analysis of the requirements of an early life cycle cost estimation tool an industrial survey

Abstract Cost estimation is a critical issue for many companies concerning both offers generation and company strategic evaluations. In this paper, a framework for early cost estimation has been proposed to some firms for an assessment of its main features. The aim of the industrial survey is to promote a discussion on the needs and the expectations regarding cost estimation in order to obtain feedbacks to be addresses in the implementation of a software tool. Gather data has led to a ranking of the main characteristics the tool should have

Design principles of reconfigurable machines

Abstract Reconfigurable machines form a new class of machines that are designed around a specific part family of products and allow rapid change in their structure. They are designed to allow changes in machine configuration according to changes in production requirements. The reconfiguration may be related to changes in machine functionality or its scalability, i.e., the change in production volumes or speed of operation. Reconfigurable machines represent a new class of machines that bridges the gap between the high flexibility and high cost of totally flexible machines and the low flexibility and low cost of fully dedicated machines. The design principles of reconfigurable machines follow a similar philosophy, which was derived for reconfigurable manufacturing systems, and present an approach for the design of machines to be used mainly in high-volume production lines. This paper introduces design principles for reconfigurable machines, which may be applied in different fields of manufacturing. Based on these design principles, three types of reconfigurable machines were designed for various types of production operations such as: machining, inspection and assembly. This paper shows how the suggested design principles were utilized in the design of several full-scale machine prototypes and tested experimentally

Internet-enabled fixture design system using case-based reasoning technology

Master'sMASTER OF ENGINEERIN