Enabling Set-based Concurrent Engineering via Physics-based Trade-off Curves

摘要

There is a huge demand on innovative products which forces companies to develop new products. Lean product development is an approach to support new product development. Set-based concurrent engineering (SBCE) is a process of developing a product in a lean environment. SBCE requires a right knowledge environment which represents the physical characteristics and the performance of the product; hence the design team could achieve a robust design and shorten their time-to-market. Trade-off curves are effective tools to provide and visualise this knowledge environment. This paper presents a process of generating trade-off curves based on understanding the physics of the product. The generated physics-based ToCs are used in a research-based industrial case study to enable two key SBCE activities: (1) comparing alternative design solutions and (2) narrowing down the set of design solutions as well as supporting the design team for decision-making and communication between the departments. It is found that ToCs is a useful tool to visualise the physics knowledge of the product and to communicate this knowledge between stakeholders without a need for an extensive engineering background.