The research work detailed in this dissertation relates to the computer representation of information which concerns product families and product platforms. Common to competitive companies today, is the quest of designing products and processes to meet a large variety of customer needs, in short time, and based on few resources. One way to succeed with this endeavor is to plan for the variety and design a modular, or adaptive, product family based on a common platform of resources. To further increase the efficiency in delivering customized products in time, a computer processible model of the family is created, which is used to realize a customer specific product variant during the order phase. The objective of this research is to define a generally applicable model of product family information for the purpose of supporting various applications, and for achieving an efficient utilization of information. The approach is to define a model of the product family according to the theory of Axiomatic Design, which reflects the trace from various requirements to functions and different properties and components of the product. By representing information from design in a generally applicable format, this information can be reused when building the configuration models of the order phase. By adapting the model to an existing standard, information exchange between systems is supported, and access is provided to information concerning detailed physical parts as well as constructs addressing various use and version management. Contributions include a description of a model architecture with reusable functional solutions, interfaces, structures and interrelations between platform solutions and product family. Further, it is described how to extend and model the domains and interrelations of axiomatic design in an information model, which is adapted to the product modeling standard of ISO10303-214. / QC 20100812

This thesis work is based on the previous researches in design automation at Sandvik Coromant. The concept of product family description (PFD) has been introduced to the company to improve documentation of knowledge in engineering design process. Current documentation at the company for engineering design covers mostly the design definition part of the knowledge. PFD is constituted by design definition and completed by design rationale. This kind of documentation improves reusing, revising and expanding the knowledge at the company. On the other side, PFD is an input for design programming and a good engineering design description for a product provides more efficiency in design programming. The project is started by a survey for several principles and applications for knowledge modelling. Product variant master (PVM) and Semantic MediaWiki are selected by the results of the survey. To show the concept of PVM, modelling of a test product is done in product model manager (PMM) software. The main part of the project is setting up product family description (PFD) by capturing design rationale for the test product, implementing in Semantic MediaWiki. Since the design rationale is not documented, it was recorded during several meetings with the designer of the test product. The description is completed by including the argumentations about the rules, figures, dimensions and etc. Also in the project has been tried to improve and revise the description to make it more simple and efficient. Another objective of the project is to show Semantic MediaWiki as a candidate application for modelling knowledge at the company. In this step the applicability and functionality of both PFD and Semantic MediaWiki is seen. In the next stage the project findings and company documentation are evaluated. In this step has been tried to show the pros and cons of the project. The emphasis of the evaluation is on PFD and the alternative application. In the end a conclusion of the whole methods and findings of the project comes with discussion with people who were involved in this work.

In recent years, due to severe global market competition, increase of manpower costs and decrease in foreign trade, plus low-price labor costs from China and southeastern Asia countries (eg. Vietnam), all these factors enforce Taiwan manufacturing, such as motorcycle industry, moving their production factories to those countries. This phenomenon has been brought to Taiwan government¡¦s attention, and this crisis has encouraged our industrial circles to develop higher-level R&D and design center. Furthermore, the official department (eg. Industrial Development Bureau) also supplies enterprises with expenses support to conduct R&D and design. Within New Product Development (NPD) is one of the major subsidiary entries. Take Taiwan motorcycle industry as an example. To develop NPD is an essential competitive strategy for enterprise. On the one hand, this strategy has helped Taiwan motorcycle industry to be independent of technical domination from Japan; on the other hand, it has created differentiation in motorcycle industry and consolidated the foundation marching into international market. This is also what internal manufacture enterprises strive for. NPD process involves several stages. For example, in 1994 Cooper brought up product composition, initial evaluation, concept design, product development, product test, engineering trial production and limited quantity to market, these 7 stages, and NPD participant units or departments are quite a lot. For example, in motorcycle development process, participant units include merchandise plan, sales, R&D, manufacture, mold design, and quality control departments, and even parts supplier or motorcycle agent. This kind of collaborative development method has the advantages of putting heads together so as to get better results and cooperation. However, it remains existing problems with wasting time and efforts on inter-department interaction and manual data communication, and data accuracy (eg. version of design chart). To cope with the above problems, most enterprises are solving via existing IT system, such as simplex e-mail, more complex ERP (enterprise resources planning, ERP) or PDM (product data management, PDM). These systems have their own functions. E-mail focuses on communication; ERP integrates information of manufacture, human resources, finance, and marketing; PDM puts emphasis on engineering data management. In the viewpoint of NPD, these systems can only provides partial functions, but are incapable of support the requirements of entire collaborative process. For example, e-mail cannot supplies simultaneous communication; ERP lacks of design mold required by R&D department; PDM only has engineering data. If other departments need related data, they must develop other software to obtain. Because of swift progress in IT plus the cooperation demands in business operation among enterprises, departments and individuals, all these arouse attention on collaborative commerce, and it can also recover the disadvantages of e-mail, ERP or PDM while operating in NPD process. Collaborative commerce contains collaborative scheme, collaborative marketing, collaborative product commerce (or development) and collaborative service, these system classifications. Within them, collaborative product development binds NPD most. In current, the main manufacturers are PTC, HP and IBM. The merits of the system lie in effective controlling NPD process, constructing NPD operation standard, and accumulating experiences in new product design and manufacture. For example, in1995 Airbus in France had used PTC Windchill to conduct collaborative aircraft design. In 1999, there was Taiwan manufacturer under government¡¦s subsidy applying this system on new motorcycle model design. The main objective to introduce collaborative product development software is applying IT to support NPD process. IT introduction process is an important period for enterprises to identify whether it is successful or not, and the adaptation during the process is the key accordance to determine success or failure of IT. Therefore, some scholars discuss IT introduction process from adaptation point of view. For example, Leonard ¡V Barton¡]LB¡^¡]1988¡^addresses mutual adaptation mode between technology and organization to resolve misalignment during introduction process in technology (original IT specification), delivery system (training courses), performance criteria (impact upon activity). Susman et al.¡]2003¡^addresses that while using collaborative technology, the misalignments between technology and work, team and organization should be solved. DeSantics and Poole¡]1994¡^ bring up adaptive structuration theory¡]AST¡^. The theory emphasizes on appropiration in technology, work, organizational environment and group. The higher the appropiration is, the higher the decision performance will be. Tyre and Orlikowski¡]1994¡^deem the technology adaptation is not gradual and continuous, but highly discontiunous. They indicate that in adaptation discrepancy events will discontinuously occur. This event provides enterprise an opportunity to review the suitability of existing process or a method to modify present process. Although above researches have provided vital results, research result from Majchrzak et al.¡]2000¡^about new technology introduction process still cannot clearly describe all phenomena. Hence, they have discussed adaptation in project process via rocket design project and used collaborative technology (such as e-mail, data sharing or electric board) Majchrzak et al. has connected collaborative technology and NPD, but the research has discussed small and simple collaborative technology only (such as e-mail), but lacked of result of large and complex collaborative product development software. Meanwhile, although the result is the application of NPD, it does not provide the adaptation of each NPD stage (such as engineering trial manufacture). Furthermore, the mature experiences from western countries, such as Airbus in France, in introduction of collaborative product development software in NPD is worthy of consultation, but the specific situations in different countries should be taken into consideration. In Taiwan, cases which application of collaborative product development software supports NPD are still rare, but these introduction experiences are worthy of making thorough inquiry for other enterprises¡¦ reference. Therefore, the article has selected a case closed study of Taiwan manufacturing that introduced collaborative product development software and accompanied with related adaptation theory (such as LB mode, AST, discrepancy event, etc.) to thoroughly investigate adaptation conditions and result analysis before, in the middle of, and after introduction.

Rolls-Royce AB in Kristinehamn, Sweden, part of Rolls-Royce Marine, is a leading developer and supplier of water jet and propeller based propulsion equipment. Its low volume production series and wide product variety offered to its customers along with an increasingly competitive market has entailed an increased demand on both delivery time and cost reductions. The on-site manufacturing engineering department is responsible for developing all tools and fixtures, and programming required to maintain the on-site production, assembling and quality testing. As part of the departments streamlining efforts this study aimed on evaluating streamlining possibilities related to the existing tool design used for static balancing and function testing controllable pitch propeller assemblies before packaging and shipping, along with the related tool development and manufacturing processes has been conducted.The process evaluation started from the point when a hub assembly design was finalized until when a manufactured tool was delivered for use in production. Work focused on locating inefficient activities and product properties, with respect to tool cost and lead time, followed by setting up an amendment proposal, implementing it and producing an alternate tool design of which the effects on tool cost and manufacturing lead time would be evaluated. Post evaluating the current state of the process and product a set based front loaded product development methodology known as Modular Function Deployment was chosen to be the applied method. This application resulted in a modular tool design that avoided the determined most inefficient manufacturing operation combination of welding and annealing. Modularity increased manufacturing flexibility, enabling more concurrent manufacturing, to reduce the lead time. The tool design also applied integral properties by identifying the common components and features between tool sizes. This led to reducing manufacturing and material costs. Possible lead time reduction for manufacturing was determined to be 35-45%, 3-4weeks, in comparison with the original tool design due to increased parallel manufacturing and avoiding inefficient manufacturing methods. The estimated cost reduction for combined development and manufacturing was determined to be 105K SEK the initial year followed by 175K SEK the second year assuming the current tool manufacturing rate. The combined effects of reduced cost and lead time would be beneficial to Rolls-Royce AB by contributing to an increase in delivery reliability and competitive prices on the market

In the last decades, the rapid change and prevalent use of technology are concerning, as they induced effects which mainly altered various encompassing contexts like consumer market dynamics and product development processes. Evidently, these transformations also affect the way users interact with products. It is observed that, technological novelties are applied in the competitive market as a tool for product differentiation. In addition, the rapid development of these technologies is a dominating factor on shortening product lifecycles. Resulting from these two factors, implementing latest technologies in new products is interpreted by producers as an absolute way of achieving market success. Consequently, most of the products in everyday life are designed with a primary aim to implement latest technological advances, without appropriate consideration of user requirements and characteristics. The phenomenon has negative consequences on product usability. This study basically examines the usability problems that are related with digital technology impelementations in consumer products. The evaluations are based on the contexts such as: changes in contemporary market conditions with the effects of the recent technological developments, technology-driven approaches in product development processes and the transformative consequences of digital technology applications on user-product interaction. Literature surveys are employed as method. Finally, interaction characteristics of digital products and the contexts in which they are used are evaluated and it is argued that, the usability problems are due to the deficiency in evaluations of user characteristics and requirements during the product development processes, in general terms.

This study argues that including aspects of user experience relevant to the user's knowledge of a product's context-of-use in the early stages of product design can enhance the design of product usability. To explore these issues, research was undertaken to respond to three research questions: (i) What aspects of user experience influence people's understanding of product usability? (ii) What is the nature of the differences between users' and designers' understandings of product usability? (iii) How can context-of-use and human experience enhance the design of product usability? Findings from the study have shown that experience, context-of-use and knowledge about a product's usability are interrelated. Conceptual principles and design principles were established based on findings to explain (i) the relationships between aspects of experience and areas of product usability and (ii) differences between designers' and users' concepts of product usability. These principles responded to the first two research questions. Causal relationships found between experience and product usability suggested the need to implement them in an accessible manner for a product design process. A design tool -- named the Experience and Context Enquiry Design Tool (ECEDT) -- was devised to exemplify the implementation of findings. A trial run verified that the type of information that ECEDT brings to designers could assist them to address usability and experience issues during the early stages of the design process. This result responded to the third research question of the study. This study's conceptual principles and design principles contribute new knowledge to design theory and practice. This knowledge contributes to design theory in providing greater detail about the differences between designers and users than that addressed by existing theory; it contributes to design practice as it informs designers about the aspects of human experience that prompt users' understanding of a product's use. In doing so, it can potentially assist in the design of products that embed new technological applications, and support the design of product usability.

Consciente que l’unité de compétitivité n’est plus l’entreprise mais toute la chaîne logistique contribuant à la réalisation du produit, les efforts consentis par l’entreprise se matérialisent, d’une part, par la volonté de maîtriser au mieux les activités de conception des produits et d’autre part, par la construction de collaborations entre tous les acteurs de la chaîne logistique participant au cycle de vie du produit. Cela a conduit à l’émergence d’une gestion collaborative du cycle de vie du produit appelée communément PLM. L’objet de cette thèse consiste à définir une démarche méthodologique pour répondre à la problématique suivante : Comment le PLM pourra t-il participer à l’optimisation de la chaîne logistique ? Nous adoptons, dans cette thèse, une approche hybride combinant PLM et modèles mathématiques pour optimiser les décisions de conception simultanée du produit et de sa chaîne logistique. Nous proposons des modèles conceptuels pour résoudre de manière formelle le compromis entre PLM et modèles mathématiques pour une optimisation de la chaîne logistique. Contrairement aux approches classiques centralisées utilisées pour traiter le problème intégré de conception du produit et de sa chaîne logistique et qui engendrent des modèles mathématiques compliqués, nous adoptons une démarche couplant des décisions centralisées quand il s’agit d’intégrer les contraintes des différents maillons de la chaîne logistique et une approche décentralisée quand il s’agit d’optimiser localement chaque maillon de la chaîne. Le mode décentralisé réduit la complexité de résolution des modèles mathématiques et permet à la chaîne logistique de répondre rapidement à l’évolution des conditions locales de chaque maillon. Le PLM joue le rôle d’intégrateur. En effet, le regroupement centralisé des informations par le PLM permet de prendre en considération la dépendance entre les maillons améliorant ainsi les résultats obtenus par optimisation locale. / AIt is recognized that competition is shifting from “firm versus firm” perspective to “supply chain versus supply chain” perspective. Therefore, the ability to optimize the supply chain is becoming the critical issue for companies to win the competitive advantage. Furthermore, all members of a given supply chain must work together to respond to the changes of market demand rapidly. In the actual context, enterprises not only must enhance their relationships with each others, but also need to integrate their business processes through product life cycle activities. This has led to the emergence of a collaborative product lifecycle management commonly known as PLM. The objective of this thesis is to define a methodological approach which answers to the following problematic: How can PLM contribute to supply chain optimization ? We adopt, in this thesis, a hybrid approach combining PLM and mathematical models to optimize decisions for simultaneous design of the product and its supply chain. We propose conceptual models to solve formally the compromise between PLM and mathematical models for supply chain optimization. Unlike traditional centralized approaches used to treat the problem of integrated design of the product and its supply chain which generate complex mathematical models, we adopt an approach combining centralized decisions while integrating the constraints of the different supply chain partners during the product design and decentralized decisions when it comes to locally optimize each supply chain partner. The decentralized approach reduces the complexity of solving mathematical models and allows the supply chain to respond quickly to the evolution of local conditions of each partner. PLM will assure the integration of the different supply chain partners. Indeed, the information centralization by the PLM enables to take into consideration the dependence between these partners, improving therefore local optimization results.

This study, that is a research and product development process, is based on sustainable development and the negative impacts of the growing consumption, and wear-and-tear habits of today’s society. The way we handle our resources, from mine to landfill cause devastating effects on the climate. LAST, is a multi-functional table made from wooden waste materials, that represents product design that allows the user to build a strong, long-lasting relationship with the product. The table is versatile, allows easy dismantling and incorporates qualities that create an incentive for the user to build an attachment to it to increase its lifetime. This has been done through applying different strategies within emotional design, product attachment and design for sustainability as well as applying knowledge within timeless design, aesthetic nourishment. The Japanese philosophy of Wabi Sabi has acted as inspiration to help navigate the projects design proposal that could allow for the user to appreciate their product for longer and indorse product longevity. The research question for the study is as follows: How can you promote product longevity by means of product design for sustainable development?

Modular product architecture is characterized by the existence of standardized interfaces between the physical building blocks. A module is a collection of technical solutions that perform a function, with interfaces selected for company-specific strategic reasons. Approaches to modularity are the structured methods by which modular product architectures are derived. The approaches include Modular Function Deployment (MFD), Design Structure Matrix (DSM), Function Structure Heuristics and many other, including hybrids. The thesis includes a survey of relevant theory and a discussion of four challenges in product architecture research, detailed in the appended papers. One common experience from project work is structured methods such as DSM or MFD often do not yield fully conclusive results. This is usually because the algorithms used to generate modules do not have enough relevant data. Thus, we ask whether it is possible to introduce new data to make the output more conclusive. A case study is used to answer this question. The analysis indicates that with additional properties to capture product geometry, and flow of matter, energy, or information, the output is more conclusive. If product development projects even have an architecture definition phase, very little time is spent actually selecting the most suitable tool. Several academic models are available, but they use incompatible criteria, and do not capture experience-based or subjective criteria we may wish to include. The research question is whether we can define selection criteria objectively using academic models and experience-based criteria. The author gathers criteria from three academic models, adds experience criteria, performs a pairwise comparison of all available criteria and applies a hierarchical cluster analysis, with subsequent interpretation. The resulting evaluation model is tested on five approaches to modularity. Several conclusions are discussed. One is that of the five approaches studied, MFD and DSM have the most complementary sets of strengths and weaknesses, and that hybrids between these two fundamental approaches would be particularly interesting. The majority of all product development tries to improve existing products. A common criticism against all structured approaches to modularity is they work best for existing products. Is this perhaps a misconception? We ask whether MFD and DSM can be used on novel product types at an early phase of product development. MFD and DSM are applied to the hybrid drive train of a Forwarder. The output of the selected approaches is compared and reconciled, indicating that conclusions about a suitable modular architecture can be derived, even when many technical solutions are unknown. Among several conclusions, one is the electronic inverter must support several operating modes that depend on high-level properties of the drive train itself (such as whether regeneration is used). A modular structure for the electronic inverter is proposed. Module generation in MFD is usually done with Hierarchical Cluster Analysis (HCA), where the results are presented in the form of a Dendrogram. Statistical software can generate a Dendrogram in a matter of seconds. For DSM, the situation is different. Most available algorithms require a fair amount of processing time. One popular algorithm, the Idicula-Gutierrez-Thebeau Algorithm (IGTA), requires a total time of a few hours for a problem of medium complexity (about 60 components). The research question is whether IGTA can be improved to execute faster, while maintaining or improving quality of output. Two algorithmic changes together reduce execution time required by a factor of seven to eight in the trials, and improve quality of output by about 15 percent. / QC 20120605

Dagens företagsklimat skapar ökad press på företag att minska sin tid till marknad för nya produkter, samtidigt som konstnader ska minskas och en hög produktkvalitet skall hållas. Ett resultat av detta är att tillverkningsföretag måste utveckla och producera produkter fortare, till en lägre kostnad, med ökande kvalité för att upprätthålla sin konkurrenskraft. Inom marknaden för informations- och kommunikationsteknik sker det snabba förändringar, detta göra att produktutvecklingen är allt mer viktig. Hanteringen av produktdata är en viktig aspekt av produktutvecklingen, men också en av de mest  utmanande.  Målet  med  denna  forskningsuppsats  är  att  undersöka  vilka  processer  inom industrialisering som används för att samla och hantera produktdata. Produktdata och hanteringen av den är en viktig del av industrialiseringsprocessen samt produktutvecklingsprocessen. PIM   (Product   Introduction   and   Maintenance)   RBS   (Radio   Base   Station)   Kista   är   en industrialiseringssite och har valts för denna fallstudie – då de representerar en ledande del av produktutvecklingen för utsedda produkter inom Ericsson som är ett världsledande företag inom informations-och kommunikationstekniks industrin. Denna forskning har utförst i linje med det valda fokusområdet att undersöka, beskriva och analysera de viktigaste metoderna som används inom PIM RBS Kista för att samla in, lagra och använda produktdata under produktutvecklingen i industrialiseringsprocessen.   Syftet   med   forskningen   är   att   bidra   till   forskningsområdet produktdatahantering. Fokus har legat inom Operations, där nya produkter realiseras under olika aktiviteter och från vilken produktdata är det viktigaste resultatet. De  arbetsmetoder  som  har  identifieras  under  fallstudien  diskuteras  och  skapar  insikt  hur produktdatahantering  används  under  förverkligandet  av  nya  produkter  –  med  koppling  till produktionsverkstadsgolvet. Denna forskingsuppsats diskuterar även de huvudsakliga implikationera relaterat till produktdatahantering inom organisationen som är vald för denna fallstudie. Detta för att bidra med förbättringsförslag gällande nuvarande produktdatahanteringsmetod och system, samt verktyg, som finns implementerade idag. / In today’s market there is an increasing pressure on companies to reduce their time-to-market and lower their cost whilst maintaining a high quality on their products. As a result, manufacturing firms have to develop and produce products faster, at lower costs, and with increased quality in order to maintain their competiveness. The information and communications technology (ICT) market is a fast  changing  market,  which  makes  the  development  process  all  the  more  important.  The management of product data is an important aspect of the product development process, but also one of the most challenging. Product data and product data management (PDM) are important aspects of the new product introduction (NPI) process and in turn the product development process. This research is based on a case study research conducted at PIM (Product Introduction and Maintenance) RBS (Radio Base Station) Kista. PIM RBS Kista is a lead-site responsible for NPI and product development for certain appointed products within Ericsson, a world leading multinational corporation in the ICT industry. In alignment with the research focus the main processes used within PIM RBS Kista to gather, store, and use product data during product development in the NPI process has been described and analysed – in order to contribute to the PDM research field. The focus has been within the Operations department, in which new products are realised during different activities and from which product data is the main output. The processes identified and analysed provides insight how PDM is used during product realisation and its connection to the production shop floor. The thesis also discusses the main complications within the case organisation and suggests improvements regarding the current PDM processes and systems/tools used.