Rapid product development in a virtual production environment

Abstract

This paper aims to propose a system framework for rapid developing a customised or One-of-a-Kind Production (OKP) product in a virtual manufacturing environment. The OKP product is simply understood as a highly customised one-off order, e.g. a plastic injection mould. The virtual manufacturing environment is understood in this paper as a global manufacturing network, which consists of branches, joint ventures and sub-contractors distributed worldwide. The product development and production management in such a manufacturing network are normally under help of advanced computer aided engineering, communication and simulation technologies. The output from the system is a product data model, which includes all necessary data through the whole product development cycle. The proposed system consists of four major models, viz. customer interface model, product design model, incremental process planning model, and cost analysis model.