Extending the product portfolio with ‘devolved manufacturing’: Methodology and case studies

Current research by the developers of rapid prototyping systems is generally focused on improvements in cost, speed and materials to create truly economic and practical economic rapid manufacturing machines. In addition to being potentially smarter/faster/cheaper replacements for existing manufacturing technologies, the next generation of these machines will provide opportunities not only for the design and fabrication of products without traditional constraints, but also for organizing manufacturing activities in new, innovative and previously undreamt of ways. This paper outlines a novel devolved manufacturing (DM) ‘factory-less’ approach to e-manufacturing, which integrates Mass Customization (MC) concepts, Rapid Manufacturing (RM) technologies and the communication opportunities of the Internet/WWW, describes two case studies of different DM implementations and discusses the limitations and appropriateness of each, and finally, draws some conclusions about the technical, manufacturing and business challenges involved

Rapid manufacturing as a tool for agile manufacturing: applications and implementation perspectives

Manufacturing engineers and technologists around the globe are already well familiar with manufacturing methodologies and systems developments in the last part of the twentieth century. Many are probably also familiar with the current state of Rapid Prototyping (RP) technologies, especially in the areas of concept model making and prototype development. They may not however, be so familiar with the more recent developments of these technologies towards Rapid Manufacturing (RM) and the directions which the applications of RM technologies are taking for agile manufacturing purposes in particular. This paper critically reviews the various technologies currently available, outlines development trends in RM, discusses the approach, application and implementation perspectives by which these RM technologies are applied for increasing agility and responsiveness in manufacturing. Furthermore, the paper describes two case study examples to further illustrate the application scenarios in agile manufacturing before concluding remarks

Integration of decision support systems to improve decision support performance

Decision support system (DSS) is a well-established research and development area. Traditional isolated, stand-alone DSS has been recently facing new challenges. In order to improve the performance of DSS to meet the challenges, research has been actively carried out to develop integrated decision support systems (IDSS). This paper reviews the current research efforts with regard to the development of IDSS. The focus of the paper is on the integration aspect for IDSS through multiple perspectives, and the technologies that support this integration. More than 100 papers and software systems are discussed. Current research efforts and the development status of IDSS are explained, compared and classified. In addition, future trends and challenges in integration are outlined. The paper concludes that by addressing integration, better support will be provided to decision makers, with the expectation of both better decisions and improved decision making processes

SMEs and virtual R&D teams: a motive channel for relationship between SMEs

In today?s dynamic marketplace, manufacturing companies are under strong pressure to introduce new products for long-term survival with their competitors. Nevertheless, every company cannot cope up progressively or immediately with the market requirements due to knowledge dynamics being experienced in the competitive milieu. Increased competition and reduced product life cycles put force upon companies to develop new products faster. In response to these pressing needs, there should be some new approach compatible in flexible circumstances. This paper presents a solution based on the popular Stage-Gate system, which is closely linked with virtual team approach. Virtual teams can provide a platform to advance the knowledge-base in a company and thus to reduce time-to-market. This article introduces conceptual product development architecture under a virtual team umbrella. The paper describes all the major aspects of new product development (NPD), NPD process and its relationship with virtual teams, Stage-Gate system finally presents a modified Stage-Gate system to cope up with the changing needs. It also provides the guidelines for the successful implementation of virtual teams in new product development

Integrated product relationships management : a model to enable concurrent product design and assembly sequence planning

The paper describes a novel approach to product relationships management in the context of concurrent engineering and product lifecycle management (PLM). Current industrial practices in product data management and manufacturing process management systems require better efficiency, flexibility, and sensitivity in managing product information at various levels of abstraction throughout its lifecycle. The aim of the proposed work is to manage vital yet complex and inherent product relationship information to enable concurrent product design and assembly sequence planning. Indeed, the definition of the product with its assembly sequence requires the management and the understanding of the numerous product relationships, ensuring consistency between the product and its components. This main objective stresses the relational design paradigm by focusing on product relationships along its lifecycle. This paper gives the detailed description of the background and models which highlight the need for a more efficient PLM approach. The proposed theoretical approach is then described in detail. A separate paper will focus on the implementation of the proposed approach in a PLM-based application, and an in-depth case study to evaluate the implementation of the novel approach will also be given

Survey on Additive Manufacturing, Cloud 3D Printing and Services

Cloud Manufacturing (CM) is the concept of using manufacturing resources in a service oriented way over the Internet. Recent developments in Additive Manufacturing (AM) are making it possible to utilise resources ad-hoc as replacement for traditional manufacturing resources in case of spontaneous problems in the established manufacturing processes. In order to be of use in these scenarios the AM resources must adhere to a strict principle of transparency and service composition in adherence to the Cloud Computing (CC) paradigm. With this review we provide an overview over CM, AM and relevant domains as well as present the historical development of scientific research in these fields, starting from 2002. Part of this work is also a meta-review on the domain to further detail its development and structure

EU-China collaboration in design: research in Web-enabled collaborative design supported by the Asia-Link and Asia IT&C projects

The research of Web-enabled collaboration in total design supported by the European Union's Asia Link project [1] and Asia IT&C project is reported in this paper. The two projects both aim at enhancing research collaboration between the EU and China. The Virtual Research Institute (VRI) is described first, which is the platform for the collaboration for the Asia Link project and is established by utilizing the advanced Web techniques; and then, the framework for the collaboration and the Web techniques involved in the research are presented which represent the major research of the Asia IT&C project. The effective collaboration between the project partners and the impacts of the project outcome on the partnership are also discussed

Including design in e-manufacturing

This paper reviews major issues in the implementation of e-manufacturing, particularly the design aspects. It will examine recent progress, drawing out particular issues that are being addressed. Use will be made of the work by the author and colleagues to devise rule-based design and Internet-based control of machines to illustrate how these developments affect the integrated e-manufacturing environment. A dynamic Simulink model of the way e-manufacture is affected by overall design delays is used to evaluate general solutions for partial and complete e-based companies. These models show how changing to improved designs reduces WI