Innovative Application of Digitized Design in Traditional Manufacturing: An Example in the Powder Metallurgy Industry

Abstract

This research began with a series of in-depth interview with experts in the field of powder metallurgy, combined with literature review, a design process with a checklist of design quality for powder metallurgy cultural and creative products was established. We first verified this design process with the checklist by applying it to improve the design of an existing powder metallurgy cultural and creative product. Then we designed three cultural and creative products based on the established design process with the checklist of design quality and chose an icon of Hakka Lion among them to prepare a toolset and finished the test production of a sample, which all of our interviewed experts deemed as having excellent quality. Therefore, this research verified that the traditional technology of powder metallurgy could not only be utilized to produce mechanical parts, but it can also be applied in the cultural and creative industry to produce high value-added artifacts that are typically full of very complex curvature surfaces. In addition, the design process with the checklist of design quality for powder metallurgy cultural and creative products was also verified to be applicable. Besides, this research also introduced the technology of digitized design to the design and manufacturing process of an old powder metallurgy manufacturer successfully. Through which we enhanced the integrity and efficiency of this production process significantly. Hope that the result of this research will be helpful for the powder metallurgy industry in Miao-li County of Taiwan to find a way out.