Platform thinking has been the subject of investigation and deployment in many projects in both academia and industry. Most contributions involve the restructuring of product programs, and only a few support front-end development of a new platform in parallel with technology development. This contribution deals with the development of product platforms in front-end projects and introduces a modeling tool: the Conceptual Product Platform model. State of the art within platform modeling forms the base of a modeling formalism for a Conceptual Product Platform model. The modeling formalism is explored through an example and applied in a case in which the Conceptual Product Platform model has supported the front-end development of a platform for an electro-active polymer technology. The case describes the contents of the model and how its application supported the development work in the project. The conclusion is that the Conceptual Product Platform model supports stakeholders in achieving an overview of the development tasks and communicating these across multidisciplinary development teams, as well as making decisions on the contents of the platform and providing a link between technical solutions and market requirements.
This article suggests a framework for modeling a Production System Architecture (PSA) in the early phases of product development. The challenge in these phases is that the products to be produced are not completely defined and yet decisions need to be made early in the process on what investments are needed and appropriate to enable determination of obtainable product quality.In order to meet this challenge, it is suggested that a visual modeling framework be adopted that clarifies which product and production features are known at a specific time of the project and which features will be worked on-leading to an improved basis for prioritizing activities in the project.Requirements for the contents of the framework are presented and literature on production and system models is reviewed. The PSA modeling framework is founded on methods and approaches in literature and adjusted to fit the modeling requirements of a PSA at an early phase of development. The PSA models capture and describe the structure, capabilities and expansions of the PSA under development.The PSA modeling framework is tested in a case study and the results indicate that the modeling process facilitates identification of critical factors of the PSA, that the PSA models capture and describe the structure, capabilities, and expansions of a PSA under development, and that the PSA models can facilitate dialogue on the PSA between heterogeneous stakeholder groups. Draft page 2Keywords: Production modeling, system modeling, production architecture, production system architecture, production modeling, product architecture, concurrent engineering. IntroductionWhen developing a Production System Architecture (PSA), methods exist for describing the product architecture [1][2][3]; however, when developing a product architecture in parallel with developing new products during technology development, the definition of the products and the production system that existing approaches in literature rely on, are not complete.To support the development of the production system despite the incomplete definition of both the products and the production system, two approaches may be valuable: (i) Graphically modelling the incompletely defined PSA [4]. (ii) Developing the PSA concurrently with the development of the product architecture that will define the products to be produced by the PSA [5][6][7][8]. To accomplish this, however, we need a modelling approach which clearly shows which parts of the product and production system architecture have been defined and stabilized, and which parts are still under development.Concurrent development of product architecture and a PSA during technology development is illustrated in Figure 1. The production task definition [9] in the early phases includes external factors leading to crucial functional requirements to the production system. In technology developmentcovering Technology Readiness Levels 1-5 [10]-the product design, product performance, required and obtainable product quality, production processes, and produ...
Companies that wish to include novel technology in the product portfolio may need to test and evaluate the technology with the use of prototypes to learn its benefits. Without clear knowledge of the benefits of the technology to the products in the portfolio, in the form of increased performance, added functions, or material savings, the prototype development can be hard to manage. In this article, two contributions are made. The first adds to the vocabulary of prototyping, defining technology prototype, a prototype used for testing a novel technology in the context of an existing product. The second is a tool to model and manage technology prototypes: the Technology Prototype Product Architecture Tool (TePPAT). The TePPAT is a product architecture tool with three main sections: Purpose, Concept, and Architecture. The TePPAT was tested in four industry cases, all part of a public–private partnership project to support the development of technology prototypes using electro-active polymer transducer technology. The findings showed that the TePPAT supported the development teams in the four cases. It is concluded that the TePPAT can support multidisciplinary development teams in modeling and managing technology prototypes and can be correlated with improvements in the team collaboration, communication, and development performance.
EAP technology has the potential to be used in a wide range of applications. This poses the challenge to the EAP component manufacturers to develop components for a wide variety of products. Danfoss Polypower A/S is developing an EAP technology platform, which can form the basis for a variety of EAP technology products while keeping complexity under control. High level product architecture has been developed for the mechanical part of EAP transducers, as the foundation for platform development.A generic description of an EAP transducer forms the core of the high level product architecture. This description breaks down the EAP transducer into organs that perform the functions that may be present in an EAP transducer. A physical instance of an EAP transducer contains a combination of the organs needed to fulfill the task of actuator, sensor, and generation. Alternative principles for each organ allow the function of the EAP transducers to be changed, by basing the EAP transducers on a different combination of organ alternatives.A model providing an overview of the high level product architecture has been developed to support daily development and cooperation across development teams.The platform approach has resulted in the first version of an EAP technology platform, on which multiple EAP products can be based. The contents of the platform have been the result of multi-disciplinary development work at Danfoss PolyPower, as well as collaboration with potential customers and research institutions. Initial results from applying the platform on demonstrator design for potential applications are promising. The scope of the article does not include technical details.
Electroactive Polymer (EAP) has gained increasing focus, in research communities, in last two decades. Research within the field of EAP has, so far, been mainly focused on material improvements, characterization, modeling and developing demonstrators. As the EAP technology matures, the need for a new area of research namely product development emerges. Product development can be based on an isolated design and production for a single product or platform design where a product family is developed. In platform design the families of products exploits commonality of platform modules while satisfying a variety of different market segments. Platform based approach has the primary benefit of being cost efficient and short lead time to market when new products emerges. Products development based on EAP technology is challenging both technologically as well as from production and processing point of view. Both the technological and processing challenges need to be addressed before a successful implementation of EAP technology into products. Based on this need Danfoss PolyPower A/S has, in 2011, launched a EAP platform project in collaboration with three Danish universities and three commercial organizations. The aim of the project is to develop platform based designs and product family for the EAP components to be used in variety of applications. This paper presents the structure of the platform project as a whole and specifically the platform based designs of EAP transducers. The underlying technologies, essential for EAP transducers, are also presented. Conceptual design and solution for the concepts are presented as well.
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