A Rule-Based System to Promote Design for Manufacturing and Assembly in the Development of Welded Structure: Method and Tool Proposition

Abstract

Welding is a consolidated technology used to manufacture/assemble large products and structures. Currently, welding design issues are tackled downstream of the 3D modeling, lacking concurrent development of design and manufacturing engineering activities. This study aims to define a method to formalize welding knowledge that can be reused as a base for the development of an engineering design platform, applying design for assembly method to assure product manufacturability and welding operations (design for welding (DFW)). The method of ontology (rule-based system) is used to translate tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge, while geometrical feature recognition with parametric modeling is adopted to couple geometrical information with the identification of welding issues. Results show how, within the design phase, manufacturing issues related to the welding operations can be identified and fixed. Two metal structures (a jack adapter of a heavy-duty prop and a lateral frame of a bracket structure) fabricated with arc welding processes were used as case studies and the following benefits were highlighted: (i) anticipation of welding issues related to the product geometry and (ii) reduction of effort and time required for the design review. In conclusion, this research moves forward toward the direction of concurrent engineering, closing the gap between design and manufacturing.

Human-centred design in industry 4.0: case study review and opportunities for future research

“…The similarity among these concepts is a multi-objective approach that aims at designing products and/or services towards human well-being while ensuring sustainable development. In a broader sense, this multi-objective approach addresses not only human factors and ergonomics towards human diversity, but also design for manufacturability: the design process must be efficient; the manufacturing processes must be capable, proactive, and economic (Anderson, 2014 ; Favi et al, 2021 ; Sinclair, 1992 ). This perspective must also take the approach of life-cycle management that aims at managing the activities of products and/or services across the life cycle towards sustainability, such as life-cycle cost analysis for economics (Aurich et al, 2007 ; Jasiulewicz-Kaczmarek et al, 2021 ; Kambanou, 2020 ).…”

“…The phenomenon of Industry 4.0 reflects contemporary design contexts that frequently contain complex interdependencies of human and non-human actors—internet of thing (IoT) devices, digital and physical environments—shaping the framework of human roles and socio-technical systems (Cimini et al, 2020 ; Coulton & Lindley, 2019 ; Jwo et al, 2021 ; Kong et al, 2019 ; Kymäläinen et al, 2017 ). However, this does not mean that the existing concepts of design—for example, design for manufacturing and assembly (Favi et al, 2021 ), or a traditional design process that considers existing solutions to fulfil the needs of the largest group (Lorentzen & Hedvall, 2018 )—are redundant. They have evolved and enlarged the scope of design: manufacturability fosters the collaboration of design and manufacturing operations, taking the perspectives of efficiency, effectiveness and economics into account (Chen et al, 1995 ; Venkatachalam et al, 1993 ); social sustainability addresses design for quality of human life by considering transdisciplinary relationships with human diversity (Demirel & Duffy, 2013 ; Martin et al, 2013 ; Papetti et al, 2020 ).…”

Engineering knowledge formalization and proposition for informatics development towards a CAD-integrated DfX system for product design

“…Up to now, a common and standardized methodology for feature classification is still missing because it depends on the application scenario [Sanfilippo and Borgo, 2016]. The same authors provided a 3D CAD features classification according to the specific objective of welded assemblies -Design for Welding [Favi et al, 2021]. A more broad and complete classification is provided in this work, and Figure 2 illustrates the types of features used in this research and their relationships:…”

Collaborative Workplace Design: A Knowledge-Based Approach to Promote Human–Robot Collaboration and Multi-Objective Layout Optimization

“…A structured approach intended to face all the issues related to this topic is needed. Knowledge-Based Approaches are largely applied to many engineering fields [41,42] such as software architecture [43] or decision making support for the management and development of complex systems and structures [44,45]. Accordingly, a KBA is proposed to achieve a general solution by collecting, organizing, and smartly making available the main information about collaborative robotics.…”