196,373 research outputs found
Human-driven design-to-cost methodology for industrial cost optimization
No full textOver the years cost optimization has gained a strategic importance to realize competitive products. However, traditional approaches are no longer efficient in modern highly competitive industrial scenarios, where numerous factors have to be contemporarily considered and optimized. In order to be effective, design has to care about cost along all its phases. This paper presents a methodology that integrates Design-To-Cost (DTC), Design for Manufacturing and Assembly (DFMA), Human Factors (HF) and Feature-Based Costing (FBC) to include costs from the early conceptual design stages and properly drive the product design. Thanks to a structured knowledge base and a FBC approach, it predicts both manufacturing and assembly processes from the 3D geometrical models and estimate the global costs, more accurately than existing tools. The research demonstrates the method validity by an industrial case study focusing on cost optimization of packaging machines. Thanks to the proposed method, the main design inefficiencies are easily identified from the early design stages and optimization actions are taken in advanced, in respect to traditional design process. Such actions allowed reducing total industrial costs of 20%, improving machine assemblability and human ergonomics due to structure simplification, part number reduction, and production processes modification, and reducing the time spent for cost estimation (until -60%)
Models of impact for sustainable manufacturing
No full textDesign for Sustainability (D4S) and LifeCycle Assessment (LCA) methods usually focus on one single aspect of sustainability at a time (e.g., environmental issues, ergonomics or costs) and are usually applied when the industrial system is already created, so that only corrective actions can be taken. In this context, the present research highlights the need of predictive methods to design sustainable system, able to provide an early holistic assessment from the early conceptual stages, and defines a set of models of impact able to assess all aspects of sustainability (i.e., environmental, economic and social) by proper key performance indicators (KPIs) from the early design stages. An industrial case study is presented to show the application of the proposed models on industrial manufacturing systems and demonstrate their validity in estimating the global impact on sustainability, including also human factors
Design for sustainability in PSS: evidences of QFD-based method application
No full textNowadays companies are pushed to offer solutions with new functionalities, higher performances, lower environmental impact, lower cost, and high usability for final users. In this context, the concept of Product-Service System (PSS) represents a valid way from manufacturing firms to evolve their market proposition, reduce impacts of their processes, and satisfy the customers’ needs. However, the design of PSS is still difficult, due to the lack of structured methodologies and evidences of the benefits connected with their adoption. The research adopts a systematic QFD-based methodology and demonstrates its validity to develop high sustainability PSS solutions. The case study focuses on the definition of a new PSS for green roofs: two groups of students, using respectively traditional methods and the proposed QFD-based methodology, were involved. The two PSSs conceived were evaluated in terms of outputs supporting the design phases and sustainability impacts. The case study results demonstrated how the adoption of a systematic method allows developing more business-oriented and more sustainable PSS in respect to traditional methods
An approach to assessing virtual environments for synchronous and remote collaborative design
No full textReceived 4 March 2011 Accepted 14 June 2012 Available online 31 July 2012
Keywords:
Collaborative design Virtual environments Metrics
Design review Benchmarking method
1. Introduction
Market globalisation, short delivery times and the rapid evolu- tion of customer requirements highly influence how the product design process must be performed. It is becoming increasingly important to consider different competencies in the early process phases, which implies organising the cooperative work of a geo- graphically distributed team. Generally, team configuration dynamically changes based on specific objectives. To manage this flexible cooperation, a new approach called Collaborative Product Design (CPD) has been developed. In this case, people belong to a virtual design team. However, traditional design tools have not generally been conceived to support the collaborative teamwork in a distributed design space. New technologies have recently emerged that allow creating Virtual Design Environments (VDEs) to facilitate CPD through easy interaction and data sharing among all participants. Though several collaborative software applications
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +39 71 2204969/2204790; fax: +39 71 2204801. E-mail address: [email protected] (M. Germani).
URL: http://www.univpm.it (M. Germani).
1474-0346/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aei.2012.06.003
abstract
This paper considers applying novel Virtual Environments (VEs) in collaborative product design, focusing on reviewing activities. Companies are usually anchored to commercial ICT tools, which are mature and reliable. However, two main problems emerge: the difficulty in selecting the most suitable tools for specific purposes and the complexity in evaluating the impact that using technology has on design col- laboration. The present work aims to face both aspects by proposing a structured benchmarking method based on expert judgements and defining a set of benchmarking weights based on experimental tests. The method considers both human–human interaction and teamwork-related aspects. A subsequent evaluation protocol considering both process efficiency and human–human interaction allows a closed-loop verification process. Pilot projects evaluate different technologies, and the benchmarking weights are verified and adjusted for more reliable system assessment. This paper focuses on synchro- nous and remote design review activities: three different tools have been compared according to expert judgements. The two best performing tools have been implemented as pilot projects within real indus- trial chains. Design collaboration has been assessed by considering both process performance and human–human interaction quality, as well as benchmarking results validated by indicating some correc- tive actions. The final benchmarking weights can thus be further adopted for an agile system benchmark in synchronous and remote design. The main findings suggest defining both an innovative process to ver- ify the expert benchmark reliability and a trusty benchmarking method to evaluate tools for synchronous and remote design without experimental testing. Furthermore, the proposed method has a general valid- ity and can be properly set for different collaborative dimensions
Che fine ha fatto la Gazzetta Chimica Italiana?
No full textLa “Gazzetta Chimica Italiana” cessò la pubblicazione nel dicembre 1997 quando, fondendosi con altri storici giornali europei, dette origine all’European Journal of Inorganic Chemistry (EurJIC) ed all’European Journal of Organic Chemistry (EurJOC), di cui la SCI è attualmente comproprietaria. Oggi, a distanza di poco più di dieci anni, questo articolo cerca di fare il punto sull’eredità scientifica e storica della rivista fondata nel 1871 da Cannizzaro e da altri grandi chimici italiani mettendo in luce i molti aspetti positivi e quelli ancora da migliorare di questa operazione
A Lifecycle design approach to analyze the Eco-sustainability of industrial products and product-service systems
No full textLifecycle design approaches are widely used in industry to quantify the eco-sustainability of products and to give them a tangible commercial value in terms of efficiency and costs. They are commonly applied for two reasons: to identify the more advantageous trends in product innovation and to support customer’s decision-making. Recently, increasing competition and technological developments result in high time, cost and development pressure. These facts induce the need for differentiation for most companies but also for reducing time-to-market. In this context, companies are pushed to move from a product-centred perspective to a product-service one, towards the new concept of “extended products”
Preface [Advances in Transdisciplinary Engineering]
No full textThis book of proceedings contains papers peer reviewed and accepted for the 24th ISPE Inc. International Conference on Transdisciplinary (formerly: Concurrent) Engineering, held at the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, July 10–14, 2017. This is the sixth issue of the newly introduced series “Advances in Transdisciplinary Engineering”, which publishes the proceedings of the TE (formerly: CE) conference series and accompanied events. The TE/CE conference series is organized annually by the International Society of Productivity Enhancement (ISPE, Inc.) and constitutes an important forum for international scientific exchange on transdisciplinary concurrent engineering and collaborative enterprises. These international conferences attract a significant number of researchers, industry experts and students, as well as government representatives, who are interested in the recent advances in transdisciplinary concurrent engineering research, advancements and applications
A Web-Based platform to support contract furniture design
No full textContract furniture design is the process of creating finished commodities for hospitality, retail, store, office, restaurants, etc. According to the process stage, numerous stakeholders with different skills, abilities, background and interests are involved in the development of products and services. The management of these temporary networks is complex and requires proper computer-supported cooperative work platforms able to achieve coherent design solutions. The paper explores contract furniture design challenges and requirements to define a technological platform to support companies in market analysis and penetration, product configuration and team working. System architecture and its main software modules are described in detail and preliminary implementation results shown
How to address virtual teamwork in SMEs by an innovative co-design platform
No full textCollaborative product development is crucial for extended enterprises in order to promote innovation facing market competitiveness. Co-design software platforms aim at facilitating companies networking to achieve common design goals. A successful cooperation depends on tools’ ability to effectively manage communication, data sharing in distributed teams and specific interaction requirements. In the context of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), the integration of design and supply chains is not a trivial task. Their highly flexible organisation makes difficult to manage multidisciplinary teamwork and advanced co-design software implementation. This paper presents a structured method for defining an innovative co-design platform for SMEs. System architecture can be defined by applying suitable metrics based on collaborative process characteristics in order to assess functionalities performance of available tools. Benchmarking is based on different levels of collaboration recognised in typical SMEs product development process. Correlation between process metrics, software functionalities and specific collaboration needs is managed by adopting quality function deployment (QFD) techniques
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