Developing a DFX Course Using Structured Methodologies

Author(s):  
Mark V. Martin ◽  
Kosuke Ishii

Abstract As part of the curriculum for a manufacturing program at Stanford, a Ph.D.-level course covering life-cycle design (also referred to as design for “X”) issues is required to be taken by students in the program. As a Ph.D. candidate doing research in this area, the first author (Martin) was asked to develop and teach this course. This paper discusses some of the issues in creating a new course and describes the use of structured methodologies (affinity diagrams, customer surveys, benchmarking, concept generation, and concept selection) in developing the course. Our goal in this paper is threefold: 1) to give an example of the use of structured methodologies in developing a course, 2) to show a sample curriculum for a dfX course, and 3) to present a framework describing course development.

1995 ◽  
Vol 117 (B) ◽  
pp. 42-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Ishii

Life-cycle engineering seeks to incorporate various product life-cycle values into the early stages of design. These values include functional performance, manufacturability, serviceability, and environmental impact. We start with a survey of life-cycle engineering research focusing on methodologies and tools. Further, the paper addresses critical research issues in life-cycle design tools: design representation and measures for life-cycle evaluation. The paper describes our design representation scheme based on a semantic network that is effective for evaluating the structural layout. Evaluation measures for serviceability and recyclability illustrate the practical use of these representation schemes.


Author(s):  
YASUSHI UMEDA ◽  
AKIRA NONOMURA ◽  
TETSUO TOMIYAMA

Environmental issues require a new manufacturing paradigm because the current mass production and mass consumption paradigm inevitably cause them. We have already proposed a new manufacturing paradigm called the “Post Mass Production Paradigm (PMPP)” that advocates sustainable production by decoupling economic growth from material and energy consumption. To realize PMPP, appropriate planning of a product life cycle (design of life cycle) is indispensable in addition to the traditional environmental conscious design methodologies. For supporting the design of a life cycle, this paper proposes a life-cycle simulation system that consists of a life-cycle simulator, an optimizer, a model editor, and knowledge bases. The simulation system evaluates product life cycles from an integrated view of environmental consciousness and economic profitability and optimizes the life cycles. A case study with the simulation system illustrates that the environmental impacts can be reduced drastically without decreasing corporate profits by appropriately combining maintenance, reuse and recycling, and by taking into consideration that optimized modular structures differ according to life-cycle options.


Author(s):  
Matt R. Bohm ◽  
Karl R. Haapala ◽  
Kerry Poppa ◽  
Robert B. Stone ◽  
Irem Y. Tumer

This paper describes efforts taken to further transition life cycle analysis techniques from the latter, more detailed phases of design, to the early-on conceptual phase of product development. By using modern design methodologies such as automated concept generation and an archive of product design knowledge, known as the Design Repository, virtual concepts are created and specified. Streamlined life cycle analysis techniques are then used to determine the environmental impacts of the virtual concepts. As a means to benchmark the virtual results, analogous real-life products that have functional and component similarities are identified. The identified products are then scrutinized to determine their material composition and manufacturing attributes in order to perform an additional round of life cycle analysis for the actual products. The results of this research show that enough information exists within the conceptual phase of design (utilizing the Design Repository) to reasonably predict the relative environmental impacts of actual products based on virtual concepts.


Author(s):  
Nicholas J. Yannoulakis ◽  
Sanjay B. Joshi ◽  
Richard A. Wysk

Abstract The increasing application of CAE has lead to the evolution of Concurrent Engineering — a philosophy that prescribes simultaneous consideration of the life-cycle design issues of a product. The Concurrent Engineering (CE) systems that have been developed so far have relied on knowledge bases and qualitative evaluations of a part’s manufacturability for feedback to the design engineer. This paper describes a method for developing quantitative indicators of manufacturability. Feature-based design and estimation of machining parameters are used for ascertaining a part’s manufacturing requirements. These requirements are then combined into indices which lead the designer to features that must be redesigned for improved manufacturability. This method is illustrated on a system for rotational machined parts: the Manufacturability Evaluation and Improvement System (MEIS).


Author(s):  
Patrick Di Marco ◽  
Charles F. Eubanks ◽  
Kos Ishii

Abstract This paper describes a method for evaluating the compatibility of a product design with respect to end-of-life product retirement issues, particularly recyclability. Designers can affect the ease of recycling in two major areas: 1) ease of disassembly, and 2) material selection for compatibility with recycling methods. The proposed method, called “clumping,” involves specification of the level of disassembly and the compatibility analysis of each remaining clump with the design’s post-life intent; i.e., reuse, remanufacturing, recycling, or disposal. The method uses qualitative knowledge to assign a normalized measure of compatibility to each clump. An empirical cost function maps the measure to an estimated cost to reprocess the product. The method is an integral part of our life-cycle design computer tool that effectively guides engineers to an environmentally responsible product design. A refrigerator in-door ice dispenser serves as an illustrative example.


Author(s):  
Serena Gagliardi ◽  
Xiong Li ◽  
Matteo Zoppi ◽  
Luis de Leonardo ◽  
Rezia Molfino

Driven by the trend of life-cycle design and sustainable production, an innovative project called self-reconfigurable intelligent swarm fixtures (SwarmItFIX) funded by the European Commission is being developed. The project investigates the application of robotic multi agent fixtures for the support of automotive and airplane body panels during their manufacturing and assembly processes. This paper addresses the exploration and development of the adaptable heads, which are the end-effector of the intelligent fixture. The head is able to adapt to the shape of the workpiece and freeze its shape after adaptation to provide stable support. Two kinds of head designs are discussed. The first design uses the pseudo-phase-change properties of a volume of bulk grains (metal sand) which can be clustered using a hydrostatic pressure to conform to a given workpiece shape. The second design investigated uses phase-change magneto-rheological (MR) fluid in a network of channels to allow and block the motion of a crown of miniature pistons. The initial experiments are carried out and their results show the effectiveness of the design.


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