On Manufacturing System Development in the Context of Concurrent Engineering

Abstract: This thesis presents an extension of the contemporaryengineering design theory towards a unified view onsimultaneous development of products and manufacturing systems,i.e. concurrent engineering.The traditional engineering design theory explains therealization of a product design as a development of productstructure from four perspectives: technical process, function,technical solution, and physical embodiment. This thesisextends the engineering design theory with a set of definitionsand universal statements. These definitions and universalstatements describe manufacturing systems from same fourperspectives. In that context they also describe therelationship between a product and its manufacturing system.The thesis contributes to the creation of a single theoreticalsystem based on an integration of theories from two engineeringdesign schools, the WDK and the Axiomatic Design. WDKtheoriesare in this new context utilized for qualitative synthesis ofthe developed artifacts, while the Axiomatic Design is utilizedfor structuring and analyzing the corresponding quantitativeparameters.The definitions and universal statements describe thedevelopment structures for productsand manufacturing systems.This description is utilized for definition of a system fordevelopment of these structures, i.e. (i) a stage-gate-basedmanufacturing system development process, (ii) a developmentmethodology toolbox, and (iii) an information managementframework consisted of an information model harmonized with thesystems engineering data management standard STEP AP 233.The research has been carried out in a close collaborationwith Swedish manufacturing industry. The utilized researchmethodology is the hypothetic- deductive method, with casestudy as an observation method.Keywords:Concurrent Engineering, Engineering Design,Development Methods and Tools, Manufacturing System,Information Management.