DesignChain: Process Automation From Recording Of Customer Requirements To Production Release

Abstract

Growing price pressure due to an increasing number of global suppliers, increasing individualization of products and ever-shorter development cycles are challenges facing the engineering industry. In this context, mass personalization represents the customized production of customer products with batch size one at the low unit costs of mass production. The possibilities of digitalization and automation of technical order processing open up the opportunity for companies to significantly reduce their complexity costs and lead times and thus increase their competitiveness. Many companies already use a range of simulation tools and configuration solutions but only as stand-alones. Often, the expert knowledge of employees is hidden in "knowledge silos" and is rarely networked across processes. The concept "DesignChain" will address these challenges by automating and digitalizing technical process planning from recording customer requirements to releasing a product to the shop floor. Configurators within DesignChain allow for mapping variant-rich products. This transformation of customer requirements into product properties makes it possible to generate even complex CAD models, such as models for large-scale equipment based on specific rules. An automated CAx chain will help to digitally transfer production-relevant documents to the shop floor for parts fabrication. This process, which can be fully automated, allows for the customized creation of variants based on current approval statuses.