Modular product architectures have generated numerous benefits for companies in terms of cost, lead-time and quality. The defined interfaces and the module’s properties decrease the effort to develop new product variants, and provide an opportunity to perform parallel tasks in design, manufacturing and assembly. The background of this thesis is that companies perform verifications (tests, inspections and controls) of products late, when most of the parts have been assembled. This extends the lead-time to delivery and ruins benefits from a modular product architecture; specifically when the verifications are extensive and the frequency of detected defects is high. Due to the number of product variants obtained from the modular product architecture, verifications must handle a wide range of equipment, instructions and goal values to ensure that high quality products can be delivered. As a result, the total benefits from a modular product architecture are difficult to achieve. This thesis describes a method for planning and performing verifications within a modular product architecture. The method supports companies by utilizing the defined modules for verifications already at module level, so called MPV (Module Property Verification). With MPV, defects are detected at an earlier point, compared to verification of a complete product, and the number of verifications is decreased. The MPV method is built up of three phases. In Phase A, candidate modules are evaluated on the basis of costs and lead-time of the verifications and the repair of defects. An MPV-index is obtained which quantifies the module and indicates if the module should be verified at product level or by MPV. In Phase B, the interface interaction between the modules is evaluated, as well as the distribution of properties among the modules. The purpose is to evaluate the extent to which supplementary verifications at product level is needed. Phase C supports a selection of the final verification strategy. The cost and lead-time for the supplementary verifications are considered together with the results from Phase A and B. The MPV method is based on a set of qualitative and quantitative measures and tools which provide an overview and support the achievement of cost and time efficient company specific verifications. A practical application in industry shows how the MPV method can be used, and the subsequent benefits / <p>QC 20100906</p>

FundaÃÃo Cearense de Apoio ao Desenvolvimento Cientifico e TecnolÃgico / This research introduces the product architecture (PA) concept as a improvement proposed in the development of housing projects. Objectives: propose recommendations for implementing the PA concept; list the main barriers and opportun ities and identify product development improvements through the application of this concept. The research is exploratory and its strategy is a case study, with the study of three cases, involving three construction companies and eight housing developments. At first, we identified the stages of the product development process (PDP) for each company in order to understand and to map the activities of this process. In a second stage identified the customization strategy employed during the development process of the projects, which guidelines and internal factors each company had adopted to determine the level of customization and what internal changes under which each company has to offer customization to its clients. Thus, it was possible to identify the main barriers and opportunities for the application of a customization strategy and the concept of AP. Finally, the results were pooled and discussed, allowing proposing improvements in the development of housing projects through the application PA concept / O trabalho expressa o conceito de arquitetura do produto (AP) como proposta de melhoria no desenvolvimento de empreendimentos habitacionais. Objetivos: propor recomendaÃÃes para implementaÃÃo de AP; elencar os principais entraves e oportunidades e identificar melhorias de desenvolvimento do produto mediante a aplicaÃÃo deste conceito. A pesquisa possui carÃter exploratÃrio e tem como estratÃgia de investigaÃÃo o estudo de caso. Foram realizados trÃs estudos de caso, envolvendo trÃs construtoras e oito empreendimentos habitacionais. A primeira etapa da pesquisa identificou as etapas do Processo de Desenvolvimento do Produto (PDP) de cada empresa, de forma a compreendÃ-las e realizar um mapeamento das atividades deste processo. A segunda assimilou a estratÃgia de customizaÃÃo empregada durante o processo de desenvolvimento dos empreendimentos, quais as diretrizes e fatores internos que cada empresa adotou para determinar o nÃvel de customizaÃÃo e quais as mudanÃas internas pelas quais cada empresa transitou para oferecer customizaÃÃo aos seus clientes. Deste modo, foi possÃvel identificar as principais barreiras e oportunidades para a aplicaÃÃo da estratÃgia de customizaÃÃo e o conceito de AP. Por Ãltimo, os resultados foram reunidos e discutidos, possibilitando a proposiÃÃo de melhorias no desenvolvimento de empreendimentos habitacionais mediante a aplicaÃÃo da AP.

Aus der Einleitung: "Die Produktarchitektur ist ein Modell zur Abbildung der Verknüpfung zwischen funktionaler und physischer Sichtweise auf ein Produkt und Ausgangspunkt für eine Vielzahl von Methoden, u. a. zur Funktionsintegration oder Modularisierung. Die dabei adressierten Ziele der Produktentwicklung sind sehr unterschiedlich und fokussieren bspw. die Reduktion der Teilezahl und des Gesamtgewichts oder eine effiziente Variantenerzeugung durch Produktbaukästen. Der Lösungsraum bei der Produktarchitekturgestaltung wird maßgeblich durch bekannte und nutzbare Technologien und deren Restriktionen bestimmt. So geht die spanende Fertigung mit steigender geometrischer Komplexität der Bauteile oftmals mit einer erheblichen Kostensteigerung einher. Werkzeugerfordernde Fertigungstechnologien wie bspw. das Druckgießen sind in der Regel nur für größere Bauteilstückzahlen rentabel. Die Einführung additiver Fertigungsverfahren bietet neue Möglichkeiten zur Überwindung dieser Restriktionen und zur Realisierung zusätzlicher Freiheiten in Bezug auf die geometrische Gestaltung sowie Materialzusammensetzung bei der Produktarchitekturgestaltung. Während der Produktentwicklung werden die Potentiale additiver Fertigungsverfahren jedoch oft nicht umfassend berücksichtigt, wodurch besonders bei der Gestaltung der Produktarchitektur große Potentiale unerschlossen bleiben. Stattdessen erfolgt die Gestaltung der Produktarchitektur implizit und Möglichkeiten bspw. zur Funktionsintegration werden nur vereinzelt genutzt. Aus diesem Defizit leitet sich die zentrale Fragestellung dieses Beitrags ab: Wie können Potentiale additiver Fertigungsverfahren bei der Gestaltung der Produktarchitektur systematisch berücksichtigt werden? Zur Beantwortung dieser Frage wird in Abschnitt 2 die Produktarchitekturgestaltung in den Produktentwicklungsprozess eingeordnet und aufgezeigt, wie verschiedene Zielstellungen einer Produktentwicklung durch sie adressiert werden können. Technologische Einflüsse auf die Produktarchitekturgestaltung werden in Abschnitt 3 am Beispiel von additiven Fertigungstechnologien erläutert, bevor in Abschnitt 4 ein methodisches Rahmenwerk vorgestellt wird, welches die Nutzung von Potentialen additiver Fertigungsverfahren durch die Bereitstellung von Prinzipien unterstützt. Die Anwendung des Rahmenwerks wird in Abschnitt 5 am Beispiel eines adaptiven Drehgelenks für Parallelroboter verdeutlicht.

I detta kandidatexamensarbete som skrivits inom ämnet systemarkitektur undersöktes och besvarades ett antal frågeställningar som berör området. Projektets syfte var att undersöka användningen av DSM och forskningsverktyget IGTA++, som är en MATLAB-baserad algoritm. Kan de nämnda hjälpmedlen användas för att modularisera redan färdiga produkter, produkter med höga prestandakrav och specifika användningsområden och kan samma metod användas för olika produkter är frågor som besvaras. Genom att välja tre produkter med skilda användningsområden, krav på prestanda och precision samt olika produktarkitekturer som sedan monterades isär och studerades besvarades frågorna. De tre produkterna som valdes var en tryckluftsdriven mutterdragare som förlitar sig mycket på mekanik, en borrmaskin som har både elektriska komponenter och mekaniska kopplingar och en haptikenhet vars funktion beror mycket av den elektroniska signalstyrningen. Analyser av de ingående komponenterna resulterade i DSM:er för vardera produkt. Därefter klustrades dessa i MATLAB med IGTA++ för att få förslag på moduler. Modulerna studerades och det konstaterades att resultaten duger men behöver efterarbete för att bli fullständigt användbara. Projektets slutsatser blev därför att IGTA++ fungerar bra som ett hjälpmedel vid modularisering men kräver efterarbete för att uppnå önskat resultat. Algoritmen fungerar även på olika sorters produktarkitekturer och de varierande resultaten beror på produkternas komplexitet. Det går även att använda IGTA++ på redan färdiga produkter för att helt eller delvis modularisera. / This is a Bachelor Thesis within the subject of system architecture and was written in Swedish. In this thesis, the purpose and deliverables were to investigate and answer the given questions regarding the subject system architecture. The projects purpose is to study the use of DSM and the newly developed research tool IGTA++, a MATLAB based algorithm. Can the mentioned tools be used for modularization of already existing products and can products with high demands on performance and specific areas of use be modularized with the same method are the questions that will be answered. By choosing three products with different areas of use, demands on performance and precision but also different product architectures and then taking them apart and studying the components and their interactions, the questions were answered. The three chosen products were a pneumatic nutrunner relying heavily on mechanics to fulfill its purpose, a drilling machine using both electronics and mechanics and lastly a haptic unit whose function depend on electronic signals. Analyzes of the products components resulted in DSM:s for each product. Thereafter the DSM:s were clustered in MATLAB using IGTA++ to obtain suggestions on how the products should be modularized. The suggested modules were analyzed and it was seen that the results are sufficient but require some work to be useful. The conclusions of the project are that IGTA++ serves as an aiding tool when modularizing but demands post algorithm work to achieve desired results. The algorithm can be applied to different types of product architectures and variations in the results are related to the products complexity. IGTA++ can also be used for already existing products to completely or partially modularize.

Yes / Contemporary design decomposition and synthesis analytical tasks at the conceptual design stage reply on functional and structural modelling approaches. There is a wide diversity of elements used by various modelling approaches for information and representation of product architecture, which incurs difficulties for multidisciplinary engineers working across different phases of design in capturing, visualising, sharing and tracing consistent yet common knowledge and elements across the function and structure domains. This prompts for fixation of detail and common modelling knowledge across both functional and structural analytical approaches which is also critical from automatized software perspective. A limitation of existing approaches is that they tend to focus more on ‘what’ and less on ‘how’ (and vice versa). This paper proposes an integrated conceptual product architecting approach that combines and expands the functional and structural modelling approaches, enabling capturing and tracing knowledge coherently through a common binding domain. This is underpinned by the view that most interaction requirements amongst the physical components during structural modelling can be derived from functional modelling. The proposed integrated approach is underpinned by the critical analysis and synthesis of existing approaches in literature dealing with functional and structural architecture analysis, integrated within a Multiple Domain Matrix (MDM) to fuse the knowledge of both solution independent (functional) and dependent (structural) analyses. The proposed framework is illustrated with a case study of solar robot toy, followed by discussion and suggestions for future work.

No description available.

Road transports face increasing societal challenges with respect to emissions, safety, and traffic congestion, as well as business challenges. Truck automation, e.g. self-driving trucks may be utilized to address some of these issues. Autonomous transport vehicles may be characterized as Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). A drawback is that CPS significantly increase technical complexity and thus introduce new challenges to system architecting. A product architecture is the interrelation between physical components and their function, i.e. their purpose. Product architectures can be categorized as being modular or integral. The main purpose of a modular architecture is to enable external variety and at the same time internal commonality. Products with a modular architecture are configured from predesigned building blocks, i.e. modules. A stable module, which is a carrier of main function(s) has standardized interfaces, is configured for company-specific reasons, which means it supports a company-specific (business) strategy. In this thesis, the present state at the heavy vehicle manufacturer Scania, concerning product architecting, modularization, product description and configuration is investigated. Moreover, a new clustering based method for product modularization that integrates product complexity and company business strategies is proposed. The method is logically verified with multiple industrial cases, where the architecture of a heavy truck driveline is used as a test bench. The driveline contains synergistic configurations of mechanical, electrical and software technologies that are constituents of an automated  and/or semi-autonomous system, i.e. the driveline may be characterized as a CPS. The architecture is analyzed both from technical complexity and business strategy point of view.  The presented research indicates that a structured methodology which supports the development of the product architecture is needed at Scania, to enable control of the increasing technical complexity in the Cyber-Physical Systems. Finally, configuration rules are identified to be highly important in order to successfully realize a modular product architecture. A drawback with this approach is that the solution space becomes hard to identify, therefore a complete and flexible product description methodology is essential. The results from the case studies indicate that clustering of a Product Architecture DSM may result in a modular architecture with significantly reduced complexity, but with clusters that contain conflicting module drivers. It is also identified that the new modularization methodology is capable of identifying and proposing reasonable module candidates that address product complexity as well as company-specific strategies. Furthermore, several case studies show that the proposed method can be used for analyzing and finding the explicit and/or implicit, technical as well as strategic, reasons behind the architecture of an existing product.

Manufacturing globalization and sustainable development compel production enterprises to continuously seek improvements in their products performance, customization, environmental friendliness, cost, and delivery time. The challenges of this competition cannot be completely addressed through improving production processes because some issues can only be solved through more innovative design. This thesis investigates a new design paradigm called Design for Adaptability or Adaptable Design (AD) to address some of these challenges. The purpose of AD is to extend the utility of designs and products. An adaptable design allows manufacturers to quickly develop new and upgraded models or customized products through adapting existing designs with proven quality and costs. An adaptable product can be utilized under varying service requirements thus prevents premature product replacement. Design adaptability and product adaptability provide economical and environmental benefits of AD. <p> To make a product adaptable, its adaptability must be built-in during the design stage. Methods of design for predetermined adaptations are categorized as Specific AD; these methods design products for versatility, upgrading, variety, and customization. Several of these methods such as modular/platform design and design for upgrading have been studied for mechanical design. In the absence of predetermined adaptations, AD aims to increase the general adaptability of products. General AD involves fundamental research in design theory and methodology in order to develop practical design methods and guidelines. This thesis introduces several original concepts and proposes the subordination of a system to a rational functional structure as an approach for increasing general adaptability. Such a system would consist of a hierarchical assembly of autonomous functional modules, emulating the adaptable architecture of a rational functional structure. Methods and guidelines are proposed for making the design of mechanical systems closer to this ideal architecture. <p> Accordingly, the thesis proposes a methodology for AD in which specific AD is performed first to take advantage of available forecast information, and then general AD is performed in order to increase adaptability to unforeseen changes. Also, a measure has been defined for the assessment of adaptability. The application of this methodology has been demonstrated through several conceptual design examples.

Manufacturing globalization and sustainable development compel production enterprises to continuously seek improvements in their products performance, customization, environmental friendliness, cost, and delivery time. The challenges of this competition cannot be completely addressed through improving production processes because some issues can only be solved through more innovative design. This thesis investigates a new design paradigm called Design for Adaptability or Adaptable Design (AD) to address some of these challenges. The purpose of AD is to extend the utility of designs and products. An adaptable design allows manufacturers to quickly develop new and upgraded models or customized products through adapting existing designs with proven quality and costs. An adaptable product can be utilized under varying service requirements thus prevents premature product replacement. Design adaptability and product adaptability provide economical and environmental benefits of AD. <p> To make a product adaptable, its adaptability must be built-in during the design stage. Methods of design for predetermined adaptations are categorized as Specific AD; these methods design products for versatility, upgrading, variety, and customization. Several of these methods such as modular/platform design and design for upgrading have been studied for mechanical design. In the absence of predetermined adaptations, AD aims to increase the general adaptability of products. General AD involves fundamental research in design theory and methodology in order to develop practical design methods and guidelines. This thesis introduces several original concepts and proposes the subordination of a system to a rational functional structure as an approach for increasing general adaptability. Such a system would consist of a hierarchical assembly of autonomous functional modules, emulating the adaptable architecture of a rational functional structure. Methods and guidelines are proposed for making the design of mechanical systems closer to this ideal architecture. <p> Accordingly, the thesis proposes a methodology for AD in which specific AD is performed first to take advantage of available forecast information, and then general AD is performed in order to increase adaptability to unforeseen changes. Also, a measure has been defined for the assessment of adaptability. The application of this methodology has been demonstrated through several conceptual design examples.

Submitted by CÉSAR COUTINHO RAMOS null (cesar.ramos@volkswagen.com.br) on 2016-05-17T16:05:53Z No. of bitstreams: 1 CesarCoutinhRamos-MestradoProfissionalizante.pdf: 2191241 bytes, checksum: 312d1b09db67ad58815b0cf71365dc9e (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Ana Paula Grisoto (grisotoana@reitoria.unesp.br) on 2016-05-19T19:18:04Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 ramos_cc_me_guara.pdf: 2191241 bytes, checksum: 312d1b09db67ad58815b0cf71365dc9e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-05-19T19:18:04Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 ramos_cc_me_guara.pdf: 2191241 bytes, checksum: 312d1b09db67ad58815b0cf71365dc9e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-03-19 / Este trabalho compara qualitativamente sete métodos de modularização, com o objetivo de escolher e aplicar aqueles que melhor se adaptam ao projeto piloto de modularização de uma suspensão traseira a ar para caminhões e ônibus. Dentre os métodos estudados, os métodos MFD (Modular Function Deployment) e DSM (Design Structure Matrix) foram escolhidos, basicamente em função de possuírem: aplicação prática, repetibilidade dos resultados, softwares disponíveis e facilidade de organização dos dados. O método DSM serviu de base para gerar os primeiros possíveis módulos e simplificar o problema dos inicias 44 componentes para 26, simplesmente com uma visão funcional e técnica. O MFD foi utilizado principalmente para estruturar o processo de modularização e atender aos requisitos dos clientes e estratégias do negócio. Os resultados apresentados pelos dois métodos foram analisados de forma detalhada e indicaram a formação de sete módulos, que foram obtidos tanto diretamente dos métodos DSM e MFD, quanto da combinação de ambos. Ficou evidente, através dos resultados alcançados, que a utilização conjunta desses dois métodos, juntamente com a análise criteriosa dos resultados no desenvolvimento do produto aumentou consideravelmente a eficiência do processo de modularização. / This work presents and compares qualitatively seven modularization methods, in order to choose and apply those that best suits for a rear air suspension modularization pilot project for trucks and buses. Among the methods studied, the MFD (Modular Function Deployment) and DSM (Design Structure Matrix) methods were mainly chosen on the basis that they present: practical application, repeatability, software availability and ease data organization. The DSM method was the basis to generate the first possible modules and simplify the problem from the initial 44 to 26 components, only with a functional and technical approach. The MFD was mainly used to structure the modularization process and meet the customer requirements and business strategies. The results shown by the two methods were analyzed in detail and resulted in the generation of seven modules, which were obtained either directly from DSM and MFD methods, or from the combination of both. It became evident, by the results achieved, that the combined use of these two methods, along with a careful analysis of the results on product development, greatly increased the modularization process efficiency.