Integrated Product Engineering Research Articles

Tool support for implementing a methodology in magnet development projects at CERN

AbstractAbstract product development models, such as the Integrated Product Engineering Model (iPeM), are insightful yet complex, hindering practical application. The paper introduces a prototypical tool designed to simplify the application of iPeM. A case study at CERN showcases the tool's capability in utilizing the iPeM to streamline the tailoring of standards into methodologies for research environments. The tool's impact is evaluated through interviews at CERN. The findings suggest the tool's benefits, especially for individuals without formal project management backgrounds.

Quality- and Lifecycle-oriented Production Engineering in Automotive Industry

This paper presents a new quality- and lifecycle-oriented approach of integrated production engineering in automotive industry. In a first step, current production engineering projects are analyzed and present methodical, information-technical and organizational challenges regarding the project phase of concept planning are depicted. Based on this, existing industrial- and research-oriented solution approaches are illustrated and critically evaluated. Considering the weaknesses of these solutions, this paper introduces the new developed quality- and lifecycle-oriented production engineering approach. As one key issue of this new planning approach, the idea of using a model- and rule-based configuration system is presented.

IPeM – Integrated Product Engineering Model in Context of Product Generation Engineering

Divergent customer requirements demand a product portfolio, which needs to be strategically coordinated. Furthermore, products are developed in generations. Thus, a coordination of the different generations is needed. For a successful support, process models can be used. The integrated-Product-engineering-Model (iPeM) is an integrated approach, which aims to fill in the gap between process management and engineering design. Building on an empirical study of the use of the iPeM in the last 10 years, the iPeM has been modified. This includes an adaption of the activities and an extension from the second to the third dimension. There are four different layers added: product generations, strategy as well as production- and validation system. The adapted model allows inductively refining the theory and deductively creating of boundary conditions for the research on product development.

Representing the Object, Process and Designer in Designing

The goal of the presented work is to establish foundation for design systems combining both human intelligence and computing power of computers for real engineering design. The lack of involving designers in current design models impairs the design flexibility of computer-based design systems. This paper investigates design process with a developmental and dynamic view and develops a designer dominating designing (DDD) framework involving the object, process and designer. The design framework consists of six stages, three types of transfer functions, measurement functions, and evaluation functions, and it is represented as a dynamic system. A bio-inspired design framework (six-stages) is used to present the design process into six phase states and three mechanisms. An integrated product engineering model (iPeM) is used to generalize various design activities into transfer functions and measurement functions. Examples are presented to validate the method.

Elicitation of a reference process model for tool-based micro technologies for planning and controlling purposes and user support

The production of moulded micro components including design, manufacture and quality control is a highly integrated process. A lot of experts, machines, tools, etc. should be deployed meaningfully along this process. The process chain was never written down in detail or as a whole so that new products could be developed on this basis. All developments hitherto have been carried out partly intuitive and partly based on area-specific sub process chains. For an efficient and effective planning and controlling and user support during future tool-based micro product engineering processes, the authors propose a corresponding reference process model. For this purpose, implicit process knowledge must be retrieved from expert’s minds to consider area-specific sub-process chains. For implementation of the reference process model, the Integrated Product Engineering Model (iPeM) will be used.

A generalised framework to compass and to support complex product engineering processes

Today, companies are required to boost their productivity with product and process innovation. However, product engineering has become more and more complex, as there are multiple interrelated elements with high dynamic and variance as well as socio-technical aspects to be considered. To support both the work of designers and of managers, various methodologies have been proposed in the literature. In this paper, we highlight key issues of product engineering and derive requirements on a modelling framework that addresses contemporary challenges of rising complexity. With the help of the description of an exemplary project, we introduce and illustrate an approach to meet these requirements ? the Integrated Product Engineering Model (iPeM).

Cost estimation in mechanical production: The Cost Entity approach applied to integrated product engineering

A new approach for product cost estimating in mechanical production is proposed within the framework of integrated product engineering. The approach introduces the new concept of Cost Entity. It is made necessary due to the current context of growth of indirect costs, especially in manufacturing. The objective, i.e. establishing a tight link between technical variables (or manufacturing features) and economic variables (modeled as Cost Entities), requires to model the reasoning procedure and associated knowledge related to cost estimating. To achieve this, two models, a Product Model and a Costgrammes Model, are presented and used to represent and capitalize technical knowledge. The cost estimating reasoning procedure, that takes into account alternative process plans of a product, is modeled and solved by a constraint satisfaction problem (CSP). The solutions of the problem are ranked by economic satisfaction order. The case of a Termoz part is used as an illustrative manufacturing example.

OBJECTIVES OF INTEGRATED DIGITAL PRODUCTION ENGINEERING IN THE AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY

To appropriately meet the constantly rising market demands, the innovation topic “digital factory” has taken on key significance in the automotive industry. By means of a new integration concept – integrated production engineering – the three fields mechanics, electrics, and logic are more closely intermeshed using a so-called virtual resource model. In this context, two major challenges have to be mastered: the organizational and the functional integration. The prototypical realization of this integration concept is carried out on the basis of a practical scenario from the commercial vehicle development.

Integrated product engineering: a hybrid evolutionary framework

The systematic identification of new materials for specific engineering applications with optimal values of thermophysical, mechanical and/or biological properties is a key technical challenge with obvious commercial applications. The design of these new materials consists of two components: (i) the forward problem, which involves the prediction of how changes in the basic compositional units give rise to various engineering property and (ii) the inverse problem, which involves discovery of viable formulations that are predicted to possess desired performance characteristics. This situation is however complicated by the fact that in many industrial design situations, data are both sparse and noisy, the fundamental understanding of the system is limited and time and resource constraints are stringent. Thus, a synergistic approach employing first principle chemistry/physics modeling and statistical techniques like Neural networks seems promising for the forward problem. The inverse problem is addressed using ideas from evolutionary algorithms. Two widely different industrial product-design problems are considered in this paper and the applicability of this new methodology is demonstrated.

Produktivitätssteigerung durch integrierte Produktionstechnik und Verfahrens‐Know‐how

AbstractIncreasing Productivity through Integrated Production Engineering and Processing Expertise The future of production engineering is interdisciplinary. Between product innovation and product marketing there lies a design process which has to be optimised and which is interdisciplinary in character. The design process has to satisfy the demands of global markets on chemical products, which lead, for example, to shorter and shorter product life cycles, and to demands for low production costs, high and consistent product quality, and faster market launches.

Search for a Model of Effective Ship Production Management

The objective of the paper is to explain problems and offer a simple model of the production management in shipyards with an uneven production. Shipyards with flexible and different building programs frequently meet disturbances in their production caused by changes in designs and workshop drawings; these changes are due to owners' demands, overloading of capacity, and many other reasons. Such shipyards are constrained to consider it as their normal way of building ships. In order to stay competitive they have to organize the work-preparing process with integrated production engineering activities and an effective coordination of all participants in the building process. Essential scopes as well as the basic structure of the production management of a flexible shipyard are explained.