A Value-driven Concurrent Approach for Aircraft Design-Manufacturing-Supply Chain

ABSTRACTThe research activity proposed in this paper is framed within the context of the concurrent engineering applied to the complex aeronautical system development. The main objective is to extend the aircraft design parameters with those of manufacturing and supply chain including, among others, logistics aspects, quality management, risk production, resources and materials availability. This surely complicates the design problem due to an enlargement of the alternatives populating the solutions tradespace. However, it provides a great opportunity to gain agility, variety and competitive advantages in the nowadays global market. The formulation and implementation of the new value-driven methodology, here-proposed, offers advantageous benefits to the decision-maker, as also highlighted by the aeronautical application case addressed in this paper

Value-driven Model-Based Optimization coupling Design-Manufacturing-Supply Chain in the Early Stages of Aircraft Development: Strategy and Preliminary Results

A value-driven model-based approach concurrently coupling design, manufacturing and supply chain in the early development stage of aircraft design has been already developed within the European project AGILE4.0. The benefits of using this methodology have been highlighted by the aeronautical application case focused on the design, manufacturing and supply chain of an horizontal tail plane. Find a Pareto-front simultaneously optimizing the design, manufacturing and supply chain domains is the next challenge to face. The research activity proposed in this paper represents the first step of this ambitious goal, whose complexity relays in the huge number of variables characterizing each domain. Particularly, the objective is to identify the optimization strategy to use for the global optimization campaign by exploring, first, simple and representative MDO problems related to the supply chain domain. In the first MDO problem, a 4-objective optimization is executed and then the optimized attributes are aggregated in a value. In the second MDO problem instead, attributes are first aggregated in a value and then a bi-objective value-cost optimization is executed. Thus, two optimization strategies are investigated, but both lead to the value-cost Pareto-front investigation. The application case addressed in this research activity provide interesting insights for the value-driven optimization strategy to use for future-complex optimization problems involving design, manufacturing and supply chain domains

Value-driven System Engineering Approach addressing Manufacturing, Supply-chain and Aircraft Design in the Decision-Making Process

In the last decades, some studies have highlighted that the integration of the product design and supply chain management leads to an increase of the profitability and efficiency of companies. However, considering manufacturing, supply chain and overall aircraft design variables in the early design phase increases the size of the solutions tradespace and thus the complexity in performing the decision-making process. This paper, follow-up of previous research activities addressed within the European project AGILE4.0, demonstrates how to leverage the value-model theory to simplify the decision-process when multiple criteria are accounted in the design phase

A Value-driven Quantitative Framework coupling aircraft design, manufacturing and supply chain by leveraging the AGILE4.0 MBSE-MDO Framework

The design of future innovative, sustainable and circular aircraft configurations arises the necessity to extend the branches of the aeronautical research to the entire aircraft life-cycle, from the design to the production, to the disposal after the end of the system activity. In this frame, within the EU-funded H2020 AGILE 4.0 project, the concurrent coupling of the three domains of product design, manufacturing and supply chain has been addressed by levering Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) and Multidisciplinary Design and Optimization (MDO) technologies The MBSE models and the MDO preliminary results related to the three-dimensional approach applied to a specific aircraft component, that is the horizontal tail plane, are addressed in this research activity and presented in the paper

Value-driven Optimization Campaign Addressing Manufacturing, Supply Chain and Overall Aircraft Design Domains in the Early Development Stage

In the last decades, several studies demonstrate how the integration of manufacturing and supply-chain in the early design phase brings significant advantages to industries. Within the European Project (AGILE 4.0, 2022), a value-driven methodology concurrently coupling design, manufacturing and supply chain has been developed. This study aims at addressing a new challenge: the identification of non-dominated solutions simultaneously accounting for manufacturing, design and supply chain variables. For this purpose, an optimization design campaign has been addressed in this research activity and the main results are-here presented

A Model-Based Approach to Trade-Space Evaluation Coupling Design-Manufacturing-Supply Chain in the Early Stages of Aircraft Development

Product design and supply chain management are research domains extensively explored in literature. In the last decades, many studies have highlighted that the integration of these two main domains is a key competence for manufacturing companies to increase profitability and efficiency. However most of these studies optimize the supply chain after freezing the design of the product, still considering the supply chain as the following step in product design. This paper presents a value-driven model-based approach that concurrently links product design to supply chain in the frame of aerospace system design. The modelling of the information flow exchanged between three domains - Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Overall Aircraft Design – represents the first challenge addressed in this paper. Support decision makers in finding the best alternative in a tradespace of proposed solutions, based on measures coming from multiple domains, is the key role of the value model usage. Hence, the challenge of formalizing and modeling the selection criteria in accordance with the decision makers’ expectations. The main output is the “utility-cost” trade-space in which the global design solution combines manufacturing and aircraft performance with the main aspects of the supply chain. Case studies set-up with the support of the industrial partners demonstrate the strengths of this methodology, the possible applications and improvements. According to the industrial partners, this method could represent a key support tool that aerospace companies might use during the early stages of aircraft development when strategic decisions have to be taken