Product Platforms and Production – Current State and Future Research Directions Targeting Producibility and Production Preparation

Abstract

New business opportunities are created when the advantage of changeable manufacturing systems expand beyond increased freedom in production location to increased freedom in product design. However, there are new challenges to overcome, including improved ability to design and adapt products when requirements from stakeholders quickly change and/or new technology rapidly evolves. Simultaneously, the producibility of each design must be ensured while keeping the lead-time of the whole process to the minimum. Changeable product platforms (both flexible and adaptable platforms) are gaining attention in both research and industry. However, the level of alignment and integration of product development and production is critical for the efficiency of the product realization process. In this study, we map the state of practice in five companies with an initial literature review. The companies had no formal platform strategy and faced challenges with variant management and development time, had manual processes for production preparation and reuse of technical solutions and knowledge happened through components and documents. The production preparation and reuse were dependent on the engineer’s competence. Future work will concentrate on identifying how manufacturing inputs can be added as a design asset in a changeable product platform to enhance producibility and production preparation.

A Method to Capture and Share Production Requirements Supporting a Collaborative Production Preparation Process

“…This work is part of a 3.5-year collaboration project focussing on design for producibility and production preparation. The design research methodology framework (Blessing and Chakrabarti, 2009) is used in the overall research work and this paper presents the results of the prescriptive study following the results from the research clarification (Areth Koroth et al, 2021) and descriptive study 1(Areth Koroth et al, 2022). The case company in this study produces outdoor power products following a select variant production strategy.…”

“…Sources for information are products and process attributes, lessons learned and previous documents, and visual supports can aid in improving the effectiveness of this documentation (Coletta, 2012). Tools such as design for manufacturing and assembly (DFMA), lessonslearnt and failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) are used to support production preparation (Areth Koroth et al, 2021). Though DFMA and FMEA were well-established concepts, their successful utilization during the 3P dependent on the knowledge and skills of the individuals involved in the process and working with production requirements can support information capture and collaboration between design and production engineers to ensure producibility (Areth Koroth et al, 2022).…”

“…The shorter lifecycles of products and the increased number of variants have increased the importance of coordinated decision-making between product development and production (Brunoe et al, 2020). The Lean Production Preparation Process (Lean 3P) is used in the industries for this coordinated decision-making (Areth Koroth et al, 2021). The lean 3P consists of a series of workshops aligned with the product development process that promotes cross-functional collaboration and problem-solving (Coletta, 2012).…”