The Changing Role of FEA in the Product Development Process

Author(s):  
Suchit Jain

In recent years, the benefits of using FEA or design analysis as part of conceptual design have become apparent. The direct involvement of design engineers in analyzing their own designs allows for quick turnaround times and ensures that design modifications indicated by analysis results are promptly implemented in the design progress. Used properly, it yields trustworthy results that are already driving efficiencies and cost savings in industries ranging from consumer goods to automotive. This paper will outline the advances in technology which have made this change possible.

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-93
Author(s):  
Anna Svirina ◽  
Ekaterina Polosukhina

AbstractResearch purpose. The purpose of this study is to analyse the influence of industrial enterprises’ employees’ motivation to innovate on the results of innovation process and the quality of innovative products market performance. The need for such an assessment was inspired by the lack of understanding the role of motivation to innovate in the quality and success of innovation development process.Design/Methodology/Approach. To achieve this goal, the authors conducted a survey distributed to the industrial enterprise employees. The study was based on the paper-and-pencil survey that was distributed to 250 people involved in innovation development process at Russian industrial enterprises; 150 questionnaires were received back and considered valid for the study. The results were evaluated by means of statistical analysis performed by means of SPSS Statistics software.Findings. The results support the intuitive proposition that motivation to innovate influences the quality of new product development process: idea generation, market study, product development, pre-commercial financial analysis and commercialisation quality are influenced by motivation to innovate – which is in line with the literature (Cooper, 2013). At the same time, probability on new product development in the company, the quality of initial screening, preliminary technical analysis, preliminary production analysis and in-house product testing do not correlate with employee motivation to innovate. Same is true for the new product performance: we observed no correlation between the motivation to innovate and the market success, whereas correlation was revealed between the innovative motivation and the level of market competition for the new product; however, the graphical analysis allowed to estimate that in case employees with high motivation to innovate are absent in the company, it is very unlikely that the new product would be successful.Originality/Value/Practical implications. The study was based on a questionnaire that was used for relevant purposes in different countries in order to make cross-country comparison on the innovation development process and the role of motivation to innovate. It allowed to indicate the specific features of organisational culture that are outlined in the Russian management literature: in majority of cases, bottom-level innovative initiatives were not supported by the management (Prigozhin, 2007), and hence, motivation to innovate cannot be revealed by employees at every stage of the new product development process. Another reason for somewhat controversial findings of this study was the difference between organisational cultures of the analysed manufacturing enterprises, which was not evaluated in this article.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 3486 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabio Neves Puglieri ◽  
Aldo Roberto Ometto ◽  
Rodrigo Salvador ◽  
Murillo Vetroni Barros ◽  
Cassiano Moro Piekarski ◽  
...  

Ecodesign consists of integrating environmental considerations into the product development process by means of practices that involve the use of methods, techniques, tools, and guidelines. However, many published practices do not incorporate important environmental issues, often resulting in a product development process that is ineffective from an ecodesign standpoint. This paper’s aim is threefold: (i) Identifying environmental and operational criteria and determining weights to these criteria; (ii) assessing and selecting quality function deployment (QFD)-based ecodesign methods using environmental and operational criteria, and (iii) analyzing the practitioners’ perception of the most suitable QFD-based method identified by the second aim. To that end, a comprehensive literature review of ecodesign practices based on QFD and its requirements was carried out, and a survey was conducted with environmental science and product development experts, whose answers enabled the prioritization of the characteristics those practices must meet from environmental and operational standpoints. Thereafter, a workshop was carried out with design engineers from an automotive company in Brazil. This study’s findings indicate that many QFD-based ecodesign methods fail to consider the life cycle perspective, do not assess environmental impacts, and have not been tested before being published. Another finding from industry designers suggests that ecodesign methods should be easy to use and not time-consuming.


Author(s):  
Sudeshna Roy ◽  
Pranab K. Dan ◽  
Nipu Modak

The necessity of new product development (NPD) in the global competition is a well-established fact. Imperativeness of research and development (R&D) practices and product development process (PDP) in NPD are inevitable. In case of R&D practices, fuzzy-front-end (FFE) activities and improvisation are the two sub-factors which are not directly related to R&D but motivate it indirectly with their actions. For PDP, modular product development (MPD) and market analysis are recognized as the factors directly influencing the PDP of the firm for NPD success. This chapter considers product quality and technological developments as performance attributes for development of comprehensive framework by structural equation modeling (SEM) approach. Primary data from 263 experts of Indian manufacturing industries has been collected for analysis purpose. This empirical research portrays the role of R&D practices along with its indirectly related success factors for effectively controlling PDP along with its sub-factors for developing high quality products with technological developments.


Author(s):  
Will Pattison

Abstract Education in design has become a major priority in modern mechanical engineering curriculums. In particular, design education has focused on using good design methodology to produce optimum solutions, promote innovation, and encourage creativity in the engineer. There are other facets of the design engineer’s position that should also be emphasized at the education level. First, design engineers must be aware of the manufacturing processes that will be used to turn their concepts into working solutions. Second, they must understand how prototypes of those solutions fit into the overall product development process, and how new technologies such as Rapid Prototyping can enhance it. Finally, they must be able to effectively communicate their design intent, both graphically, verbally, and in writing, at all stages of the product development process. These three essential engineering skills, with special emphasis given to the last two and their place in design education, are covered in this paper.


Author(s):  
G Q Huang ◽  
K L Mak

Shortcomings of sequential engineering and advantages of concurrent engineering in product development have become better understood. However, the transformation from a sequential engineering environment to a concurrent engineering environment remains challenging. A dynamic transformation approach by combining the focused application of ‘design for X’ (DFX) with the extensive use of business process re-engineering (BPR) is discussed in this paper. The main role of DFX is to provide the drive, focus, vision and concurrence necessary for BPR, while the main role of BPR is to institutionalize good practice and make improvement permanent and continuous.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document