This paper presents a methodology to be applied in the earliest stages of conceptual design, which attempts to map an underdefined product specification to a production and supply environment that also has an incomplete definition. This kind of problem is typified by the space industry, which is dominated by complex assemblies and the requirement for mass customisation. For many products within a particular industry it is usually possible to view the design at a high level or structural level - e.g. envelope dimensions, number or size of key components and key features. From this abstract specification, it is possible to interrogate previous process plans (utilising corporate knowledge and historical data), to establish structure-based aggregate models for new product development. By inferring the manufacturing implications of any redesign, using simple component-based algorithms on the "structural" manufacturing data, synthesised process plans can be created. The key outputs from these are quantification of the impact of design changes on product cost and delivery impacting on lead-time (C & D). This work extends the research of CAPABLE space, a distributed aggregate process planning system developed within the Design & Manufacturing Research Group at Durham, enabling an enterprise-wide planning optimisation framework.
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