Concurrent Engineering

The existing co-design methods of mechatronic products focus on co-design of mechanical and electronic components or co-design of computer hardware and software components. There exist no effective co-design methods for mechanical, electronic, and software components. This article proposes an integrated object-oriented and functional decomposition framework, developed for co-design and co-analysis of product functions, structures, and their mapping relations in a top-down manner. The framework has three operational models: Function Model, Object Model, and Information Flow Model. The function model is implemented as a function tree (FT), which is a hierarchical structure for the functional decomposition and behavioral analysis of the product under functional domain commonly used in classical engineering design. The object model is a high order object model (HOOM) designed for system and component decomposition for analysis and design of the structure of a system and its components under physical domain. The information flow model is a function and object mapping model, which describes and analyzes implementation parameters and mapping relations between FT functions and HOOM objects. These three models are decomposed and constructed level-by-level and side-by-side to form the concurrent and coordinated design paradigm for the product design team. The components of the resulting design are then carefully reviewed and summarized in a design summary and task assignment table by the product design team, and assigned to their respective disciplinary engineers for detail design or implementation according to their attributes. The proposed methodology enables mechanical, electronic, and software engineers to develop mechatronic products concurrently in a seamlessly integrated fashion.

This research applies the benchmarking-based concept to propose a minimum-cost product development (PD) process planning and control methodology to consider resource/time constraints and skill levels. The methodology can aid PD project managers to more objectively perceive the relationship among activity times, activity costs, as well as quantities of different skill-level manpower and facilities. Hence, the minimum-cost PD process management approach proposed in this paper can assist project managers to optimize R&D resource allocation of a PD process and estimate activity times and activity costs. In addition, this paper provides the minimum-cost PD process planning and control mechanisms to dynamically modify the PD project process.

Platform-based product family has been proven an effective strategy to economically provide wide market coverage. However, two practical platform design issues need to be properly handled: (1) commonized components require over-design of features that drives capability waste and additional costs with regard to the lower end product variants, and (2) commonization pattern of components is constrained by couplings of the base platform architecture. This research attempts to present a generic approach for the optimal platform design that treats commonization of components in a hierarchic manner under hybrid modular architecture. Three major sections are included: (1) identification of hidden interface costs defined by the architectural couplings, (2) modeling of hierarchic sharing relationship of commonized components across product variants, and (3) configuration of the hierarchic components platform for the lowest total production cost. Finally, a family of cordless drills targeting a series of rated output torques is employed to demonstrate the proposed approach.

This article presents a framework to provide design engineers with an objective assessment of the degree to which a product can be adapted to meet changing customer requirements. The work is grounded in the emerging field of adaptable design, and is motivated by the need to reduce the uncertainty and cost of the product development process through the systematic reuse of design information. The article focuses primarily on an analytical exploration of an adaptability quantification framework that is intended to provide designers with the ability to quantify adaptability and make objective design decisions based on this information during the design process. The proposed framework is illustrated with a simple case study that compares the relative adaptability of a personal computer versus a calculator.

Quite a few investigations have been carried out on modularity in product development. However, the presence of various perspectives, representations, and different problems hamper a holistic comprehension of modular products development (MPD) or modularity. This article is developed to give a deeper understanding of MPD. An evolutionary history of modularity, consisting of five stages, is introduced. The relationships among the benefits of modularity, such as cost-reduction, diversity, and innovation ability are then discussed in detail along with their relationships to related research issues. The implementation aspect of MPD is explained in three tiers: central, mediate, and peripheral. It shows that former theories and methods can hardly meet the needs of MPD application in real practice, and that metrics and measurement cannot take into account the degree of modularity, and cost-reduction becomes unclear and more complex. Based on this, a new powerful approach with 15 convenient steps for MPD is presented and compared with former reported research results. Also, recommendations for future research have been suggested.