Analysis of common function models for mechatronic products

摘要

The functional model is one of the key development foundations to understand, anticipate and reflect products and technical systems, since the interplay of functions directly reflect the intended and their expected behaviors. Furthermore, with the help of functions, it is possible to implicitly describe a significant portion of the characteristics of the product under development. The development of a functional structure requires significant knowledge and experience; often engineers have a difficult task to describe the functionality of a product in a solution neutral form. During such development phases, questions arise about the possibility of exchanging functions between products, which is a nontrivial task. To explore the nature of exchanging functions, the authors conducted research about functional flows of two complex mechatronic products. Functional flows have shown the ability to establish relationships between functions of two products. The analysis reveals aspects of functional modeling in terms of the hierarchy of functions and their interrelationships. The paper considers an approach to build a common functional model, determining the structure of functional decomposition and determining the functional flow of a product. A clear decomposition and structure of product functions show the possibility of establishing links between products, in order to exchange functions. The constructed concept of the common functional model demonstrates its theoretical and practical use as a framework for building the individual functionality of a new product. This paper concludes with an outlook to future steps and directions to explore the potential for function exchanging.