are often hard to implement in product platforms. The fragile nature of a working platform originates from the complex relationships between subsystems and variants. Introducing a new technology into the already fine-tuned platform may affect the performance of the platform negatively, or generate a too large development effort to handle. This may lead to reluctance towards introduction of new promising technologies, which in the long run may result in technologies being discarded as infeasible or being introduced much later than necessary. To be able to assess the impact of a technology and safely accommodate it in an existing platform architecture, it needs to be modeled appropriately. Current models of technologies do not describe them in relation to the architecture they are to be implemented in. Further, the common platform architecture models describe change scenarios from a top-down perspective. Technology introduction would require changing the platform from a bottom-up perspective. This paper suggests an approach to accommodate introduction of emerging technologies into a product platform by means of: - Modeling the technologies as systems in a shared model. - Using trade-off curves to describe the bandwidth of technologies. - Introducing a method for changing a present product platform to incorporate new technologies The method addresses a number of different factors regarding the new technology, e.g. its maturity level, in order to assess the appropriate course of action to safely use the technology in the existing platform. The approach is illustrated using a case from the aerospace industry covering the implementation of water-cooling technology as a means to increase the performance of a jet engine component.