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Rapid Product Development &

Manufacturing

K.P. Karunakaran

Indian Institute of Technology Bombay


Outline

Problems in Product Development and Manufacturing

Rapid Product Development and Manufacturing


Problems in Prod Dev & Mfg
Three functional groups
Product Development is concerned with,
influences and influenced by

• Marketing dept
• Design dept (Product)
• Manufacturing (Production)

Product Development is the responsibility of


design department; but they need to interact with
the marketing and production department to keep
quality, cost and time (QCD) under control.
Problems in Prod Dev & Mfg
Sequential events
Sequential events: Events tend to occur sequentially even if they can
occur in parallel.
Reason: Poor interplay and planning.
Effects: This not only delays Product Development; it leads to costly/
sub-optimal/ faulty design and the corresponding penalties due to late
feedbacks.

[Andreasen pp. 14]


Problems in Prod Dev & Mfg
Market needs and design possibilities are poorly combined

Market needs and design possibilities are poorly combined: Designer


perhaps has a better design that meets the same needs.
Reason: Poor interplay between marketing and design groups.
Effects: Unoptimal design.

[Andreasen pp. 14]


Problems in Prod Dev & Mfg
There are hick ups at the time of manufacture

There are hick ups at the time of manufacture: Less optimal


combination of design specifications and production methods. Design
mistakes are detected very late.
Reason: Poor interplay between design and manufacturing groups.
Effects: Unoptimal design.

[Andreasen pp. 17]


Problems in Prod Dev & Mfg
Starting trouble
Starting trouble: Lack of devotion and seriousness.
Reason: Delay in budget allocation and formation of a dedicated
team for the new projects. The tasks in the beginning are assigned as
additional responsibilities to members with other major
responsibilities.
Effects: Early project phases proceed haphazardly and in the wrong
way at times.

[Andreasen pp. 17]


Problems in Prod Dev & Mfg
Late detection of mistakes
Late detection of mistakes: Later a mistakes is detected, the costlier it
is to rectify.
Reason: Decisions for an inverted tree. Once you are deep in a
branch, you have to come up and then go to the other branch.
Effects: High cost of rectification. At times, company can close due to
these liabilities.

[Andreasen pp. 17]


Problems in Prod Dev & Mfg
Mismatched in the rate of committed and actual costs
Rate of expenditure under different heads in various phases
Expenditure
Rate of

Time

[Andreasen pp. 102]


Problems in Prod Dev & Mfg
Mismatched in the rate of committed and actual costs

Cumulative expenditure under different heads in various phases


Expenditure
Cumulative

Practical Ideal deterministic


Problems in Prod Dev & Mfg
Mismatched in the rate of committed and actual costs
About 80% of the product cost is committed (or allocated or forecast)
at the design stage.
Effect: Later decisions like better cutting tools, reduction in tooling
cost etc. have limited influence. Therefore, early decisions need more
attention than the later ones.

Productionizing phase
Expenditure
Cumulative

Design This is true in life too.


Phase
That is why Dr. Kalam
emphasizes the role of
elementary teacher in
character building.
Problems in Prod Dev & Mfg
Interpersonal relations

Interpersonal relations: Pyramidal


hierarchy. Different levels of
motivations. Different levels of patting
and punishing powers and
commensurate responsibilities
Reason: Mismatch between
organizational goals and individual
ambitions.
Effects: Lack of identification with the
organizational goals and hence lack of
integration.
Problems in Prod Dev & Mfg
Interpersonal relations …

• Do punch ek lunch
• Sahib! Aap keliye kar denge

Ego  Selfishness  Jealousy 


Enmity  Non-cooperation/ shoot the
idea/ sabotage.

In spite of my best training in HAL and


experience for almost a quarter century
with workers, colleagues, bosses and
students, I still find difficulties in this
domain.
Rapid Product Development and
Manufacturing
Today’s Industrial Scene
Short product life
In the past, product life was long and hence it could take long to
design; today, product life is very short due to :
• fast-changing taste of the customers
• technological obsolescence
Effect: Less time is available for product development.
Today’s Industrial Scene
Short product life
Today’s Industrial Scene
Short product life
Today’s Industrial Scene
Severe competition – indigenous and global
Competition can come from all over the globe in a buyer’s market.
Companies cannot afford complacency. Retaining market share
requires constant effort.

Competitors squeeze like a python: Companies on a tread mills: They


It exploits the fluctuations (cash flow, inventory, have to keep running just to remain where
manpower etc.). they are. They have to sprint to overtake.
Today’s Industrial Scene
Today’s Industrial Scene vis-à-vis the Past

Yesterday Today
Protected economy Open economy
Local competition Global competition
Sellers’ market Buyers’ market
Price = (Cost + Profit) ∞ Cost Profit = Price – Cost
Conformance to design Customer delight
Longer product life Shorter product life
Less liabilities and social Stringent laws for liability and
commitments social commitments
Complacence Competition
Today’s Industrial Scene
Remedies

• Being the BEST alone is NOT enough; one also needs to be the
FIRST among the BEST to respond. To be the FIRST is more
important than to be the BEST.

• The shortest “Time to market” fetches the highest market share.


So it decides the survival of organizations, leave alone their
success. So, agility is vital along with efficiency and ready
knowledge.

• Sustaining as well as increasing market share by continued


service.

• Rapid conversion of new knowledge to practical results is required.


The company should have a steeper learning curve to be able to
absorb new technologies faster.
Today’s Industrial Scene
Remedies …

• Innovative designs only can handle competition, quality


requirements and product responsibility. This calls for recruiting,
investing and retaining appropriate manpower.

• Laws related to liabilities and social damages such as pollution are


more stringent; these have to be taken care at the product
development stage.

• Adopting technologies of Rapid Product Development &


Manufacturing makes more sense than ever before.
Today’s Industrial Scene
Remedies …
Ascertain the need of the
customers correctly. This is
vital for successful business.
It is a team work.
Product development is a
creative multi-disciplinary
process. People must
interact across the
disciplines. It is enabled by a
Concurrent Engineering or
DFX environment.
Today’s Industrial Scene
Remedies …
Product development is an iterative process. The more the design
iterations, better is the quality of design. But more iterations also cost
more! So use virtual tools as far as possible!!
Today’s Industrial Scene
Remedies …
Every mission is time-critical. Just because it is a creative activity, it
cannot take infinite time and money! Plan the work and work to plan.
This will minimize initial hick-ups.
Today’s Industrial Scene
Remedies …
Feedback as well as the required knowledge for product development
can come from within the company – other groups and other projects
- as well as from outside – customers.
A progressive organization continually responds to these feedbacks
and evolves the design.
Create interactions among projects.
Today’s Industrial Scene
Remedies …

Interactions among multi- Interactions among the


disciplinary teams within the projects
project
Today’s Industrial Scene
Remedies …
Plan development of technologies and processes to match with that
of Product Development.
Rapid Product Development &
Manufacturing (RPD&M)
Rapid Product Development & Manufacturing (RPD&M) is the
synergic integration of time compression technologies.

Its three principles are:

i. Perform the activities in the virtual world as far as possible.

ii. When these can no longer continue in the virtual world, switch to
physical world. While doing so, perform them as rapidly as
possible using modern tools.

iii. A marginal sacrifice in performance is ‘acceptable (!?!)’ if it will


increase speed.
RPD&M
Three pillars

i. Virtual prototyping and


testing technologies

ii. Physical prototyping and


rapid manufacturing
technologies

iii. Synergic integration


technologies
Three Pillars of RPD&M
Virtual Prototyping and Testing Technologies

• Anything is possible • Geometric Modeling


• Reverse Engineering
• Minimum risk to human • Virtual and Augmented
life Reality
• Finite Element Analysis
• Upward or downward
• Boundary Element Analysis
scalability of time in
• Motion analysis
virtual world
• Design for X
• Less fatigue to the • Virtual Manufacture
personnel (Manufacturing Simulation)
• …
Three Pillars of RPD&M
Virtual Prototyping and Testing Technologies

X in DFX
A - Assembly J - Joy of Use S - Safety
B - Beauty (Aesthetics) K - Komfort (Ergonomics) T - Transport
C - Cost L - Long Life U - Uniqueness
D - Details M - Manufacturability V - Variety (same as mass
E - Environment N - Newness customization?)
F - Function O - Operator (“Poka –Yoke” or W - Weight
G - Gestalt Mistake Proofing) X - Xcellence
H - Hi - Lo Situations P - Performance (same as F?) Y – Yuppies (?)
(extremes of use) Q - Quality Z – Zeitgeist (trend of times)
I - Identification R - Reliability
Three Pillars of RPD&M
Need for Physical Prototypes
“Purchase of a car depends strongly on subjective impressions. Next
to technical properties like horse power or security equipment,
properties like noise, handling or styling are key factors for a
purchase decision. But these properties can only be evaluated by
physical prototypes. For that reason availability of high quality
functional prototypes will remain an important element of product
development and cannot be substituted by digital models and
analysis.”
- Dr. Werner Pollmann, DaimlerChrysler AG in IMS International Conference on Rapid Product Development, Stuttgart, Germany (1994)

From the above observation, it is amply clear that technology is still


far away to carry out everything in the synthetic environment.
Therefore, we will have to produce a few physical prototypes to prove
and fine-tune design.
Three Pillars of RPD&M
Ways to speed up physical processes
Human being is the bottleneck to speed both due to muscle power
limitation and fatigue. Therefore, automation is the only way to speed
up physical processes.

Two stages of automation are:


i. Automation of processes ii. Automation of Process
- Hard automation: Planning
automats, SPMs, Tr. lines - CAPP, RP&T
- Soft automation:
CNC, Robotics, AGVs, FMSs

Physical technologies: CNC, Robotics, CAPP, RP, RT, RM, rapid


Casting etc.
Three Pillars of RPD&M
Synergic integration

The activities of product development need to be integrated such that


• the parallelism existing among them is exploited
• design mistakes are detected and corrected early

There is need for synergy in the integration so that the benefits


achieved at any stage are carried forward till the end with least
attenuation.

Technologies for synergic integration: Concurrent Engineering and


DFX, PDM, PLM, CIM, ERP etc.
Conclusions

• Companies no longer can afford to remain complacent


with their current performance. They have to
continuously improve to stay in business. For this,
adopting new technologies is essential.
• In today’s economy driven by global competition, RPD
makes more sense than ever before. This course aims
to bring in this awareness.
References

• Eliyahu M. Goldratt, 1993, The Goal, Lionheart


Publishing.
• Bill Gates, 1999, Business @ the Speed of Thought;
Using a Digital Nervous System, Warner Books.
Thank You!
K.P. Karunakaran
Professor
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology Bombay
Powai, Mumbai-400076, INDIA
Tel.: 022-25767530/ 9869541570
karuna@iitb.ac.in
www.me.iitb.ac.in/~karuna

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