The development of a database system to optimise manufacturing processes during design

Abstract

The cost of design, for most products, has shown itself to be a small part of the manufacturing cost and experience has shown that at least 70% of the cost of a manufactured part is decided at the design stage. This is therefore, the logical stage at which to invest more time and effort into getting the design right first time. With the development of computer aided design (CAD) and computer aided manufacture (CAM), the time and cost analysis of a design has been improved immensely. During the design, the material and manufacturing process combinations will be chosen from those with which the product design team is most comfortable. As a result, the opportunity for major manufacturing improvements may be lost through the limited selection of manufacturing processes and associated materials in the early stage of product design. The aim of this research is to develop an expert system that is linked into a 3D design package, which will give an analysis of alternate methods of manufacture for producing the design. The methods used to develop the system will be database design, and expert system development, along with concurrent engineering (CE) methodology. This paper examines the steps involved in developing the system using the IDEF modelling techniques and highlights key CE methodologies.