Computer-Aided Simultaneous Engineering for Components Manufactured in Small and Medium Lot-Sizes

Abstract

This paper presents a methodology for the simultaneous product and process design of components manufactured in small and medium lot-sizes. A key aspect of this methodology is to ensure that such components are manufacturable for the lowest possible cost in specially designed manufacturing facilities such as manufacturing cells. A computer-based design environment is proposed to cooperatively assist product designers in performing this task. The design environment is based on the model-based reasoning concept. Explicit product and manufacturing facility models are presented to support the reasoning process. These models are based on a combination of feature-based, geometric and process performance models. The reasoning mechanism is based on the Multiple Cooperative Knowledge Sources (MCKS) paradigm with explicit separation of domain and control knowledge. Domain knowledge sources deal with the product and process refinement activities while control knowledge sources deal with managing the concurrency between these two activities. The framework of the design environment is described in detail and justifications are provided for the modeling and reasoning mechanisms chosen. Preliminary results obtained from an implementation of the design environment for the simultaneous product and process design of Bearing Cages are presented. The paper concludes by summarizing the main contributions of this research and presents directions for future research work.