Automated Manufacturability Analysis for Conceptual Design in New Product Development
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This paper presents ANA, a software package that provides automated manufacturability feedback to product designers, enabling first time quality of design and avoiding later stage change requests. Manufacturing knowledge is critical to the design process. Decisions made early in the conceptual design phase can significantly affect downstream production cost. Manufacturing engineers may have a limited role in the design process which can lead to designs that are difficult to manufacture. ANA is the implementation of numerous feature-free geometric algorithms that determine manufacturability metrics related to machining, casting, die-casting, and welding processes. These metrics are accompanied by colored 3D graphical models to provide rich feedback similar to finite element models, for example. The iterations of a design are tracked over time, allowing users to review how certain design decisions impact the expected manufacturability of the part. ANA is intended for use inside existing CAD systems, in the cloud, or as a standalone application. The feedback from ANA, combined with built-in learning modules, aids the user in making design improvements and assists in selecting an appropriate manufacturing process. This feedback can be shared across platforms via interactive 3D PDFs.
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This proceeding is published Hoefer, Michael, Niechen Chen, and Matthew Frank. "Automated Manufacturability Analysis for Conceptual Design in New Product Development." In IIE Annual Conference. Proceedings, pp. 860-865. Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE), 2017. Posted with permission.