This thesis describes the process and result of generating concepts for a new adjustable cutting tool with integrated components. It was conducted under a period of ten weeks at the department R&D Digital Machining at Sandvik Coromant, Sandviken. The focus of the thesis was to generate and evaluate different concepts using well known methods such as TRIZ Contradiction and 40 principles, SCAMPER, Wish and Wonder, Brainstorming, Weight Determination matrix and Pugh matrix.  To catch up on the latest technologies and similar tools in the industry today a literature study was conducted which resulted in a requirement specification for the concept in accordance with expertise from Sandvik Coromant. The key problems to be solved were the demanding tolerances and precision together with high forces and the limited space in the tool body.   The thesis resulted in a selected concept with chosen components to meet the demanding requirements. The concept is presented in a 3D CAD-model with description and necessary data. The conclusion includes recommendations to Sandvik Coromant to further develop the selected concept into a prototype so that physical test can be performed and lifespan of electronic components can be evaluated.

An evolving set of modern physics-based, multi-disciplinary conceptual design methods seek to explore the feasibility of a new generation of systems, with new capabilities, capable of missions that conventional vehicles cannot be empirically redesigned to perform. These methods provide a more complete understanding of a concept's design space, forecasting the feasibility of uncertain systems, but are often computationally expensive and time consuming to prepare. This trend creates a unique and critical need to identify a manageable number of capable concept alternatives early in the design process. Ongoing efforts attempting to stretch capability through new architectures, like the U.S. Army's Future Vertical Lift effort and DARPA's Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) X-plane program highlight this need. The process of identifying and selecting a concept configuration is often given insufficient attention, especially when a small subset of favorable concept families is not immediately apparent. Commonly utilized methods for concept generation, like filtered morphological analysis, often identify an exponential number of alternatives. Simple approaches to concept selection then rely on designers to identify a relatively small subset of alternatives for comparison through simple methods regularly related to decision matrices (Pugh, TOPSIS, AHP, etc.). More in-depth approaches utilize modeling and simulation to compare concepts with techniques such as stochastic optimization or probabilistic decision making, but a complicated setup limits these approaches to just a discrete few alternatives. A new framework to identify and select promising, robust concept configurations utilizing fuzzy methods is proposed in this research and applied to the example problem of concept selection for DARPA's VTOL Xplane program. The framework leverages fuzzy systems in conjunction with morphological analysis to assess large design spaces of potential architecture alternatives while capturing the inherent uncertainty and ambiguity in the evaluation of these early concepts. Experiments show how various fuzzy systems can be utilized for evaluating criteria of interest across disparate architectures by modeling expert knowledge as well as simple physics-based data. The models are integrated into a single environment and variations on multi-criteria optimization are tested to demonstrate an ability to identify a non-dominated set of architectural families in a large combinatorial design space. The resulting framework is shown to provide an approach to quickly identify promising concepts in the face of uncertainty early in the design process.An evolving set of modern physics-based, multi-disciplinary conceptual design methods seek to explore the feasibility of a new generation of systems, with new capabilities, capable of missions that conventional vehicles cannot be empirically redesigned to perform. These methods provide a more complete understanding of a concept's design space, forecasting the feasibility of uncertain systems, but are often computationally expensive and time consuming to prepare. This trend creates a unique and critical need to identify a manageable number of capable concept alternatives early in the design process. Ongoing efforts attempting to stretch capability through new architectures, like the U.S. Army's Future Vertical Lift effort and DARPA's Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) X-plane program highlight this need. The process of identifying and selecting a concept configuration is often given insufficient attention, especially when a small subset of favorable concept families is not immediately apparent. Commonly utilized methods for concept generation, like filtered morphological analysis, often identify an exponential number of alternatives. Simple approaches to concept selection then rely on designers to identify a relatively small subset of alternatives for comparison through simple methods regularly related to decision matrices (Pugh, TOPSIS, AHP, etc.). More in-depth approaches utilize modeling and simulation to compare concepts with techniques such as stochastic optimization or probabilistic decision making, but a complicated setup limits these approaches to just a discrete few alternatives. A new framework to identify and select promising, robust concept configurations utilizing fuzzy methods is proposed in this research and applied to the example problem of concept selection for DARPA's VTOL Xplane program. The framework leverages fuzzy systems in conjunction with morphological analysis to assess large design spaces of potential architecture alternatives while capturing the inherent uncertainty and ambiguity in the evaluation of these early concepts. Experiments show how various fuzzy systems can be utilized for evaluating criteria of interest across disparate architectures by modeling expert knowledge as well as simple physics-based data. The models are integrated into a single environment and variations on multi-criteria optimization are tested to demonstrate an ability to identify a non-dominated set of architectural families in a large combinatorial design space. The resulting framework is shown to provide an approach to quickly identify promising concepts in the face of uncertainty early in the design process.

The purpose of the project is to, with the help of relevant course literature, knowledge obtained from previous courses and with the help of supervisor and colleagues, produce a concept suggestion of how the front lamp to a combat vehicle could be designed. The purpose is also, with the help of meticulous documentation and structured work, to do a project that it will possible to continue working on and eventually construct a prototype from. The methods that were used during this project were for example WBS, scrum board, Gantt-schedule and elimination matrix. The project started with a planning phase where the project plan and time schedules were set up. Then was the pilot study which is used to gather the knowledge needed to carry out the project. The information gathered in the pilot study were then summarized in a criterion matrix in the product specification. These criterions were then used in the concept selection phase as guidelines when generation ideas and develop concepts. After the concept selection three concept were chosen and presented for the employer and, in conjunction with the employer, it was decided to combine these concepts into one. 3D-models were then done with the help of CAD (Computer Aided Design) to illustrate this combined concept and associated material selection and manufacturing methods were done. The conclusion of this project was that the amount of innovative ideas and solutions were limited since the product is regulated by military standards and criterions from customers. Therefore, the outcome of the project is similar to previous versions, which is unfortunate, since the goal with the project were to come up with new and innovative concepts of how to design the front lamp. But even though this concepts design looks like the old design, it has few completely new things to it that haven’t existed in previous versions. It was also realized how much time you save during the project if you do a detailed planning at the start of the project and how valuable it is to be structured in the work process. Further work that is needed to be done on the project before the production of a prototype are calculations of the cost to manufacture and produce the product, strength calculations of the stress concentrations etc., and drawings of the product. The components of the front lamp, i.e. horn, lamps, sensors etc., also need to be selected in accordance with the criterion matrix. / Syftet med detta projekt är att, med hjälp av relevant kurslitteraturer, kunskap från tidigare kurser och med hjälp och stöd av handledare och kollegor, ta fram ett konceptförslag på hur frontlyktan till ett stridsfordon skulle kunna bli designad. Syftet är också, med hjälp av noggrann dokumentation och strukturerat arbete, att göra ett projekt som det är möjligt att fortsätta arbeta på och till slut kunna producera en prototyp ifrån. Metoderna som används i detta projekt är till exempel WBS, scrum board, Gantt-schema och eliminationsmatris. Projektet började med en planeringsfas där projektplanen och tidsplaner var gjorda. Sen gjordes förstudien för att tillhandahålla tillräckligt mycket information för att kunna genomföra projektet. Denna information summerades sedan i en kriteriematris i produktspecifikationen. Dessa kriterier användes sedan som riktlinjer vid idégenerationen och vid utveckling av koncept i konceptfasen. Efter konceptfasen valdes tre koncept att presenteras för arbetsgivaren och, i samråd med arbetsgivaren, valdes det att kombinera dessa koncept till ett. 3D-modeller gjordes sedan i CAD (Computer Aided Design) på detta koncept för att illustrera konceptet. Materialval och tillverkningsmetoder valdes också. Slutsatsen av detta projekt är att det var begränsande att utveckla innovativa idéer och lösningar till denna produkt eftersom produkten var styrd av militärstandarder och kundkrav. På grund av detta blev resultatet av projektet likt tidigare versioner, vilket är olyckligt, då målet med projektet var att utveckla en nya och innovativa koncept på hur designen av frontlyktan skulle kunna vara. Trots att designen är snarlik tidigare versioner, så har ändå detta koncept vissa funktion som är helt nya för produkten. På slutet av projektet var det också tydligt hur viktigt det är att göra en detaljerad planering vid starten av projektet och hur värdefullt det är att vara strukturerad i sitt arbete. Fortsatt arbete som måste göras innan en prototyp kan tas fram är en kostnadsanalys, hållfasthetsberäkningar och ritningar på konceptet. De olika komponenterna i frontlyktan måste också väljas, i enlighet med kraven i kriteriematrisen.

The audience for this research is fellow researchers and others helping product developers to start including sustainability when they are selecting product concepts. The aims of the research were to understand the needs of product developers integrating sustainability into concept selection and what might be done to help them. The research approach was to iterate between the three studies of design research methodology. The first study focused on understanding the challenges that product developers face when integrating sustainability into concept selection. The aim of the second study was to identify potential support to help product developers to deal with the challenges.  And the third study was to try out the potential support to see if it actually helps product developers address the challenges they face. These studies were executed through reviewing literature and exploring two cases. The results led to a focus on supporting the decision-making process and supporting analysing with  respect to social sustainability.  Selecting concepts is a complex decision made under challenging conditions. Bringing in the complex, new and unfamiliar aspects of sustainability can make good decision-making even more challenging. When integrating sustainability, two particular barriers to good concept selection decision-making are errors due to illusory correlation and confirmation bias. Despite the challenges, how good you are at making decisions matters. And a good decision-making process drives good decisions. This is especially relevant when bringing in complex and unfamiliar aspects, such as sustainability.  A likely candidate for helping product developers achieve a good decision-making process when integrating sustainability is active, value-focused decision-support. In other words, structuring the process into bite-sized steps and using particular techniques to avoid bias. At each step, decision-makers’ focus is anchored by the things that stakeholders value as important.   Further research is required to investigate the details of how to employ these process-support approaches in the particular context of integrating sustainability into concept selection decision-making. In addition to a process, complicated selection decisions demand analysis. Support for analysing concepts with respect to social sustainability was identified as a gap. We explored a potential approach that might contribute to this analysis, but found that it was not useful for the particular decision in hand.  This opened up some interesting questions for further research.

Rapporten beskriver utförandet av ett examensarbete på högskoleingenjörsnivå. Arbetet utfördes på företaget WA3RM AB, vars affärsidé är att skapa värde från industriers outnyttjade resurser, genom att knyta samman olika aktörer och uppnå cirkulär ekonomi med syftet att minska klimatpåverkan och uppnå de globala målen för hållbar utveckling. WA3RM upplevde att arbetssätt i produktutvecklingsprojekt behövde kartläggas eftersom företaget i framtiden ville industrialisera fler produkter. Som ett led i WA3RM:s kartläggning av produktutvecklingsprojekt var examensarbetets syfte att skapa en process för konceptval i produktutvecklingsprojekt. Processen utformades efter WA3RM:s behov och examensarbetets mål var att besvara hur ett hållbarhetsperspektiv kan införas i fasen för konceptval i produktutvecklingsprojekt. Examensarbetet har skett med stöd av metoden Plan, Do, Check, Act, med syftet att strukturera och dela upp arbetet i delproblem. Problemområde och avgränsningar definierades och en kartläggning på företaget gjordes. Det gjordes en litteraturstudie utifrån kartläggningens resultat där verktyg och stöd för metoder identifierades till det slutliga förslaget, en process för konceptval. I kartläggningen identifierades tre huvudområden, krav & mål, hållbarhet samt cirkulärekonomi, vilka utgjorde grunden för litteraturstudien och förslaget, processen för konceptval.Processen för konceptval utgörs av fyra faser, där applikationer sorteras ut, rangordnas, kombineras till olika produkter, vilka slutligen rangordnas. I slutet av processen ska projektgruppen ha ett diskussionsunderlag som stöd för rekommendation till organisationen om konceptval för vidareutveckling i produktutvecklingsprojekt. En slutsats av examensarbetet var att metoderna och verktygen i processen ger möjlighet för att ta hänsyn till hållbarhetsperspektiv. Det anses dock viktigt att ta hänsyn till andra perspektivsom marknad och finansiering för att utveckla realiserbara och konkurrenskraftiga produkter, så att WA3RM kan fortsätta industrialisera produkter som minskar klimatpåverkan och inspirerar fler aktörer. / This report describes the execution of a bachelor's thesis. The work was conducted at the company WA3RM AB, whose business idea is to create value from unused resources in industries by connecting various stakeholders and achieving circular economy with the aim of reducing climate impact and achieving the global goals for sustainable development. WA3RM identified the need to map the work processes in product development projects, as the company intends to industrialize more products in the future. As part of WA3RM:s mapping of product development projects, the purpose of the thesis work was to create a process for concept selection in product development projects. The process was adapted to WA3RM:s needs, and the goal of the thesis work was to answer how a sustainability perspective can be established in the concept selection phase of product development projects. The thesis work was conducted using the Plan, Do, Check, Act method to structure and divide the work into sub-problems. Problem areas and limitations were defined and a mapping at the company was performed. A literature review was conducted based on the results of the mapping to identify tools and methods for the final proposal, the concept selection process. The mapping identified three main areas: requirements and goals, sustainability, and circular economy, which formed the basis for the literature review and the proposal, the concept selection process. The concept selection process consists of four phases, where applications are divided, ranked, generated to products, and finally ranked again. At the end of the process, the project team should have a basis for discussion to provide recommendations to the organization, regarding concept selection for further development in product development projects. A conclusion drawn from the thesis work was that the methods and tools in the process allows for consideration of sustainability aspects. However, it is important to consider other perspectives such as market and financing to develop feasible and competitive products, so that WA3RM can continue to industrialize products that reduce climate impact and inspire more stakeholders.

The focus in this project is on machine guards, which will be improved andmade more secure for efficiency and safety. The aim is to design machine guardswith a vertical opening panel for simpler machine access. The work iscorporated with Axelent Engineering in order to meet all standards withsustainability and quality to protect humans and the machine. The aim of thisproject is to examine the specified X-guards to open vertically with the height of1300 mm in order to generate a product that meets the specified standards. Thepurpose of this task is to develop a product that will meet the technicalrequirements and safety standards in order to permit vertical opening for AxelentEngineering’s X-guards.As for the result, the concept generated for the X-guard operates with linearbearings and counterweights, the concept is later presented to AxelentEngineering for manufacturing or further development. The result of the finalconcept is the most suitable of all the concepts generated, proven by usingselection methods.

Die wesentlichen Eigenschaften eines technischen Systems werden bereits in der Konzeptphase durch die Auswahl von Lösungsprinzipien vorbestimmt. Bei der Entwicklung automatisierter Produktionsanlagen stehen dabei die vier Zielgrößen Qualität, Zeit, Kosten und Flexibilität im Fokus. In der Literatur wird angenommen, dass zwischen diesen Anforderungen ein Zielkonflikt besteht, der von den Eigenschaften eines technischen Systems herrührt und die gleichzeitige Optimierung einer Anlage bzgl. aller vier Zielgrößen unmöglich macht. In diesem Beitrag wird deshalb ein methodischer Ansatz zu Diskussion gestellt, der die Untersuchung des Zielkonfliktes im konkreten Anwendungsfall ermöglicht und eine Entscheidungshilfe bei der Auswahl von Lösungskonzepten bieten kann. Ausgangspunkt ist ein dynamisches Systemmodell der Wechselwirkung zwischen Produkt und Produktionsanlage, sowie ein Ansatz zur Konzeptauswahl auf Grundlage der Polyoptimierung. Mit Hilfe parametrischer Modellbildung und Simulation kann die Entwicklungsaufgabe als mehrkriterielles Optimierungsproblem formuliert werden.

I detta examensarbete har möjligheten att kvalitetssäkra en monteringsbana vid Parker Hannifin Manufacturing Sweden AB:s anläggning i Trollhättan utretts. Syftet med studien var att förbättra kvalitetssäkringen vid Fasta Motorers F11-montering och arbetet baserades på en tidigare utarbetad felläges- och effektanalys. För att styrka kundperspektivet genomfördes en undersökning av vad kunderna reklamerar, i form av PQP-anmälningar samt NCMR-rapporter. Genom att därefter identifiera kritiska monteringsmoment i felläges- och effektanalysen, PQP-anmälningar och NCMR-rapporter, var en prioritering möjlig att utföra. Prioriteringen resulterade i att feltyperna felvridet lagerhus, felplock av material samt kuggfel ansågs vara de mest kritiska att kvalitetssäkra. Målet med arbetet var att reducera det totala risktalsvärdet, vilket var möjligt genom en konceptgenerering samt ett konceptval för de specifika prioriteringarna. I samband med konceptgenereringen undersöktes, genom intervjuer med berörd personal, specifika kundbehov. Dessa kundbehov omarbetades därefter till målspecifikationer för att underlätta genereringen av koncept. Då informativa koncept var framtagna återstod ett val av det bäst lämpade konceptet. Valet utfördes med två olika metoder, screening och scoring samt 3P, för att ytterligare säkerställa att rätt koncept valts. Det var därmed möjligt att uppdatera felläges- och effektanalysen med de valda åtgärderna och då påvisa att syftet var uppnått. Syftet med kvalitetssäkringen uppnåddes genom att sänka det totala risktalsvärdet med 47,5 procent mot det tidigare risktalsvärdet, 6415. / In this thesis an investigation has been made in order to find possibilities to assure the quality at an assembly line at Parker Hannifin Manufacturing Sweden AB:s facility in Trollhättan. The purpose with the study was to improve the quality assurance at Fixed Motors F11-assembly line, where the work was based on an already conducted process-FMEA. In order to verify and further investigate the customer perspective, an inquiry was also done to see what customers complained about, this with help of PQP, Product Quality Problems, and NCMR, Nonconformance reports. By analyzing the process-FMEA, PQP and NCMR reports an identification and prioritization of critical failures were made. The result from these steps was three failures, incorrect positioning of the bearing house, picking of incorrect material and incorrect gear timing. These three were considered to be the most critical failures to quality assure. The aim with the quality work were set to reduce the total RPN, Risk Priority Number, of the process-FMEA, which was rendered by applying a concept generation and a concept selection for the specific failures. In relation with the concept selection, interviews were made with staff that was considered important and vital for the project. This was made to identify specific customer needs regarding solutions to the three failures. From these needs a target specification was developed to ease the generation of concepts. After generating a number of well specified concepts, a concept selection was made using the two methods screening and scoring and an additional Parker method called 3P to further establish that the right concepts was chosen. Further it was then possible to update the process-FMEA with the chosen concept solutions and by doing that reaching the project aim. By implementing the solutions it was possible to reduce total RPN, 6415, with 47,5 percent.

This thesis presents a method for streamlining the process of obtaining and interpreting quantitative data for the purpose of creating a low-fidelity modeling and simulation environment. By providing a more efficient means for obtaining such information, quantitative analyses become much more practical for decision-making in the very early stages of design, where traditionally, quants are viewed as too expensive and cumbersome for concept evaluation. The method developed to address this need uses a Systematic Process for Adaptive Concept Exploration (SPACE). In the SPACE method, design space exploration occurs in a sequential fashion; as data is acquired, the sampling scheme adapts to the specific problem at hand. Previously gathered data is used to make inferences about the nature of the problem so that future samples can be taken from the more interesting portions of the design space. Furthermore, the SPACE method identifies those analyses that have significant impacts on the relationships being modeled, so that effort can be focused on acquiring only the most pertinent information. The results show that the combination of a tailored data set, and an informed model structure work together to provide a meaningful quantitative representation of the system while relying on only a small amount of resources to generate that information. In comparison to more traditional modeling and simulation approaches, the SPACE method provides a more accurate representation of the system using fewer resources to generate that representation. For this reason, the SPACE method acts as an enabler for decision making in the very early design stages, where the desire is to base design decisions on quantitative information while not wasting valuable resources obtaining unnecessary high fidelity information about all the candidate solutions. Thus, the approach enables concept selection to be based on parametric, quantitative data so that informed, unbiased decisions can be made.

Saab Aeronautics’ section Overall Design and Survivability develops early aircraft concepts and utilizes Computer Aided Design (CAD) to ensure the feasibility of principal- and critical characteristics. Saab has over the years developed several start models of aircrafts in CAD from pre-defined aircraft configurations, which are to some extent non-generic. When new configurations are to be explored, manual- and repetitive work is required if the new configuration cannot be attained solely through parametric modifications of a start model. The complexity of these CAD models also demands great knowledge of how aircraft components interact with each other to ensure compatibility. The project covered in this thesis was thus carried out to develop a more effective way for Saab to create and explore a larger design space. This by creating a framework that consists of a product configurator coupled with a library of generic CAD models. The product configurator that was created is the Saab Tradespace Analyzer & Reconfigurator (STAR), which takes compatibility relationships into consideration to facilitate concept selection. The STAR also provides a dynamic design space calculation to indicate how close the user is to a final concept selection. Two generic CAD models were created, a fuselage model and an air inlet model. A skeleton model was also created in order to reduce model dependencies and to control the main geometry of the aircraft product. In addition to these, an already existing wing model was implemented to form the library of generic CAD models. The framework coupling the STAR with the CAD library utilizes design automation to allow automatic CAD model generation of a concept that has been selected within the STAR. It was concluded through extrapolation that the created framework would allow Saab to create and explore a larger design space in a more effective way than what is done today, provided the library of CAD models were to contain the same number of components as today’s start models.