published_or_final_version / Industrial Engineering / Master / Master of Philosophy

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M.Phil. (Electrical & Electronic Engineering Science) / The need to industrialise South Africa has been an effort of government to increase manufacturing and Gross Domestic Products (GDP) while also creating decent work. Manufacturing industry has been striking with organisations closing and moving. Organisations have been established and fail to compete in the market due to lack of expertise to produce products that meet the customer`s requirements. Due to the opportunities of industrialisation in Africa the focus to develop equipment for these industries is necessary. This research objective is to develop a Systematic Approach of Product Development for Industrial Processing Equipment manufacturers that supply various organisations. The research will respond to the following question while also defining the development process:-  Will product development be helpful in industrialising South Africa and building sustainable manufacturing businesses?  Define a process feedback diagram of a systematic approach of product development to be used by industrial processing equipment? The research is done with the use of literature review form published sources which is validated by survey questions that were sent to sustainable successful organizations that supply industrial equipment. The research finding demonstrates the success phases and steps to be followed when developing product. The phases and their steps are;- 1. Marketing phase stages are Identifying Market Opportunities, Evaluating Potential Markets, Identifying Customer`s Needs and Product specification 2. Concept Development phase stages are system engineering for requirements identification & allocations, Internal & external Search of solution, concept selection and concept testing 3. System Level Design phase stages is Product Architecture 4. Detailed Design Phase stages are industrial design and design for manufacturing 5. Refinement and testing phase stages are designing for reliability, prototyping and testing. These are the phases the research focused on. The Survey revealed that success sustainable organisation have been using product development, marketing and system engineering methodologies as one of their common weapon to stay in business and grow in today’s competitive market place. This systematic approach process feedback diagram in product development has a lot of phase overlap. All phases interact even though there is still a feed process from one phase to the next. The process happens concurrently to ensure that all stages are considered at an earlier stage

The traditional product development process has been sequential in nature, with the product going through design, process planning, manufacturing and assembly. This sequential decision making results in increased costs and higher product development times. With the trend towards better product quality, product customization, shorter product life cycle, and international competition, manufacturers are faced with the challenge of improving product quality while reducing product development time, manufacturing lead-time, and product cost. To cope with these challenges, the product development process has to be made more efficient by integrating manufacturing and assembly considerations in the design phase itself, through the use of techniques such as Design For Manufacturability (DFM) and Design For Assembly (DFA). DFM techniques have to be automated to take advantage of the vast advances in CAD and CAM systems. However, the automation of DFM has been constrained, especially for machined components, by the lack of methodologies which are dependent on the process of manufacture, and the incomplete part data representation in CAD systems. This research created a DFM methodology for machined components, along with an appropriate data representation scheme. Also, a software prototype was developed to demonstrate and validate both the methodology and the data structure. The DFM methodology consists of three modules: DFM feasibility, process plan generation, and DFM analysis. The DFM feasibility module performs an initial feasibility check on the material, dimensions, tolerances, and configuration of the part. It also generates the spatial relationships between features. The process plan generation module uses a sequence identifier algorithm to generate the manufacturing sequence. The DFM analysis module evaluates tolerances relative to their stacking effects and manufacturability. It then analyzes the part configuration for possible design and process plan improvements. A software prototype was developed using C++. It addresses the dimension checking, tolerance checking, configuration checking and spatial relationships generation in the DFM feasibility module. In the process plan generation module, the sequence of surfaces/features to be generated has been automated. This sequence is one of the major inputs to a computer-aided process planning module. Other methodologies for non-machined components can be easily integrated into the DFM framework for complete automation of DFM analysis. / Ph. D.

M. Tech. Industrial Engineering. / Discusses the main objectives of this research are to; analyse the current state of press brakes technology ; develop a press brake concept using the Screw Jack System applying DFM (designing for manufacturability) principles and to fabricate a mini prototype Screw Jack Press Brake.

D. Tech. Industrial Engineering. / Aims to develop new optimized press brake concepts using Reconfigurable Manufacturing System (RMS) principles. The objectives of the research are articulated as follows: Research and identify part/ product families currently being manufactured on existing bending press tools and the respective technologies used. Design new press brake concepts and possible reconfigurations to be incorporated in future bending press tools based on part/ product families. To design the library of modules for the bending press tools based on new concepts and reconfiguration mechanisms formulated. To manufacture prototype(s) based on new concepts and perform experimental tests to evaluate performance of the designs.