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Abstract
The particular characteristics of Rapid Prototyping technologies, both in terms of constrains and opportuni-ties, often require the reconfiguration of the product model to obtain the best compliance with the product functionalities and performances. Within this field of research, a knowledge-based tool named Design GuideLines Collaborative Framework (DGLs-CF) was developed to support both the designers defining the product consistently with the manufacturing technologies and the manufacturers defining the building setup consistently with the product requirements. Present work is focused on enhancing the DGLs-CF knowledge base and on updating the DGLs-CF knowledge management by using the information gathered on some RP technologies. The added-value of this research is represented by an improvement in the Redesign/Reconfig- uration Package, the final result of the DGLs-CF adoption. This is a list of actions to be performed on the product model and on the process parameters to avoid the limitations of the technology and to exploit at best its opportunities.
Keywords: rapid prototyping, knowledge-based engineering, product redesign, collaborative engineering
1. Introduction
The increasing complexity of design tasks and continu-ous developments in technology require the improve-ment of designers’ problem-solving capabilities, through the development of Design for X (DfX) methods and tools accordingly. Moreover, they must be flexible enou- gh to allow an easy customization according to the evo-lution of the technologies that they address. Up to now, several examples of DfX appeared in the research land-scape, as described in [1–11] The next research step was to investigate the possibility of merging several DfXs together in an integrated framework able to generate de-sign guidelines related to more than one phase of the product lifecycle. In this context, the Design GuideLines Collaborative Framework (DGLs-CF) was developed as a knowledge-based tool to help designers defining the product consistently with manufacturing and verification technologies. The aim of the DGLs-CF is to evaluate the feasibility of the product (model) with available manu-facturing technologies, to exploit the particular charac-teristics of them and to measure the conformity of the product to the requirements with specific verification technologies [12].
Purpose of this work is enhancing the DGLs-CF knowledge base and updating the DGLs-CF knowledge management by exploiting the information related to several Rapid Prototyping (RP) technologies. The goal is to generate richer and more effective guidelines informa-tion for the designers. RP technologies build physical models starting directly from their CAD representations, as this way costs and times are drastically reduced. They are a very powerful tool in product development. New products normally develop in Concurrent Engineering environments where many actors play different roles; in these scenarios it is of great help having a physical pro-totype of the product, something tangible, which may help communicating different skills and developing new ideas [2,13–20]. The specific characteristics of the RP technologies, however, are not so widely known in depth and thus it is worthwhile customizing the DGLs-CF for them. This may be a good way of helping non-expert designers in exploiting the opportunities of RP technolo-gies.