The paper describes a concept for securing the geometry in flexible production based on robot assisted framing. This uses the robot(s) as an active device during change-over between product variants and it is assumed that product variants can be produced in any mixed order. The case under study is cabs for trucks which in traditional production require large and heavy equipment which is above the payload of any robot. The idea within this study is to use carbon fibre composites in the fixtures in order to reduce the weight and through this make it possible to use the robots in assisting the framing process. The current work involves a generalization of the principle both considering the design of the fixtures with respect to issues such as materials properties and design principles, and design of the production system.

The findings from a survey in industry and from an extensive literature survey revealed the need for the development of an integrated process model for computer-based design analysis (CBDA) facilitating the interactions in the engineering design process in mechanical engineering on an operational level. CBDA is here confined to the utilization of advanced computational methods and tools from computer aided engineering (CAE), such as computational structural mechanics (CSM), computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and multi-body systems (MBS). In order to facilitate integration to the multitude of engineering design process models in industrial practice, including overall processes such as product innovation and product development, the process model needs to be adaptive and generic. Generic should here be interpreted as not being dependent on any specific type of product, engineering design process, or on any specific type of product innovation and/or product development process models utilized by an enterprise. Resulting from synthesis processes based on the findings from surveys and experiences gained from design analysis projects in industrial practice, the generic design analysis process (GDA) model was developed. The application of the GDA process model is exemplified by four examples, which have been utilized for validation of the process model.

The following thesis is executed in collaboration with m4soultions AB, Halmstad, and Volvo Buses AB, Gothenburg.

Volvo Buses wishes to lower the production cost of their air intake grills. To achieve this an instruction have been created to provide the upcoming work to optimize the air intake grill with information and guidance.

This project, which is done in collaboration with the bachelor thesis Instruction for optimization of air intake grill by Hung & Bodin (2011), provides this instruction with CAD and computational support.

The achieved result includes plans and analysis of fluid simulations done for the two types of air intake grills that are used by Volvo today. Based on this analysis a proposal for improvements is presented for upcoming fluid simulations.

To simplify the process of creating CAD-models for air intake grills a CAD-support was created in the program Catia V5. In this the user can by preforming a serial of simple steps create an air intake grill. These models can later on be used for different computer aided computations.

Computer-based design analysis is nowadays a common activity in most development projects. Used for design evaluation, verification, validation, or as a support for design exploration, it fulfils an important support function for the engineering designer, thus making it essential to have an operationally efficient and effective integration between both the engineering design and design analysis activities in the overall development project. In this area, most works are focusing on software (mainly CAD/CAE) integration, but not on the integration between computer-based design analysis and engineering design at the process level or on the collaboration between the engineering designer and the design analyst. This paper presents a review of the literature on that specific topic, namely the integration of the computer-based design analysis activity in the engineering design process. Different research topics are identified and elaborated upon: integration in general process models; recommendations for the different analysis steps; analysis early in the engineering design process; integration of design analysis in the engineering designer's work; alternative usages of design analysis in the engineering design process; and others, such as recommending guidelines instead of process models, quality assurance aspects, education, and implementation issues. Some neglected aspects were also identified. Among others, there is a lack of research into the so-called technology development (development of design analysis procedures and guidelines), and a need for emphasis on uncertainties, both coupled with the design analysis activity.

The need for dedicated fixtures for flexible manufacturing systems is increasing, as dedicated fixtures are lighter, more compact and, more accurate than flexible fixtures. The main challenges are that parts and processes are more and more complex, which requires designing novel or complex dedicated fixtures, and that, for one given flexible fixture to be replaced, several variants of such dedicated fixtures must be designed to hold a variety of individual parts, without imposing increased costs and delays. The systematic fixture design method and computer-aided design fixture system (CAFDS) developed and applied for the presented industrial case—novel design of lightweight (carbon fibre composite) robot grippers—is a possible approach to address these issues.

This technical report is part of the work that is performed under a MERA project, L-FAM II. Between 2006 and 2008 this was a part of a research project between Volvo AB, VINNOVA, Flex Prop AB, Halmstad University and Lund University. L-FAM II was the name of the project and it was to help the industry to facilitate flexible lifting aids for their chassis-building. Criterion is an important part in this project since some of those controls with the accuracy of the finished product will receive. This accuracy is reflected immediately when the product goes into production where it must secure the geometry of products for the welding of body components and cabins.

In this project, carbon fiber materials have been an important part. The advantage of carbon fiber is its low weight in relation to its stiffness. The cost of the material is not in its favor.

The lifting devices that means here are constructed based on these criteria and are already in production. The system has been named NBT2 and is a patented solution in which ABB is the owner of the patent. The patent describes the method and process of how NBT2 is constructed and are described more in paten document No. WO 01/94191 A1.

20 different criteria have been developed which have also been approved by the project stakeholders. A survey was done early in the project where we consulted a number of people who have good insight into the product. The criteria are only part of the work of what WP1 will perform where the goal is a completed computer-based design systems. The report includes a description of what this computer based design system will perform. The various digital tools and utilities that will be used are explained in the report.

There are still information missing from the rest of the WP inside the project which has force Wp1 to perform a series of tensile tests where the goal is to find a template for how to use materials from product geometric design. The goal is that this computer-based design system should be ready in late 2010.

The current trend in industry to encourage engineering designers to take an active part in the analysis of their own design solutions is apparent in many companies today, domestically as well as abroad.

From a research project with the objective to develop a computer-based design system for the design of lightweight grippers, one of the major difficulties was to overcome the system users’ lack of knowledge and experience in the design of lightweight structures and Computer-Based Design Analysis (CBDA). CBDA here refers to the use of analysis tools such as Finite Element Analysis (FEA) and computer-based structural optimization. In order to handle these difficulties, the author introduced the use of templates. In the given context, a template refers to an especially preformatted code, which contains the implemented information/knowledge necessary to perform a specific task on an operational level. It should be noted that the use of templates as a means of support in performing a specific design or analysis task is not a new phenomenon in industrial practice. Inspired by the opportunities provided by the template approach, the main objective set out for the thesis project was to facilitate the active participation of the engineering designers in performing CBDA singlehandedly, or in any other organizational setting, by utilizing a Template-Based Design Analysis (TBDA) approach, as an integrated part of their activities within the engineering design process.

The evolutionary research approach for the development of the TBDA approach is based on surveys in Swedish as well as international industry, literature surveys, the development of a Generic Design Analysis (GDA) process model (facilitating integration of the activities between CBDA and engineering design) and a number of demonstrator projects to deepen the insights into TBDA. Note that as the TBDA approach is intended for use in industrial practice, the approach is independent of specific engineering design and product development processes utilized in industry.

The conclusion of the thesis work clearly supports the claim that TBDA is not only a competitive approach to current alternatives in supporting the engineering designers performing CBDA, but also of a complementary nature providing functionality not included in the alternative approaches currently used in industrial practice.

Many product development projects nowadays use computer-aided engineering systems in the analysis of product proposals. It is therefore important to appropriately integrate the analyses activities in the product development process. One important aspect of this integration is how to handle the initiation of the task: identifying the need, planning the task and its monitoring, and communicating it to the analyst. To that end, this paper proposes and illustrates a product development process model that aims to efficiently and effectively prepare a design analysis task.

New and innovative production equipment can be developed by introducing lightweight materials in modern day automotive industry production lines. The properties of these new materials are expected to result in improved ergonomics, energy savings, increased flexibility and more robust equipment, which in the end will result in enhanced productivity. Carbon composite materials are one such alternative that has excellent material properties. These properties are well documented, and the market for carbon composite materials is growing in many areas such as commercial aircrafts, sporting goods and wind turbines. However, when studying the use of carbon composite materials for production equipment in the automotive industry, it was found that there were few, if any, such examples.

This paper focuses on innovative ways of making carbon composite materials available for designing automotive industry production equipment by introducing a design and material concept that combines flexibility, relatively low costs and high functionality. By reducing the weight by 60%, it was obvious that the operators were very positive to the new design. But just as important as the improvement of the ergonomic feature, the combination of low weight and material properties resulted in a more robust design and a more stable process of operation. The two main designs (two versions of the steel-based design were constructed) were developed sequentially, making it difficult to compare development costs since knowledge migrated from one project to the next. In this study, the gripper was manufactured in both carbon composite material and steel. The different designs were compared with reference to design costs, functionality, robustness, product costs and ergonomics. The study clearly shows that the composite material represents a favorable alternative to conventional materials, as the system combines superior properties without significantly increasing the cost of the equipment. This paper describes the approach in detail. Copyright © 2013 by ASME

In their quest for a more efficient and effective utilization of the resources allocated to engineering design projects, and thus to the overall product development project from which the current design task(s) originate, an increasing number of companies allow engineering designers to perform Computer-Based Design Analysis (CBDA) on their own – CBDA is here confined to quantitative analyses using finite element-based structural and thermal analyses, Computational Fluid Dynamics, and Multi-Body Systems. Since all of these tools require a certain level of expertise in order to be successfully utilized in industrial practice, the types of analyses performed by the engineering designers are confined to simple, straightforward ones.

In striving for an increase of the individual engineering designer’s possibilities to actively participate in CBDA in industrial practice, an online survey has been carried out and reported in [1]. The main objective set out for this survey was to give an overview of the current situation in the global industry regarding CBDA-tasks being performed by engineering designers, what positive effects it might present to the industry and how it should be implemented for best result. Resulting from this survey, one new support, Template Based Design Analysis (TBDA), singled out as very promising for future development. TBDA is a support to be used in engineering design analyses based on the utilization of the advanced features provided by high-end Computer Aided Design (CAD)/Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) software in supporting, guiding as well as monitoring the design analysis performed by the engineering designer. It was also found that TBDA was gradually being introduced in some industrial companies.

Since TBDA is still in its infancy, substantial development needs to be invested in it to make it the full-blown support needed in industrial practice. To be able to contribute to the development of TBDA, it is essential to acquire knowledge about how companies, both national and international, are planning to introduce and utilize TBDA in industrial practice.

To that end a new online survey has been carried out, focusing on the introduction and benefits associated with TBDA. Out of a total of 64 respondents, 41 of the these were selected from the previous survey [1] and 23 came from companies known to the authors to utilize CBDA on a regular basis; these 23 were invited to participate in the interviews and as a first step, before carrying out the interviews, all of them were requested to answer the survey. 42 of them, from 17 countries, completed the online-survey. In addition to this survey, 5 Swedish companies, all utilizing CBDA on a regular basis, were participating in qualitative interviews. The main objective was to get an in-depth view on the use of engineering designers performing CBDA as well as an indication on the validity of the responses obtained in the online survey by comparing the results from the interviews and the companies response to the online survey – all companies interviewed answered the online survey in advance before the interviews were carried out.

The introduction of TBDA in an industrial setting has resulted in many advantages, such as shorter lead times, opportunities to generate more concept candidates, and increased collaboration between the engineering designers and the design analysts, all of them contributing to more mature technical solutions. Three different automation levels of TBDA have also been identified and accounted for as well as being exemplified. In the companies in which TBDA has not been implemented, some of the reasons for not doing so are high costs, company policy, and the lack of knowledge and experience on the part of the engineering designer. This paper presents the results both from the new online survey as well as from the interviews. © 2015 by ASME

Traditionally, design analysts are solely responsible for all computer-based design analysis (CBDA). CBDA refers to quantitative design analyses utilizing computational tools in the engineering design and development of technical solutions. There are currently limited insights into and knowledge of tools and methods needed to facilitate the use of CBDA by engineering designers. In order to gather information on this aspect of CBDA, an industry survey has been performed. 77 persons completed the survey (16% affiliated to NAFEMS) open for twelve weeks during October-December, 2014. Around 35% answered that within their companies CBDA is used by engineering designers, and 28% of those who are not currently doing so expect to do so in the future. Linear static analysis is the most frequent type of analysis performed by engineering designers. The benefits put forward by the respondents in favor of involving engineering designers in CBDA are: it allows early evaluation of concept candidates, shortens lead time, frees resources for the analysis department, and reduces costs. 26% of the respondents answered that there is resistance from the analysis department against allowing engineering designers to perform CBDA, 19% within the engineering design department are also against this involvement and 26% answered that there has been no problem associated with this involvement. Even though the engineering designer performs CBDA on his/her own, supervision (56%) and quality assurance of the analysis results (59%) is the responsibility of the design analysts. This is also the case regarding the development of tools and methods to be used by the engineering designers as well as instruction and training of the engineering designers.

This paper presents the development as well as the architecture of a computer-Aided dedicated fixture design system intended to support the design of lightweight (carbon fiber composite) grippers for a major truck company. Lightweight grippers were required due to the increasing production rates in the automotive industry. The current robotic equipment was facing diverse problems during transportation and aligning of the parts, problems related to mass inertia, accuracy and stability. Moreover, the increased demands for truck customization and fast release of new product versions required a computer-based support for the design of the appropriate fixtures. This application is believed to be of interest for fixture research because the design of such complex fixtures is likely to appear more and more often. Specifically, such fixtures are subject to specific requirements that necessitate a systematic requirement elicitation method; they also require extensive conceptual design work as well as careful analysis activity planning. The main steps requisite for the development of the design system are reported: setup planning, fixture planning, conceptual design of the gripper. The architecture, the process and the constituent elements of the design system are also described and illustrated. Copyright © 2012 by ASME.

When developing products, engineering designers often face the problem that their candidate for a technical solution, ranging from a concept to a detailed design, needs to be analyzed by a design analyst before it is approved or rejected and the engineering designer can continue his/her activities within the product development process. If engineering designers have to send every solution candidate to a design analyst, a lot of time and money is lost. To avoid this, some Swedish companies have started to allow their engineering designers to use the analysis capabilities imbedded in modern CAD/CAE software.

          In the literature on product development and on computer based design analysis (CBDA) both processes are fairly well described. However, this cannot be said about the interaction between the two processes. This is a growing issue as it represents core knowledge for developing efficient and effective integration concepts, which in turn can be developed into likewise efficient and effective approaches on how to assist the engineering designer to perform parts of the CBDA process on his/her own. Note that when we refer to CBDA here, this is confined to the use of FEM in the development of products, primarily based on working principles originating from the area of Mechanical Engineering.

          Since we have been working on a process model for the integration between engineering design and design analysis, this has inspired us to utilize findings from these efforts to propose a conceptual model for a design analysis process driven by the engineering designer to be integrated into the product development process.

          The proposed design analysis process model is based on the use of predefined analysis methods or templates. Templates are also utilized for QA (Quality Assurance) and monitoring of the analysis activities. Responsible for the development of the analysis methods and the templates are expert design analysts, who develop these tools within a technology development process. Before allowing the engineering designers access to them, these tools need to be approved by relevant bodies within the industrial enterprise and/or by external sources such as those responsible for certification and risk management.

          In this paper we present the development of the proposed integrated design analysis process model and an industrial case study, which incorporates a non-linear design analysis activity, utilizing the FEM-program Abaqus within the CAD-software Catia V5 and its imbedded optimization module.

Copyright © 2013 by ASME