Conceptual Product Development

Conceptual Product Development in Small Corporations
Licentiate Thesis by Per Nilsson
TRITA-IIP-10-03 ISSN 1650-1888 ISBN 978-91-7415-657-7
Per Nilsson Division of Computer Systems for Design and Manufacturing Department of Production Engineering Royal Institute of Technology S-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden
Abstract The main objective of the thesis Conceptual Product Development in Small Corporations is by the use of a case study test the MFD-method (Erixon G. , 1998) combined with PMM in a product development project. (Henceforth called MFD/PMM-method). The MFD/PMM-method used for documenting and controlling a product development project has since it was introduced been used in several industries and projects. The method has been proved to be a good way of working with the early stages of product development, however, there are almost only projects carried out on large industries which means that there are very few references to how the MFD/PMM-method works in a small corporation. Therefore, was the case study in the thesis Conceptual Product Development in Small Corporations carried out in a small corporation to find out whether the MFD/PMM-method also can be applied and used in such a corporation. The PMM was proposed in a paper presented at Delft University of Technology in Holland 1998 by the author and Gunnar Erixon. (See appended paper C: The chart of modular function deployment.) The title The chart of modular function deployment was later renamed as PMM, Product Management Map. (Sweden PreCAD AB, 2000). The PMM consists of a QFD-matrix linked to MIM (Module Indication Matrix) via a coupling matrix which makes it possible to make an unbroken chain from the customer domain to the designed product/modules. (See Figure 3-2). The PMM makes it easy to correct omissions made in creating new products and modules. In the thesis Conceptual Product Development in Small Corporations the universal MFD/PMM-method has been adapted by the author to three models of product development; original-, evolutionary- and incremental development. The evolutionary adapted MFD/PMM-method was tested as a case study at Atlings AB in the community Ockelbo. Atlings AB is a small corporation with a total number of 50 employees and an annual turnover of 9 million . The product studied at the corporation was a steady rest for I
supporting long shafts in turning. The project team consisted of management director, a sales promoter, a production engineer, a design engineer and a workshop technician, the author as team leader and a colleague from Dalarna University as discussion partner. The project team has had six meetings. The project team managed to use MFD and to make a complete PMM of the studied product. There were no real problems occurring in the project work, on the contrary the team members worked very well in the group, having ideas how to improve the product. Instead, the challenge for a small company is how to work with the MFD/PMM-method in the long run! If the MFD/PMM-method is to be a useful tool for the company it needs to be used continuously and that requires financial and personnel resources. One way for the company to overcome the probable lack of recourses regarding capital and personnel is to establish a good cooperation with a regional university or a development centre.
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Acknowledgement Torsten Kjellberg, my supervisor at KTH, thank you for having patience with me and guiding me in my research work! Without Gunnar Erixons, visionary and profound research work concerning product development and especially modularisation of products the thesis Conceptual Product Development in Small Corporations would never have been done. Writing and collecting material for the research work have been going on for over nearly two decades, starting in 1995 and ending in 2010. The research work has been financed by Dalarna University and in the early stages also by Stiftelsen fr Kunskaps- och Kompetensutveckling. In the last year Triple Steelix in Borlnge has also been a co-financier, providing financial means for the case study performed at Atlings AB. Thank you all companies and selected students at Dalarna University for taking your time to participate and making contributions to the research work performed by the author.
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Appended Papers The following papers are appended. Nothing has been changed in the originals. A. Nilsson P, Lfgren B, Erixon G. QFD in the Development of Engineering Studies. Proceedings of the seventh symposium on Quality Function Deployment, 1995, Novi, Michigan, USA Nilsson P, Erixon G, Lange M. An easy to use tool for product design: The CARP Software. Proceedings from the international conference on engineering design, ICED 1997, Tampere, Finland. Nilsson P and Erixon G. The chart of modular function deployment. Proceedings of the 4th WDK Workshop on Product Structuring, 1998, Delft University of Technology, Holland.
B.
C.
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Table of Contents 1 2 Introduction ..................................................................................................... 1 1.1 2.1 Problem formulation and objective ..................................................... 2 QFD .......................................................................................................... 4 How to identify customer needs ................................................. 5 Customer Segments ....................................................................... 9 Types of Customer demands ..................................................... 14 Product Properties ....................................................................... 15 Benchmarking ............................................................................... 15 Theoretical framework ................................................................................... 4 2.1.1 2.1.2 2.1.3 2.1.4 2.1.5 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 3 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 4 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4
Axiomatic Design.................................................................................. 16 Concept selection .................................................................................. 19 TRIZ........................................................................................................ 22 MFD ................................................................................................... 24 MIM ................................................................................................ 26 Design For X .........................................................................................29 Original product development ........................................................... 37 Evolutionary product development................................................... 51 Incremental product development .................................................... 55 Typical Voice of Customer words ................................................. 56 Product Properties ................................................................................ 56 Background material about the company Atlings AB.................... 57 Description of the case study Steady Rest ................................... 58 Setting up the project team ................................................................. 62 QFD ........................................................................................................ 63 V
2.5.1
Proposed method .......................................................................................... 33
Test of the MFD/PMM-method in a case study ................................ 57
4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 4.9 5 6 7 8
Finding technical solutions ................................................................. 72 Mapping of TS and PP ........................................................................ 73 Module creation in MIM ..................................................................... 74 Benchmarking ....................................................................................... 80 DFA ........................................................................................................ 83
Result and discussion ................................................................................... 88 Future research .............................................................................................. 91 References ...................................................................................................... 94 Appended Papers .......................................................................................... 97 8.1 8.2 8.3 Paper A: QFD in the Development of Engineering Studies ....... 99 Paper B: An easy to use tool for product design: ......................... 111 Paper C: The chart of modular function deployment* ............... 121
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Abbreviations CD Customer Demand CR Customer Requirement CM Connection Matrix CS Customer Segment DP Design Parameter FR Functional Requirement MD Module Driver MIM Module Indication Matrix MO - Module PP Product Property QFD Quality Function Deployment TS Technical Solution
Elucidation Corporation (or company) = a number of persons united for business or commerce. (Hornby, Gatenby, & Wakefield, 1967) Small corporation = The SME (Small and Medium sized Enterprises) definition is used, i.e. a small enterprise employees 10-49 persons and has an annual turnover of maximum 10 million and the medium sized enterprise figures are 50-249 employees and a maximum of 50 million as annual turnover. (European Commission, 2003) Another assumption is that a product is developed, manufactured and sold by the corporation.
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1 Introduction In 1995 a group in the mechanical department at Dalarna University started to work in a research education program in cooperation with KTH (Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm). The group consisted of; Gunnar Erixon, Bengt Lfgren and Per Nilsson. The objective was to increase general knowledge in product development by proposing and testing new methods of product development but also to improve and develop an educational system that provides high quality engineers well adapted to a productive life and capable of lifelong learning. Gunnar Erixon presented his doctoral thesis Modular Function Deployment-A Method for Product Modularisation (MFD) in 1998. The MFD was further developed in the paper The chart of modular function deployment that was presented 1998 at Delft University of Technology in Holland by Per Nilsson and Gunnar Erixon. (See appended paper C). In paper C the authors presents a new way of connecting the customer domain with the product domain by linking a standard QFD representing the customers with the modularised product represented by the MIM with a new coupling matrix. In 1998 Per Nilsson left Dalarna University and began working as consultant practising the chart and other product development tools like DFA in real industry projects. During that time the Chart of modular function deployment was renamed as the Product Management Map or for short PMM (Sweden PreCAD AB, 2000). From the time when the original Chart of modular function deployment was proposed in 1998 until now it has been improved by the addition of several parts by consultants at Sweden Modular Management AB. See Figure 3-5 at page 35. Finally, in 2006, Per Nilsson returned to Dalarna University to work as a teacher and in the spring of 2009 the process of formulating the framework of the licentiate thesis Conceptual Product Development in Small Corporations commenced. 1
1.1
Problem formulation and objective
What is the problem? The challenge for companies with the aim to stay in business for a long time is to be able to make fast response to changes in the market. These changes can consist of increased demand on the number of variants of the product manufactured by the company or shorter market window for the product or rapid changes in the technical evolution of the product. New ways of develop and manufacture products must be used to meet these new demands. One way of handling these challenges is to use product development methods based on modularity. By using a modular product structure variants can be created with a limited number of parts. Modular product development also emphasises and makes concurrent engineering easier to perform and therefore shortens the development time. (Erixon G. , 1998)
Thesis objective Modular product development of products have been used for decades in the industry, e.g. the Swedish company Scania AB, see Figure 1-1, has successfully used modularity to create a vast number of truck variants at a low cost.
Figure 1-1: Modularised truck cabin at Scania AB. A great number of industrial modularisation projects using the MFD/PMM-method have been done by the Swedish consultant firm Modular Management AB. Most of these development projects have been done at large companies, such as Whirlpool and Sony Ericsson, and the 2
result achieved of using the MFD/PMM-method is very satisfactory according to Sweden Modular Management AB. One objective of the research work was to present a graphical tool that comprises the main phases of the MFD. The tool should present a holistic view to the user of the MFD making the management of the design process easier but also facilitating detection of errors made during the design procedure. (See appended paper C and chapter 3). Another objective of the research work was to develop guidelines on how to use the MFD/PMM-method in different development situations. (See chapter 3 page 36). The needs for such guidelines were presented in the attached paper B. But the main objective of the research project is to test and verify the applicability of the MFD/PMM-method in product development at small corporations. The small and the large company faces the same problem that was outlined above but can a small company with limited financial and human resources assimilate and use the MFD/PMMmethod in product development? Some special issues that need to be investigated and focused on are: - What is the possibility for the small company to continuously use MFD/PMM-method in its product development work? - Is it possible at all to conduct a product development projects with the small companys limited in-house human recourses? - If the present MFD/PMM-method does not work, is it possible to make a light version of the method?
2 Theoretical framework The MFD/PMM-method relies on many well established processes such as QFD, Axiomatic design, TRIZ and MIM which are all described in the following chapters. 2.1 QFD Quality Function Deployment, was introduced in the middle of the 20th century in Japan as a quality system to satisfy customers requests for product and service quality. To deliver customer value, it is important to listen to customer demands throughout the product development process. The QFD method was developed and systematised into a useful tool to assure quality and customer fulfilment, by among others, Dr. Shigeru Mizuno. and Yoji Akao. The QFD method was first used in Japan and then spread to the U.S. in the 80's and further to Europe. QFD-method's strength lies in that it encourages working in cross-functional development teams, it also facilitate internal communication between different departments within the company and allows the translation of customers' desires into the language of the company. (Mazur, 1994). Traditionally the QFD-process is often documented as a matrix, in the shape of a house, the so called QFD-house. See a very simplified QFD-house in Figure 2-1.
QFD-house
How PP1 PP2 PP3
CD1 CD2 CD3
What
Connection matrix
Figure 2-1: The QFD-house, with the what side representing the customer demands and the how side expressing the product properties to realize the customer demands. The connection matrix maps the product properties to the customer demands. 4
PP4
2.1.1 How to identify customer needs Many research papers and books dealing with product development stress the importance of finding the customer needs. In Ulrich-Eppingers (Ulrich & Eppinger, 2003) method for product development the first step is to identify customer needs, see Figure 2-2.
the Figure 2-2: Identifying customer needs is the first step in Ulrich-Eppingers method for product development. (Ulrich & Eppinger, 2003).
Ulrich-Eppinger suggests a five step method in order to obtain data about customer needs.
1. Gather raw data from customer Data can be obtained by interviewing the customer: interviewing customer in the customers environment or by arranging a focus group focus discussion consisting of a moderator and 8-10 customers. Another method is to perform a task and observe how the customer is using the product. The number of customers to interview lies in the span from 10 to 40-50. Studies show that 90 % of customer needs were revealed after 30 customer interviews. (Griffin & Hauser, Volym. 12 No 1 Winter 1993). One very important group of customer to identify and interview is the so called lead users, i.e. users that experience needs very early, perhaps months or years before normal customers (von Hippel, 1988). These customers can express 1988). invented their emerging needs and they have probably already invented solutions to the problems linked to the present product. Another challenge is to find an answer to the question; who is the customer? Many companies do not sell the product directly to the end user and therefore they do not have a natural connection to the customer using the product. Instead the buyer of the product perhaps sells it on to another
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reseller who may incorporate the product in a new product used by the end user. COMPANY XY is a door lock manufacturer. Who is the customer to the door locks, is it the OEM, Shops or the end user? See Figure 2-3.
COMPANY XY OEM Building comp.
Shops Ind. Dist.
End user
Door Lock
Wholesalers
Locksmiths
Figure 2-3: Who is the customer to the door lock manufactured by COMPANY XY? The answer to the above question is according to Mazur (Mazur, 1994) to find the keystone customer who finally determines whether the product is a success or a flop. The Keystone is the stone that connects and holds up other rocks in a Roman bridge, if the Keystone is not in place it is a great risk that the entire bridge collapse. In Figure 2-4 the Keystone customer is the end user of the product.
Figure 2-4: The Keystone customer end user ultimately determines the success or failure of our business. After Mazur. (Mazur, 1994). 6
2. Interpret Raw Data in Terms of Customer Needs: A translation of the collected customer need statements is necessary. Customer is often expressing the needs in technical solutions instead of what the product has to do! A typical customer statement can be I like the magnetized tip of the screwdriver which is interpreted into the solution independent need The screwdriver tip retains the screw before it is driven. 3. Organize the needs into a Hierarchy: It is not practical to work with all the gathered customer needs as unique entities in the following development activities. Instead, needs with similar implication should be arranged into groups. A practical way of doing the grouping is to write all the customer needs on self-stick notes and then arrange them into groups on a white board. All redundant needs should be deleted and every group labelled with a relevant heading. 4. Establish the Relative Importance of the needs: Some needs are more important than others, therefore it is appropriate to rank the customer demands so that the development team can do the necessarily tradeoffs in the development project. According to Ulrich-Eppinger (Ulrich & Eppinger, 2003) ranking of needs can be conducted by the development team members or by doing a new customer survey. They suggest a five degree scale there 5 = Feature is critical and 1 = Feature is undesirable. Another way of doing the ranking is to use the method pairwise comparison (Ottoson, 93815). In the method of pairwise comparisons, each alternative is matched one to one with each of the other candidates. See Figure 2-5. Each alternative gets 1 point for a one to one win and 0 point for one to one loss. In line 3 shows that item C is more important than item F but less important than items D, E and G. In column 8 the number of ones is horizontally summarized and on line 8 the number of zeroes is vertically summarized. The contents from line 8 are moved to column 9 and the total sum of each item is calculated in column 10.
Figure 2-5: Pairwise comparison of seven alternatives (items). Item B is the most ranking. important alternative and items C and F scores the lowest ranking.
5. Reflect on the Result and the Process: The Product development team should evaluate and challenge the customer requests that was created during the process of determining customer demands. Questions to be addressed are demands. typically:
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Have we found and interviewed all important customers in our target market? Did we capture the latent needs in our customer segment, or did we only found the present ones? In our on-going product development process, which customers are very important as references? How can we improve the process of finding customer needs in future development projects?
2.1.2 Customer Segments The following text is based on the manuscript of chapter 9 Identifying Market Segments and Selecting Target Markets in the book Marketing Management by Philip Kotler, (Kotler, 2000). No company can serve all customers in a broad market and at the same time manufacture and sell such diverse products as e.g. cars and ice-cream. As a result of that the companies are trying to identify the market segments that they effectively can serve. One way of doing that is by using target marketing, a process including three steps: 1. Market segmentation: Searching of distinctive groups of buyers in the market who require separate products. 2. Market targeting: The selection of one or many markets to enter. 3. Market positioning: The products key benefits are established and communicated in the market. Point number three above will not be further discussed.
Market segmentation can be divided into different levels and patterns:

Market Levels
Mass marketing is the broadest attempt to produce and sell products.

A good example is the car model T-Ford sold by Henry Ford. The T-Ford was mass produced in one model and sold to all customers. Some argue that mass marketing (producing) products will create the largest possible market, leading to low production costs and low price or higher margins.
Segment marketing is on the other hand a way to make an identifiable

group within a market with similar wants, geographical location and so on. The segmentation of the market is a sort of midpoint between mass marketing and individual marketing. The idea of segment marketing is to offer the customer in the segment a naked solution that will appeal to all the customers and options that will cost extra. For instance, Ryan Air is offering low priced airline tickets including only the transport from airport A to 9
airport B. If the traveller wants to check-in baggage, Ryan Air, has the option for that at an additional charge. A number of benefits by using segmentation of the market compared to mass marketing can be observed. Price and behaviour of the product can probably be easily adapted to the market segments. PR and the choice of distribution channels will also become easier.
Niche marketing is commonly a small market whose needs are not well
served. A niche can be a sub segment or a group seeking a distinctive mix of benefits. An example of a niche can be a magazine for fly fishers. While segment markets often have many competitors, niche markets seldom have more than one or two competitors.
Individual marketing is the ultimate level of segmentation leading to

segments of one. Individual marketing strategy has been used for centuries, for instance the blacksmith could deliver almost every demand from the customer. Today, new technology, such as the internet, computers and robotics has made it possible to use individual marketing strategy. Mass customization is often used as a concept to describe the ability on a mass basis, individually design products to meet each customers demand.
Market patterns
One way of finding market segments is to identify preference segments, which are explained in the following example and Figure 2-6.
Homogeneous preference Diffused preference Clustered preference
Creaminess
Creaminess
Sweetness
Sweetness
Creaminess
Sweetness
10
Figure 2-6: Basic Market-Preference Patterns for the value of sweetness versus creaminess of ice cream. (Kotler, 2000).
Homogeneous preference is when the customers have nearly the same

preferences about the market. No natural segments are shown. Companies should probably be clustered around the middle of scale of both sweetness and creaminess. See Figure 2-6.
Diffused preference is the opposite of homogeneous preference; the

customers have very different and spread opinions about the values of sweetness versus creaminess. One way of minimizing the total sum of dissatisfaction from the customer is to position the brand in the middle of the area. See Figure 2-6.
Clustered preferences are when the market shows natural segments. The
first company to enter the clustered preference market has a number of possibilities to position the brand. One way is to put the brand in the middle, appealing to all four segments or making a brand that will cover the largest segment. All four segments can also be branded. If only one segment is covered by the first company, other firms will enter the clustered preference market introducing brands to the other segments. See Figure 2-6.
Bases for segmenting consumer markets
Researchers propose two groups of variables to be used in segmenting the market. The first suggest that the consumers geographic, demographic, and psychographic characteristics should be used then forming customer segments. The second tries to form segments by looking at consumers responses to wanted benefits or brands. Geographic segmentation. As the title implies, geographic segmentations focus on nations, regions, communities or neighbourhoods. Corporations may operate in one or many of these segments, paying attention to local variations. Demographic segmentation. The segment is grouped and based on variables such as age, family life cycles, gender, income, education, race, religion, social class, and so on. Demographic segmentation is a very popular 11
method used by companies due to the fact that consumer wants, preferences and usage rates are often linked to demographic variables. Another reason for using demographic segmentation is that it is easy to measure these variables. One example how age was used as a segment was when Ford designed its Mustang car. The target segment was young people seeking for an inexpensive sports car. To Fords surprise the car was sold to all age groups. It was later revealed that the target segment was not the chronologically young people but the psychologically young. Psychographic segmentation. Lifestyle, personality and values are basis for these segments. For instance, lifestyle is expressed in the goods these consumers buy. Companies selling furniture and cosmetics are always trying opportunities in the psychographic segment. Behavioural Segmentation. Buyers are divided into segments based on their knowledge of, attitude toward, use of or response to a product. Variables to use in these segments are for instance benefits, user status, loyalty status and attitude.
Effective segmentation. All segments are not useful. For example, Volvo car buyers can be divided into consumers using contact lenses and eyeglasses, but there is little probability that the method to correct visual acuity is relevant to the acquisition of cars. To effective create useful market segments these five rules can be of help:
1. Measurable: The size and purchasing power of the segment can be measured. 2. Substantial: The largest homogenous group worth going after with a marketing program. 3. Accessible: The segment can easily be reached and served. 4. Differentiable: The segments must be able to be separated into groups that respond different to different marketing programs. 5. Actionable: For attracting and serving the segment the company must have the possibility to formulate effective marketing programs. 12
Selecting the market segments
After the evaluation of the different market segments, the company can target the market in five different ways, see Figure 2-7.
Singlesegment concentration
M1 M2 M3 P1 P2 P3
P1 P2 P3
Selective specialization
M1 M2 M3
Product specialization
M1 M2 M3 P1 P2 P3
Market specialization
M1 M2 M3 P1 P2 P3
Full market coverage

M1 M2 M3 P1 P2 P3
Figure 2-7: Patterns of target market selection. M = market and P = product. (Kotler, 2000). Single-segment concentration. By selecting a single segment the company gains a strong knowledge of the customers needs and can therefore attain a strong position in the segment. The concentration on one segment also has positive effects on production, distribution and PR costs. The negative side is the high risk in only serving one segment in the market. Selective specialization. One of the main reasons for selecting a number of segments to serve is the ability to spread the firms risk into different consumer groups. Product specialization. The same product is developed for several market segments. The firm can build up a strong and market leading position in that product area. The other side of the coin is the risk for sudden paradigm shifts in the product that will make our product outdated. Market specialization. Here the firm specialize in serving many demands in a specific customer group. An example can be a company providing all necessarily products to equip workshop laboratories in governmental institutions. The risk involved is for instance governmental cuts in funds for the institutions.
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Full market coverage. The firm serves all customer groups with all the products they need. By using undifferentiated marketing the company ignores differences in the market segments and offers one product solution to the whole market. Another way is to use differentiated marketing, i.e. the company operates in many different market segments and offer different designed product programs for every segment. Only very large companies can carry out a full market coverage strategy, e.g. Coca-Cola Company and General Motors. 2.1.3 Types of Customer demands There are different types of customer demands to be considered, such as revealed-, expected- and exciting demands (Kano, 1984). Another division has been proposed by Professor Terry Hill at the London Business School, he suggests that customer demands can be divided in order winner and order qualifier (Hill, 1989). Below is a description of the various classifications proposed by Kano and Hill. Revealed Demands. Customer needs received on a direct question to the customer what they want. Fuel consumption of a car can be an example. Low consumption often results in high customer satisfaction. Expected Demands. These are unspoken and implied customer demands. An example might be that a car is equipped with brakes. Anticipated customer needs must be met. Exciting Demands (or Delighters). These needs are beyond the customers expectation. For example, if the customer has had his car at service for brake disc replacement and the service personnel also, free of charge, has washed the car. Order Qualifier. An order qualifier is a required product or service characteristic that will make a customer to consider the item for purchase. The customer will put the product on a list of potential acceptable supplier. A qualifier needs only to be as good as their competitors. Order Winner. An order winner is a requirement that actually will make the customer to buy the product. Therefore, a companys order winner must be better than its competitors. 14
2.1.4 Product Properties There are basically tree ways or possibilities to find the PP in the product. 1. Based on the CD the product development team can find the associated PP to the specific CD. Finding the PPs can be simplified by using Ishikawa fishbone diagram. 2. There is also a possibility to work from the other direction, i.e. start with the TS in the present product and try to find the related PPs. 3. The third way obviously is to implement both number 1 and number 2 above to find the PPs All product properties should be able to be measured. Therefore a goal value is added to every PP. Goal values can be equals (=), less than (<) and more than (>). For instance, PP weight < 2kg. 2.1.5 Benchmarking To be able to compete successfully the company needs to have knowledge about the competitors products strengths and weaknesses. One way of doing that is to add a benchmarking to the QFD. According to Andersson (Andersson, 1991) both customer demands and product properties should be examined for the own product compared to the competitors. As can be seen in Figure 2-8 the QFD has been supplemented by two correlation matrices, one for customer demands and another for product properties. It is common to use a five-point scale to rate how the product meets the current demands.
PP1 PP2 PP3
QFD
CD1 CD2 CD3 1 2 3 4 5
PP4
1 2 3 4 5
Our product: Competitor A: Competitor B:
Figure 2-8: QFD with benchmarking matrices. 15
2.2 Axiomatic Design The axiomatic design process was developed by Suh (Suh, 1990) at MIT in the 1990s. The process is a systematic technique for guiding the design process and analysing the result. According to Suh, the design world consists of four domains; consumer, functional, physical and process domain and the design process involves mapping between these four domains. The consumer domain represents the customer demands on the product. The expressed CRs in the customer domain are translated to functional demands (FRs) in the functional domain. The functions in the functional domain must then be translated into physical design parameter (DPs) utilizing the required functionality. The last domain to enter is the process domain, in which the chosen DPs are provided with appropriate process variables, for instance dimensions and method of manufacture. The design is represented by a characteristic vector in every domain. By zigzagging between the domains the characteristic vector can be decomposed. See Figure 2-9. The mapping must satisfy the design axioms, i.e. the independence and the information axiom.
Functional Domain
FR1
Physical Domain
DP1
FR11
FR12
DP11
DP12
FR111
FR121
FR122
DP111
DP121
DP122
FR1211
FR1212
DP1211
DP1212
Figure 2-9: The mapping between the functional and physical domain in the axiomatic design process. (Suh, 1990).
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The independent axiom is focusing on the quality of the mapping between what is required and how it is realized while the information axiom is used for choosing the best solution among many possible solutions. Axiom 1: The Independence Axiom. Maintain the independence of FRs. (There is a one-to-one mapping between the FRs and DPs). Axiom 2: The Information Axiom. Minimize the information content in the design. (Keep it simple). One of the advantages to use axiomatic design is the possibility to characterize the design process mathematically. FRs and DPs can be treated as vectors consisting of m and n components. The mathematical relationship between FR and DP can be expressed as a design equation:
{FR} = [A] {DP}
where FR and DP are expressed as vectors and A is the design matrix.
Three basic types of design equations can be observed.

1. The uncoupled design. The ideal uncoupled design consists of equal numbers of FRs and DPs fulfilling axiom 1. It is very easy to make changes in the uncoupled design; if for instance DP2 is changed it will only affect FR2, leaving FR1 and FR2 unaffected or if FR3 is changed because of altered customer demands the only design parameter to change is DP3.
FR1 = A11DP1 FR2 = A22DP2 FR3 = A33DP3
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2. The coupled design. If the numbers of DPs are less than the number of FRs the result is often a coupled design. A change in FR2 cannot be done by only changing DP1 since it will also affect FR1 and FR3. The coupled design violates Axiom 1 and are therefore probably a bad design resulting in a design that are difficult to make any changes in.
FR1 = A11DP1 + A12DP2 + A13DP3 FR2 = A21DP1 + A22DP2 + A23DP3 FR3 = A31DP1 + A32DP2 + A33DP3
3. The decoupled design. A coupled design can sometime be transformed into a triangular decoupled design by adding design parameters (DP). The independence of the FRs can be maintained if DPs are adjusted in a particular order. In the example below, equation (1), FR1s value can be met by adjusting DP1. In equation (2), DP1 value is obtained from equation (1) and the FR2s value can be satisfied by adjusting DP2. FR3s value in equation (3) can be acquired in a similar way by adjusting DP3 in relation to DP1 and DP2.
FR1=A11DP1 (1) FR2=A21DP1+A22DP2 (2) FR3 =A31DP1+A32DP2+A33DP3 (3)
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2.3 Concept selection The selection of the best concept of a product can be done in many ways, e. g. through intuition, multi voting by team members, by building and testing prototypes or by some sort of evaluation matrices. The perhaps most well known evaluation matrices was developed by Stuart Pugh and is known as Pugh concept selection, (Pugh, 1990). The purpose is to narrow down the number of concepts and at the same time improve the concepts. Ulrich & Eppinger (Ulrich & Eppinger, 2003) is proposing a variant of Pughs selections method. As can be seen in (Figure 2-10) the idea is by an iterative process jump between narrowing and expanding the number of concepts to finally converging to a single concept to be tested and verified. The figure also shows that the method consists of four steps; generation-, screening-, scoring- and testing of the concepts. Concept generation is of cause dealing with how to find different technical solutions to a given function. The purpose of concept screening is to quickly narrow down the numbers of concepts to work with. Concept scoring is a more precise and sensitive method to distinguish and select the concepts. Finally, testing of concepts will reveal if the theoretically best solution will fulfill the demands on the product or if rework of the design has to be done.
concept generation concept screening concept scoring concept testing
Figure 2-10: The iterative process of narrowing the numbers of concepts by concept screening and concept scoring. Finally the winning concept is subjected to further testing and development. (Ulrich & Eppinger, 2003) . 19
Concept screening according to Ulrich & Eppinger Step 1: Prepare the Selection Matrix. The selection matrix consists of three parts, concepts, selection criteria and evaluation. See Figure 2-11. One of the concepts (A-G) is chosen as the datum or reference concept which all the other concepts will be compared to. The reference concept is often a commercially available product, best in class product, industry standard or an earlier generation of the product familiar to the development team. The selection criteria (1-7) are gathered from the customer demands found earlier in the product development work. Internal needs from the enterprise, such as manufacturing costs and selling costs, can also be used as selection criteria. It is important not to choose too many unimportant selection criteria due to the fact that the different criteria are not weighted; it is a risk that unimportant criteria will overshadow the more important criteria.
Selection Criteria 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Sum +s Sum 0s Sum s Net Score Rank Continue? A B C
Concepts D E
(Reference)
G 0 + 0 0 0 0 1 5 1 0 3 Revise
0 0 0 0 0 + 0 0 0 0 0 0 + + + 0 2 1 1 5 4 3 0 2 3 2 -1 -2 1 6 7 Yes No No
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 7 0 0 3 Combine
0 0 + + 0 0 0 + 0 + 0 2 2 4 3 1 2 1 0 2 3 Yes Combine
Figure 2-11: The concept screening matrix. All concepts are rated against the reference concept (D). If the judged concept is better than the reference it receives a +, if equal 0 and if worse -.
20
Step 2: Rate the Concepts. The concepts are rated against the datum and the relative scores are: better than (+), same as (0) or worse than (-). See Figure 2-11. Step 3: Rank the Concepts. The Net score is calculated for each concept by subtracting the Sum-s from the Sum+s. The concepts with the highest Net score are getting the highest rank. Step 4: Combine and Improve the Concepts. If a good concept is degraded by only one bad feature and it is assessed that it can be significantly improved by a slight modification, it should be evaluated further. Two bad concepts may be combined into one good concept. Step 5: Select one or More Concepts. Currently the team members are very familiar with the concepts and they will probably know which concepts to work further on. In our example they choose concept A, the combination of D and F, concept E and the improved G concept. These concepts were transferred to a Concept scoring matrix for a more sensitive evaluation. See Figure 2-12.
A (Reference)
Selection Criteria Weight Rate WS*
DF
Rate WS
Concepts E
Rate WS Rate
G
WS
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
5% 15% 10% 25% 15% 20% 10% Total score. Rank

Continue?
3 3 2 3 2 3 3
0.15 0.45 0.20 0.75 0.30 0.60 0.30 2.75 4 No
3 4 3 3 5 3 3
0.15 0.60 0.30 0.75 0.75 0.60 0.30 3.45 1
4 4 5 2 4 2 3
0.20 0.60 0.50 0.50 0.60 0.40 0.30 3.10 2 No
4 3 5 3 3 2 3
0-20 0.45 0.50 0.75 0.45 0.40 0.4 3.05 3 No
Develop!
Figure 2-12: Concept scoring matrix. A weighted sum of the ratings is used to determine concept ranking. (*WS = Weighted score). For more information about concept scoring, see (Ulrich & Eppinger, 2003). 21
2.4 TRIZ The problem solving methodology called TRIZ (Theory of Inventive Problem Solving) was mainly presented and proposed by the Russian scientist G. Altshuller. The method is useful for identifying physical principles to solve technical problems. One of the ideas in TRIZ is to reveal and solve the arising conflicts that will appear when a system or product is changed. If for instance the goal for a car manufacturer is to increase the speed of the car, the negative effect of increased fuel consumption is likely to appear. To eliminate these contradictions Altshuller have formed a 39 by 39 matrix of characteristics with each cell corresponding to a conflict between two characteristics. In each cell of the matrix there are up to four possible solutions, or physical principles, suggested to solve the conflict between the characteristics. See Figure 2-13.
Figure 2-13: TRIZ matrix for suggestions of inventive principles for eliminating conflicts within a system or product. (Sushkov, Mars, & Wognum, 1994). Another problem solving technique within TRIZ is the collection of scientific engineering effects. Patent studies performed by Altshuller and his colleagues showed that the best technical solutions often were found by using natural effects or phenomena. All these effects found in the patents was organised into a database in three main groups consisting of physical, chemical and geometrical effects. The database consists of a list of functions combined with the database of effects. The problem is 22
formulated in the list of functions and the possible solutions to use are presented in the database of effects. See Figure 2-14. However the last step to create the physical realisation, e.g. the CAD model, of the product is still a matter for the engineer to perform.
Problem
L 0.01
TRIZ
List of functions Database of effects
to change the length of an object
Geometrical solution
Thermal expansion
Electrical heater
V Physical realizations done by engineer
Figure 2-14: The problem is to adjust the length of the rod. In the list of function in the TRIZ database of scientific engineering effects the problem is formulated as to change the length of an object and the database suggests two effects to use to solve the problem; geometrical or thermal. The last step of making a physical realization must still be done by an engineer. 23
2.5 MFD The objective of Modular Function Deployment (Erixon G. , 1998) is to find an optimal modular product design that reflects the companys specific needs and strategies, by using a structured company supportive method. The MFD method supports the early concept phase of designing modular products from customer demands until detail design in a CAD system. The MFD method consists of five major steps, see Figure 2-15. (Ericsson & Erixon, 1999)
Figure 2-15: The five steps of Modular Function Deployment (MFD). The design work is an iterative process as the arrows indicates. (Ericsson & Erixon, 1999). First step: Define customer requirements. To ensure that customer demands (present and future) are fulfilled when designing the new product the first step is to make a quality function deployment (QFD) analysis. The output from the QFD analysis is a set of product properties and customer demands that the product must satisfy. Second step: Select technical solutions. The output from step one is the basis when the technical solutions are to be decided. By breaking down the product into functions the associated technical solutions can be found. Pugh selection matrix may be used to select among the many different solutions that might fulfil the product function (see chapter 2.3). 24
Third step: Generate modular concepts. In step three the technical solutions found in step two are analysed regarding their reasons for being separate modules. Technical solutions with the same module driver profile are clustered together in the MIM and a first sketch of possible modules is performed. The MIM is further explained in chapter 2.5.1. Fourth step: Evaluate modular concept. The type and numbers of interfaces between the modules are of great importance for the final products flexibility within the product or product range. An interface comes in two basic types: geometrical and energy (Erixon G. , 1998). Geometrical interface specifies how the modules are geometrical attached to each other, e.g. number of holes and the distance between them in an interface. Energy interface stands for moving or media transmitting of force, torque, electricity etc. The interfaces can be evaluated in a matrix (see Figure 2-16), where the modules are entered in assembly order and the interrelations are marked with a G or E. The arrows in the connection matrix are pointing out two, from assembly point of view, preferred interface principles: Hamburger assembly and Base part assembly. Connections outside these preferred principles should be avoided or be improved and changed. (Erixon G. , 1998).
Figure 2-16: Evaluation of interfaces between modules. Two types of interfaces are marked in the matrix, Geometrical (G) and Energy (E). Preferred types of assemblies are marked with arrows, Base part and Hamburger assembly. (Erixon G. , 1998). 25
Fifth step: Improve each module. The last step includes improving of the separate modules using DFX (see chapter 2.6). For instance, DFS (Design For Service) may be used to improve modules with the module driver Service/Maintain. The fifth step also consists of making a module specification stating basic data about the module such as person responsible for the module, technical solutions in the module, module drivers and so on. 2.5.1 MIM The heart of the MFD-method is the MIM (Modular Indication Matrix). The matrix is used to provide information on which technical solutions are to be grouped into modules. According to Erixon (Erixon G. , 1998) the definition of a module is: A functional building block with specified and standardized interfaces, chosen for company specific (strategic) reasons. The module drivers are the driving force behind modularisation and based on case studies in Swedish industry. Twelve generic drivers have been identified by stgren (stgren, 1994). Product development and design: 1. Carry-over, is an item of the product that can be re-used in forthcoming generations. 2. Technological evolution, is an item that is likely to go through a technology shift throughout its life-cycle. 3. Planned design changes, is an item that is likely to be changed during its life-cycle according to a product plan. Variance: 4. Technical specification, is an item that is subjected to variations and customisation. 5. Styling, is an item influenced by trends and fashion and can easily be altered. Production: 6. Common unit, is an item that can be used throughout the entire assortment. 7. Process and/or organisation re-use, to manufacture such an item, a specific process is needed or it has a suitable work content for a group. Quality: 8. Separate testing of functions, before the item is supplied to the main floor. 26
Purchasing: 9. Supplier offers black box, the item is designed and manufactured by a subcontractor. After sales: 10. Service and maintenance, the service and repair of the item will be easier if it is easy detachable. 11. Upgrading, the item can be rebuilt to another configuration. 12. Recycling, items that are environmentally hostile can be kept separately in a module to simplify recycling. In a QFD like exercise, every technical solution is tested against every module driver. The question to be answered is Are there strong/medium/some reasons for the analysed TS to be carrier of the present module driver. The technical solutions reasons for being a module is weighted in the same scale as in QFD, i.e. 9 for a strong driver, 3 for a medium driver and 1 for some driver. See example Figure 2-17.
Technical Solutions 72 9 3 9 9 3 9 9 9 3 9 9 9 3 9 Technology push 9 9 9 9 30 36 58 9 3 9 9 1 3 3 9 3 3 3 1 1 1 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 9 9 3 9 9 9 3 9 3 9 3 3 3 9 3 3 3 30 28 48 1 3 9 1 3 3 53 1 3 3 20 27 27 19 31 18 27 24 24 18 36 31 25 31
A2993 Lever A30295 Cylinder housing A11039 Housing A2595 Rod A30609 Cylinder cover A42298 Roller tap A42160 Shaft tap A11040 Cover A42380 Piston rod A42024 Shaft tap, rear A5055003, -007 Roller A42640 Wiper A30249 Piston A30619 Wiper, lever
Service / maint.
Technical spec.
Black box eng.
Process / Org.
Separate Test
Common unit
Product plan
Carry Over
Upgrading
Development and Design Variance Production Q.
After Sale
Figure 2-17: Example of MIM-matrix. The connection weights are strong = black square (9), medium = 3 and some = 1. 27
Recycling
Styling
The next step is to group technical solutions with the same driver pattern into modules. One method to execute the grouping of TSs into modules is to start with a technical solution with high score and then search for other technical solutions that have the same driver pattern or nearly the same, e.g. start with A11039 Housing with the score 27 and as can be seen in Figure 2-18 the A11040 Cover has nearly the same pattern and fits nicely with the Housing.
Technical Solutions A2993 Lever A42160 Shaft tap A5055003 Roller A11039 Housing A11040 Cover A42298 Roller tap A2595 Rod A5055007 Roller A42024 Shaft tap, rear A42160 Shaft tap A5055003 Roller A42640 Wiper A30619 Wiper, lever A30249 Piston A30295 Cylinder housing A30609 Cylinder cover A42380 Piston rod 99 30 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 3 3 3 3 Technology push 36 67 9 3 3 9 9 3 9 3 3 3 3 1 1 1 3 1 3 Technical spec. 39 3 3 9 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 Process / Org. Common unit 3 9 3 3 9 9 9 3 3 3 3 Black box eng. 1 9 9 9 9 9 3 3 3 3 Service / maint. 3 28 69 80 9 1 3 9 1 9 9 3 Modules
20 27
Lever
36 27 24 18 19 36 18 27
Chassie
Rod
36
9 9 9 9 Product plan
3 3 9
Wiper Wiper, lever 25 Hydraulic 27 cylinder

31 31 31 24
Separate Test
Carry Over
Upgrading
After Sale
Figure 2-18: Rearranged MIM with the first attempt to group modules with the same driver profile.
28
Recycling
Styling
2.6 Design For X A number of methods have been developed with the objective to optimize the design of the product. Design For Assembly (DFA), Design For Manufacturing (DFM) and Design For Service (DFS) are some examples used in designing products. The optimization is e.g. in DFA on minimizing assembly time and the number of parts in the product. Many interpretations of the X in DFX are to be found in the literature. The X can represent: a specific property a life cycle phase of the product collective term that all Xs should be taken in consideration when designing products.
The first two interpretations are suggested by Olesen (Olesen, 1992) and can be combined in a matrix; see Figure 2-19 and the third is suggested by Andreasen & Olesen (Andreasen & Olesen, 1993).
properties
life-cycle phase
parts manufacturing assembly distribution service discarding
Figure 2-19: Life-cycle phase versus property interpretation of X in DFX. (Olesen, 1992). The horizontal axis of the matrix shows some X properties that can be optimized and the vertical axis is represented by some life-cycle phases of the X in DFX. If the goal of the design is to optimize the lead time of the product (Design For Lead-time) then the life-cycle phases parts 29
risk environmental effect
efficiency
lead time
flexibility
quality
cost
manufacturing, assembly and distribution may be of interest. But if the optimization is focusing on the life-cycle phase distribution the properties cost, lead time and flexibility may be the most interesting properties to study. According to Tichem (Tichem, 1997), the designers traditionally focus on the use phase of the product and on product properties such as function/performance, cost and reliability. DFX broadens these functional requirements on the product by adding various life-cycle phases demands on the product, see Figure 2-20.
Figure 2-20: Requirements from various life-cycle phases are making demands that the design should fulfil. In the early stages of design these requirements can easily be performed and implemented in the product. (Tichem, 1997). These life-cycle phase demands on the product should be taken in account as soon as possible in the design-process. DFX stresses the importance and consequences of how design decisions will have impact on the later phases of producing the product, e.g. manufacturability and how easy it will be to assembly. Many success stories can be found in conjunction with using DFXmethods. Reductions in fasteners, operations and assembly time are very common results in these applications, see Figure 2-21.
30
Figure 2-21: By using Boothroyd & Dewhurst DFMA method the above improvements have been achieved. (Boothroyd, Dewhurst, & Knight, Product Design for Manufacture and Assembly, 1994). One very well known DFA method is the Boothroyd & Dewhurst DFAmethod. Reducing the cost of producing the product by simplification of the product is the heart of the method. The cut in costs is mainly done by reducing the number of individual parts to assemble in the product. Secondly ensuring that the remaining parts are easy to assemble and manufacture. The method has a very systematic approach and is formalized by a step-by-step process. For manual assembly the analysis technique examines the design in a systematic way and a design efficiency index (DFA-index) is calculated The DFA-index can be used to compare different designs. The method consists of two important steps for each part in the assembly: 1. a decision as to whether the part can be considered a candidate for elimination or combination with other parts in the assembly 2. an estimation of the time to grasp, manipulate and insert the part Having done the two steps it is then possible to calculate the total assembly time and to compare it with the assembly time for an ideal design. To make the decision whether a part is candidate for elimination in step 1 above these three questions are to be answered: 31
A. During operation of the product, does the part move relative to all other parts already assembled? Only gross motion should be considered, small motions that can be accommodated by elastic hinges, for example, are not sufficient for a positive answer. B. Must the part be of a different material or be isolated from all other parts already assembled? Only fundamental reasons concerned with material properties are accepted. C. Must the part be separate from all other parts already assembled because otherwise necessary assembly or disassembly of other separate parts would be impossible? If the answer is yes on any of these above questions the separate part is needed, consequently if the answers are no on all the questions the part is candidate for elimination. The design efficiency index can then be calculated as:
DFAindex =
(Boothroyd & Dewhurst, Product Design For Assembly Handbook, 1989)
32
3 Proposed method The objective of the Product Management Map (PMM) is to bridge the information gap between the customer domain and the modularised product domain, the connection is established with a connection matrix (CM), linking the QFD to the MIM. The CM makes it possible to create an unbroken chain from CD to the designed modules, via PP and TS. See Figure 3-1. (See also appended paper C).
QFD
CD1 CD2 CD3 TS1 TS2 TS3 TS4 MD
PP1 PP2 PP3 PP4
MIM
MO1 MO2
CM
Figure 3-1: The complete Product Management Map, consisting of a QFD-house and a MIM linked together with a connection matrix. The creation of CDs, TSs and modules are made in the MFD (Erixon G. , 1998) and the visualisation of some data from MFD is done in the PMM forming the MFD/PMM-method. See Figure 3-2. The added CM in the PMM makes it also possible to use statistical methods to cluster TSs into modules. See (Stake, 2000) and (Brjesson, 2009)
Figure 3-2: The MFD/PMM-method. 33
Necessary changes in the technical solutions and product properties in the product due to altered customer demands can be traced and analysed in the PMM, see Figure 3-3. If for instance CD2 in Figure 3-3 is changed because of a new market situation, perhaps PP3 needs to be reconfigurated with new goalvalue to meet the latest demand from the market. TS3 and TS4 perhaps also needs to be changed to fulfil the new goalvalue of product property PP3.
QFD
PP1 PP2 PP3 PP4
MIM
MO1 MO2
CM
Figure 3-3: Changes in the customer demand CD2 is taken care of technical solutions by redesigning the TS3 and TS4 via the product property PP3s goal value. The PMM helps to trace and clarify the consequences of changes on technical solutions. How and which customer demands are affected if a certain technical solution is changed, is the company still fulfilling customer demands? See Figure 3-4. CD marked as order winner should be paid special interest.
QFD
PP1 PP2 PP3 PP4
MIM
MO1 MO2
CM
Figure 3-4: What happens with product properties and customer demands if the technical solution TS1 is changed, can the company still satisfy customer demands CD1 and CD2? 34
The complete PMM with all its parts are shown in Figure 3-5. Compared to the original Chart that was presented in the appended paper C some additions has been made by consultants at Modular Management AB. The added features are notified with frames in Figure 3-5. A detail description of the parts in the PMM and how to use them can be found in chapter 3.1.
Q, OW or D Customer Segments Trend

Customer Demand
Weight A CD1 CD2 CD3 CD4 2 5 1 1 B 5 4 3 1 C 5 Q
v Pd
L < 10/ 20mm
v Pd
C = Red / Blue
Variance Product Development

A > 10W Shape 3
M = 1 kg
Goal Value Product Properties
PP1 PP2 PP3 PP4 PP5
4 OW 2 3 Q Q A 14 45 27 18 48 23 36 72 15 42 38 36 63 21 44
QFD
Customer Segments Product sum. Mean value (Max Min) value
B C
MIM
18 18 12 12 1 3 3 9 sum 19 12 18 12 15
24
45
TS1 TS2
M1
Coupling matrix
TS3 TS4 TS5
M2
M3
P/O
CO
CU
PD
BB
TE
TS
ST
S/M
Module Drivers
Figure 3-5: The complete PMM.
35
Modules
25 39 54 18 45
Technical Solutions
Proposal of how to use MFD/PMM-method in three development models From the appended paper B, An easy to use tool for product design; The CARP software, the following citations can be found: Designing is to a great extent an ad hoc process. Design work is complex and unpredictable. The designer executes a great number of different types of development and design activities, jumping forward and/or backward in as many iterations as are needed to reach a presentable result. The starting point for these activities also vary considerable dependent on the design task and the designer himself. And from the concluding remarks. How should the toolbox be used in different product development situations? Which pieces are needed to solve a specific problem? We believe that the toolbox must be equipped with guidelines and case studies to support engineers in his work.
An attempt to create these guidelines for different development situations has been done by the author by using the development methods proposed by Skalak and others. (Skalak, Kemser, & Ter-Minassian, 1997). Skalak, Kemser, & Ter-Minassian suggest three types of working methods: original product development never done before in the company. See chapter 3.1 evolutionary product development largely based on an old design. See chapter 3.2 incremental product development consisting of minor changes on an existent design. See chapter 3.3
36
3.1 Original product development A completely new product, never done before, is developed by the corporation. There is no previous design history for the new product. An example may be a company producing cars with a traditional diesel engine transforming into a new design consisting of an electrical engine.
Step 1: QFD Customer demands are gathered by using surveys, questionnaires and perhaps in deep interviews or brainstorming by the development team. (See chapter 2.1.1). It is important to establish and divide customer into customer segments to facilitate necessary tradeoffs in the following development work. The creation of the customer segments is strategically very important and should therefore be decided in agreement with management of the firm. (See chapter 2.1.2). The future importance of each customer demand is notified by an arrow icon showing the trend of the CD. All customer demands are weighted in a scale from 1 to 5 (5 = highest) within each customer segment which can be done with the method pairwise comparison. (See Figure 2-5 on page 8). To be able to sort the CD in ascending weight the mean value of weight is calculated. Finally every CD is label with qualifier, order winner or delighter. Order winners among the CD are especially important to recognize because they pinpoint CDs that are subjected to ongoing product development by the firm so that the competitiveness to other companies remains. (See chapter 2.1.3).
QFD matrix
Qualifier, Order Winner or Delighter Customer Segments Trend A CD1 Customer Demands CD2 CD3 CD4 2 5 1 1 B 5 4 3 1 C 5 4 2 3 X 4 Q
4 OW 2 2 Q Q
Weight mean value of Weight
37
Step 1: QFD (continued) Product Properties, which is a description of the customer demands in technical terms, are often gathered in a brainstorming activity performed by the development team. The work done in the brainstorming activity can be documented by using Ishikawa fishbone diagram. (See chapter 2.1.4). An ideal product property must be measurable and therefore assigned a goal value. One way for the development team to assign adequate goal values to the PPs is to benchmark the PP against the competitors PPs. (See chapter 2.1.5). If possible a PP should be global for the product and not locked to a particular design solution, or manufacturing process, these decisions should be done later in the product development process. (Andersson, 1991).
QFD matrix
Q, OW or D
M = 1 kg A > 10W
Shape 3
Trend
Customer Segments Weight A 2 5 1 1 B 5 4 3 1 C 5 4 2 3 X 4
L < 10/ 20mm
C = Red / Blue
PP1 PP2 PP3 PP4 PP5
Customer Demand
CD1 CD2 CD3 CD4
4 OW 2 2 Q Q
38
Step 1: QFD (continued) Customer demands and Product properties are linked together in the Connection Matrix. Standard QFD markings are used, black dot is a strong connection (weight 9), zebra dot is a medium connection (weight 3) and circle is a weak connection (weight 1). Then the connection matrix is done the Product Development indications (Pd) can be performed by linking PP together with CD (with OW-status) via black dots. The next step is to calculate the customer segment product sum for every PP. In the example below the customer segment As product sum for PP1 is calculated as (A) x (PP1) = (2, 5, 1, 1) x (1, 0, 3, 9) = 2 + 3 + 9 = 14. The mean value is calculated on the customer segments product sum and the (Max-Min) value is the difference between maximum product sum and minimum product sum. A big (Max Min) value compared to the mean value is an indication of that the PP probably needs more than one variant to fulfil all the customer segments demands. The PP is therefore marked with a v in the Variance row to indicate the need for variations.
QFD matrix
Q, OW or D
Customer Segments Weight A 2 5 1 1 B 5 4 3 1 C 5 4 2 3 X 4
v Pd
L < 10/ 20mm
v Pd
C = Red / Blue
M = 1 kg
A > 10W
Shape 3
Trend
PP1 PP2 PP3 PP4 PP5
Customer Demand
CD1 CD2 CD3 CD4
Q Connection Matrix
4 OW 2 2 Q Q A B C 14 45 27 18 48 23 36 72 15 42 38 36 63 21 44 25 39 54 18 45 24 9 45 6 6
39
Checkpoint 1: Now its time to analyse the connection matrix in the QFD. The goal is to find and correct problems and shortcomings in the dot pattern in the matrix. A number of typical faults in the matrix has been listed below with some hints how to correct them. (Gustavsson, 1998). 1. Empty row A customer demand that has not been taken care of by some product property is a grave problem because the customer has a demand that the product will not fulfil. If the customer always is right the product development team must find and add a new product property, linked to the customer demand.
PP1 PP2 PP3 PP4 PP5 CD1 CD2 CD3 CD4 CD5
2. Empty column A product property not wanted by the customer, and can maybe be deleted from the matrix. But in some cases the product property can be an internal property, for instance something dealing with how to manufacture the product and therefore remain in the matrix. 3. Rows without strong connections Every customer demand should at least have one strong connection to product properties otherwise the product development team must find another strong connected product property. Strong connections are especially important for high ranked and/or order winner customer demands.
4. Rows or columns with identical connections Many wishes expresses the same and some of them may be deleted.
40
5. Rows or columns with too many connections - If it is a CD it has probably something to do with cost, quality or security. A classical CD is Low price which will have connections to all PPs. These CDs should be reformulated or deleted. Many dots in a PP column can indicate that the PP is on a much higher hierarchical level than the other and should be broken down in a number of lower lever PPs.
6. Too many weak connections More precise product properties need to be worked out that will satisfy customer demands better.
41
Step 2: Find technical solutions (TS) Finding TSs is a difficult step to execute for the project team, especially when a new product never done before is to be developed. There is no earlier design history to lean on or some older product to analyse. The task for the development team is to translate the product properties stated in the QFD into technical solutions (parts). There are a number of methods to use in finding TSs, for instance axiomatic design, TRIZ, benchmarking and selection matrices. These methods can be of assistance and help in the development work but still much relies on the engineers skill and ability to find and select the best technical solutions for the product. By using axiomatic design the team can achieve an uncoupled design which makes the product easy to update and maintain in the future. (See chapter 2.2). TRIZ (Theory of Inventive Problem Solving) is useful then the team is seeking for new physical principles to solve technical problems. (See chapter 2.4 ). If competitors already have similar products on the market, benchmarking these products can be effective so find and evaluate technical solutions. (See chapter 2.1.5). Normally when engineers are seeking for new TS they come up with a number of possible solutions to use. To make the right choice among whose possible technical solutions the engineers can use the selection methods proposed by Ulrich & Eppinger or by Pugh. (See chapter 2.3)
v v Pd Pd
C = Red / Blue
QFD matrix
Q, OW or D
Customer Segments Weight A 2 5 1 1 B 5 4 3 1 C 5
L < 10/ 20mm
M = 1 kg
A > 10W
Shape 3
Trend
PP1 PP2 PP3 PP4 PP5
Customer Demand
CD1 CD2 CD3 CD4
4 OW 2 3 Q Q A 14 45 27 18 48 23 36 72 15 42 38 36 63 21 44 25 39 54 18 45 24 9 45 6 6 sum TS1 TS2 TS3 TS4 TS5 Technical Solutions
B C
P/O
CO
CU
PD
BB
TE
TS
ST
S/M
42
Step 3: Mapping of product properties and technical solutions. The connection between the QFD matrix and technical solutions is established with a coupling matrix. The mapping is done QFD likewise, i.e. the connections are marked with filled dots (representing strong connection with the value 9), zebra dots (representing medium connection with the value 3) and circles (representing weak connection with the value 1). To determine whether there is a correlation between TS and PP the team raises the question: Can PP be influenced or altered if TS is changed and how much? A good method is to start with the first TS (T1) and map it against all the PP one by one asking the above question and then continue with T2 on the next row. An ideal coupling matrix reveals a one-to-one mapping between TSs and PPs enabling a change in one TS effecting only one PP.
v v Pd Pd
C = Red / Blue
QFD matrix
Q, OW or D
L < 10/ 20mm
M = 1 kg
A > 10W
Shape 3
Trend
PP1 PP2 PP3 PP4 PP5
Customer Demand
CD1 CD2 CD3 CD4
4 OW 2 3 Q Q A 14 45 27 18 48 23 36 72 15 42 38 36 63 21 44 25 39 54 18 45 24 9 45 6 6
B C
Technical Solutions
sum 19 12 18 12 15
TS1 TS2
Coupling matrix
TS3 TS4 TS5
P/O
CO
CU
PD
BB
TE
TS
ST
S/M
43
Checkpoint 2: Analysis of the connection matrix A completed connection matrix can by use to analyze the design, for instance by checking for : 1. Empty row Implies that the technical solution is of small interest to the customer. Do we really need the technical solution in our product? If so, can it be integrated into another technical solution? (According to the consultant firm Sweden Modular Management AB).
PP1 PP2 PP3 PP4 PP5 CD1 CD2 CD3 CD4 CD5 TS1 TS2 TS3 TS4 TS5
2. Empty column There is a possibility that a customer demand is not taken care of in the product. In the example, it is extra serious because the CD is an order winner. The team must try to find an additional technical solution that meets the CD.
PP1 PP2 PP3 PP4 PP5 CD1 CD2 (OW) CD3 CD4 CD5 TS1 TS2 TS3 TS4 TS5
3. Rows with many connections - A TS with many dots will probably link to many CDs making it difficult in the future to change the TS. One possible way of overcome the problem with many dots in a TS-line is to split the TS into simpler parts. (According to the consultant firm Sweden Modular Management AB).
44
4. Columns with many connections A column with many connections suggest that the PP is a system property, influencing nearly the whole product. A PP with many dots needs extraordinary attention. Maybe the project team can appoint somebody responsible for managing PPs with many dots? Can the PP be split in two or more? (According to the consultant firm Sweden Modular Management AB). 5. Rows with identical connections The function of the technical solutions are probably the same and they can perhaps be put together into one TS.
6. Ideal connection matrix - In an ideal connection matrix each product property connects strongly with only one technical solution. (According to the consultant firm Sweden Modular Management AB).
45
Step 4: Module creation in MIM. The technical solutions are clustered into modules using the MIM in the MFD-method. Every TS is assessed against every module driver, horizontal from left to right trough the matrix. For each of the TS the weight of the reason for being a separate module is notified in a QFD likeness method. Strong driver reason is weighted 9, medium driver reason is weighted 3 and weak driver reason is weighted 1. The project teams work with assigning every TS with a module driver can be simplified by using a questionnaire that has been developed by Erixon (Erixon G. , 1998) covering all twelve module drivers. For the module driver Carry Over the questionnaire looks like:
Are there ( ) strong ( ) medium ( ) any (weak) reasons that the analysed technical solution should be a separate module because the new design can be carried over to coming product generations?
The number of modules can be roughly estimated as the square root of the number of parts in the product, e.g. in the example below, the numbers of modules are estimated to be two or three. In our example TS1 and TS5 is therefore picked as module candidates. It is a good idea to pick those TS with the highest horizontal sum as the seeds to build the modules around. (Erixon G. , 1998).
v v Pd Pd
C = Red / Blue
QFD matrix
Q, OW or D
L < 10/ 20mm
M = 1 kg
A > 10W
Shape 3
Trend
PP1 PP2 PP3 PP4 PP5
Customer Demand
CD1 CD2 CD3 CD4
4 OW 2 3 Q Q A 14 45 27 24 48 23 36 72 21 42 38 36 63 39 44 25 39 54 28 45 24 9 45 18 6
B C
MIM
Technical Solutions
Modules
18
18
24 1
sum 28 13 18 12 12 M3 M2 M1
TS1 TS3
Coupling matrix
TS5 TS2 TS4
P/O
CO
CU
PD
BB
TE
TS
ST
S/M
Module Drivers
46
Step 4: Module creation in MIM.(continued) The QFD and Coupling matrixes should be used when decisions of candidates for modules are taken in MIM. Trends, qualifiers, order winners, delighters, variants (v) and product development (Pd) are all of great importance when decisions are taken concerning modules. 1. Trends Technical solutions which are linked to customer demands with trends pointing upward should probably be candidates for the module drivers technical evolution (TE) or planned design changes (PD), see example below. TE is justified by the fact that competitors likely have realized that the linked CD is going to be very important and probably already have started to develop new and better solutions that will meet the rising demand from customers. Therefore our own company must prepare the product to be able to be equipped with the latest technology in the market and the TSs is marked with the module driver technical evolution (TE). If our company is the developer of the market leading and best TS fulfilling the raising customer demand (CD3) we have to continue our product development to maintain our market leading position. The TSs is therefore marked with the module driver planned design changes (PD).
v v Pd Pd
C = Red / Blue
QFD matrix
Q, OW or D
L < 10/ 20mm
M = 1 kg
A > 10W
Shape 3
Trend
PP1 PP2 PP3 PP4 PP5
Customer Demand
CD1 CD2 CD3 CD4
4 OW 2 3 Q Q A 14 45 27 24 48 23 36 72 21 42 38 36 63 39 44 25 39 54 28 45 24 9 45 18 6
B C
Technical Solutions
MIM
3 6 18 18 9 24 4 10 sum 31 16 21 12 12
TS1 TS3
M1
Coupling matrix
TS5 TS2 TS4
M2
M3
P/O
CO
CU
PD
BB
TE
TS
ST
S/M
Module Drivers
47
Modules
Step 4: Module creation in MIM.(continued) 2. Order winner (OW) and product development (Pd) Customer demands marked with order winner are of cause very important to our company, they are the reasons why the customers selects our product. All PPs having strong connections to order winners are marked Pd (product development) as a reminder not to be forgotten in the development work. The technical solutions (in the example below TS5 and TS2) having strong connection with these PPs marked with Pd are candidates for the module driver planned design changes (PD). These technical solutions are key parts in our product; they must have special attention and be developed according to a plan so that our product can remain as a competitive product in the market.
v Pd Pd
C = Red / Blue
QFD matrix
Q, OW or D
M = 1 kg
A > 10W
Shape 3
Trend
L < 10/ 20mm
PP1 PP2 PP3 PP4 PP5
Customer Demand
CD1 CD2 CD3 CD4
4 OW 2 3 Q Q A 14 45 27 24 48 23 36 72 21 42 38 36 63 39 44 25 39 54 28 45 24 9 45 18 6
Technical Solutions
B C
MIM
3 6 18 18 9 24 4 10 sum 31 16 21 12 12
P/O CO CU PD BB TE TS ST S/M U R S
TS1 TS3
M1
Coupling matrix
TS5 TS2 TS4
M2
M3
Module Drivers
48
Modules
Step 4: Module creation in MIM.(continued) 3. Variants (v) Product properties which are marked with a (v) are an indication of that these product properties perhaps must have a number of variants to cover the markets demand. Consequently some of the technical solution maybe also needs to be designed in a number of variants. The (v) mark derives only from the mathematical fact that the (Max Min) value is relative big compared with the Mean value. (See example below). There is no real proof that these PPs and TSs needs to be varied. However if the project team decides to prepare the product for variants of the indicated TSs (in our example TS1 and TS3) the proper module driver is technical specification.
v Pd Pd
C = Red / Blue
QFD matrix
Q, OW or D
L < 10/ 20mm
M = 1 kg
A > 10W
Shape 3
Trend
PP1 PP2 PP3 PP4 PP5
Customer Demand
CD1 CD2 CD3 CD4
4 OW 2 3 Q Q A 14 45 27 24 48 23 36 72 21 42 38 36 63 39 44 25 39 54 28 45 24 9 45 18 6
Customer Segments Product sum. Mean value
B C
Technical Solutions
MIM
3 6 18 18 9 24 4 10 sum 31 16 21 12 12
(Max Min) value
TS1 TS3
M1
Coupling matrix
TS5 TS2 TS4
M2
M3
P/O
CO
CU
PD
BB
TE
TS
ST
S/M
Module Drivers
49
Modules
Step 5: Improve modules and TSs using DFX DFX analysis is used to improve and optimize every module.
DFMA - In general the DFMA method is used to minimize the number of

parts in all the modules making the modules easy to assemble and manufacture.
DFS (Design For Service) If the product has got a service module with
the module driver service and maintenance (S/M) it should be analysed with the DFS method making it easy to service and maintain.
DFE (Design For Environment) Recycling modules (R) should of

cause primarily be analysed with the DFE method, making the module easy to recycle.
50
3.2 Evolutionary product development In the evolutionary product development model a new product is developed, largely based on an old design. The new product is perhaps a new generation of an old product platform. Many design features from the old product is reused in the new product. A typical example can be a company that have replaced the previous product consisting of a traditional beam structure with a new developed self-supporting design structure. The function of the product is generally the same in the new as in the old product. In the evolutionary product development model there are two starting points, one without a PMM (starting point A, below) and the other with a previously done PMM (starting point B, below). If there is no PMM at hand the development team has to create one with the present product design as starting point. However the PMM in the evolutionary product development model is simpler to create than creating a PMM from scratch, such as described in chapter 3.1, due to the fact that an old design can be used and analysed. Starting point A (without a PMM) Method Blank PMM. PMM
51
QFD: Find customer demands and rank them with pair wise comparison. Trends and Q, OW and D are stated for every CD. Decide which customer segments the product is marketed for. Product properties with goal values are formulated with Ishikawa diagram. Connect PPs with CDs using standard QFD procedure. Calculate customer segment product sum, mean value and (Max-Min) value for every PP. Mark the product properties which are candidates for variance or product development with v or Pd. (for more details see chapter 3.1, step 1) Analyse the QFD according to chapter 3.1 checkpoint 1.
Find technical solutions (TS): It is normally rather simple to find the technical solutions, just fill in the bill of the material (BOM) of the present product design. To keep the numbers of parts down, omit parts like washers and screws.
Mapping of product properties and technical solutions. In a QFD likewise manner, connect the technical solutions with product properties. (See chapter 3.1, step 3) Analyse the connection matrix between the TS and QFD. (See chapter 3.1, checkpoint 2) 52
Module creation in MIM. The creation of the modules is done as described in chapter 3.1 step 4.
Finished PMM, go to starting point B below. Starting point B (with a PMM) Method Fully performed PMM. PMM
The evolutionary development of the product is probably initiated by altered customer behaviour and these changes will probably affect some of the CDs in our product. Check if some PPs goal values needs to be changed to stand up to the new demands from customer. Benchmark also PPs and CDs against the competitors and set appropriate goal values. (See chapter 2.1.5). 53
Must the present TSs, associated to the PPs, be changed to meet the new goal values of the PPs? Perhaps a completely new TS needs to be developed and evaluated. Benchmarking competitors products is a fruitful way of finding new solutions to technical problems. (See chapter 2.1.5). Another way of finding new solutions to technical problem is to use TRIZ. (See chapter 2.4). Finally choose the best technical solution by using some concept selection method. (See chapter 2.3). How is the modules affected by the changes made in the TSs? (See chapter 3.1, Step 4: Module creation in MIM. Study especially the section about trends, order winners, variants v and product development Pd).
Improve the modules changed by using the appropriate DFX method! (See chapter 3.1 step 5: Improve modules and TSs using DFX). Save the updated PMM!
54
3.3 Incremental product development The incremental product development model is used for the day-to-day development of technical solutions (TS) similar to small changes in the product commenced by a single design engineer or manufacturing engineer.
Method The starting point is a complete PMM.
PMM
Change the TS and evaluate the new TS with some concept selection method (See chapter 2.5) or/and benchmark the new solutions against the competitors. (See chapter 2.1.5). Evaluate the updated or changed TS regarding the influence on CD, PP and module. Great caution should be used in amending the technical solution if the connected CD has got a raising trend and/or is an order winner. (See chapter 3.1 step 4: Module creation in MIM) Update if necessary the module with altered module drivers. Improve the module with appropriate DFX-method. (See chapter 3.1 step 5: Improve modules and TSs using DFX). Save the updated PMM.
55
3.4 Typical Voice of Customer words The author of the thesis Conceptual Product Development in Small Corporations made a survey by checking for typical words in QFD analysis found in literature and in real QFD cases. The result is shown in Figure 3-6. By combining the two columns in the figure, typical and stringent customer demands such as Easy to install, Nice to handle and Safe to handle can be formulated. These two columns can be of help when the labels are formulated for the customer demands (CD).
apply assemble carry disassemble fill handle heat install maintain operate refill remove repair secure use user
Easy to Nice to Quick to Quietly to Rapid to Safe to
Figure 3-6: Typical Voice of customer words that can be used to formulate customer demands. 3.5 Product Properties In the same survey, see chapter 3.4, typical product properties were registered. The result can be seen in Figure 3-7. These words can be used as an inspiration source when the project team is searching for product properties.
Weight Lenght Depth Width Height Color Shape Store
Geometry Soundlevel Corrosion Quality Material Maintenance Topology Surface
Figure 3-7: Typical product properties found in QFD survey. 56
4 Test of the MFD/PMM-method in a case study In the case study the evolutionary product development (See chapter 3.2) method was used in analysing the product, due to the fact that an existing product was at hand. Background material about the company Atlings AB The company Atlings AB has a total numbers of 50 employees including 3 engineers. The annual turnover was 9 million with a profit adding up to 0,8 million in 2008. The company is situated in a small community in the central of Sweden. They are acting as subcontractor to other mechanical companies but they also sell, manufacture and develop a product of their own which was originally developed in the 1970s for in-house need, later to be manufactured and sold to other companies. The customers of the product are resellers of lathe accessories and lathe manufacturing corporations. Direct selling to the end users, workshop staff, is very uncommon. The product acts as a holding and supporting tool on lathes. In the middle of 1980 there was a major re-design of the product resulting in the present design. Some smaller changes have been done since the re-design of the product but nothing has really been altered in the product since 1985. The product consists of a mechanical clamping unit connected to a hydraulic pressure cylinder. The product is manufactured in many different sizes. One of the reasons for that is the strong customer wish that the product shall be as small as possible and not interfere with the turning operation. 4.1
57
Problems with the present product. The managing director states these challenges/problems to overcome! - The competitors have a much nicer (stylish) design. - No profit is earned on the smaller variants due to the fact that market price are too low compared to the manufacturing cost. - Some quality problem with leaking hydraulics and bad surface finish on the product. The present design configuration makes it impossible to test the hydraulic cylinder before it is assembled with the clamping unit. Almost the whole product must be disassembled and adjusted if there is a leakage, so the incitement to test is low. - The varying quality of the produced articles in the workshop causes problem in the assembly. Many unique fixes are made in the assembly department. The origin of these problems can be bad blueprints (wrong tolerances) or bad manufacturing processes. 4.2 Description of the case study Steady Rest The product studied in the case study is a steady rest for use in lathes. The function is to support the turning process of long shafts. The steady rest acts as a vibration damper but the main function is to counteract the deflection of the workpiece resulting from cutting forces in the turning operation. The problems likely to arise if the turning process is carried out without a steady rest, are geometrical, such as ovality of the turned shaft (the shaft diameter will be bigger in the middle of the shaft compared to the ends) but surface finish may also be chattered due to vibrations (Atlings Maskinfabrik AB). The steady rest can be used for supporting free end workpieces or as a travelling steady to support turning operations of very long shafts. See Figure 4-1.
58
Figure 4-1: The use of steady rest on workpieces with free end and on long shafts. (Atlings Maskinfabrik AB). The steady rest is attached to the lathe via a mounting bracket. The mounting bracket is designed by the lathe manufacturer to fit the lathe. Some examples of mounting brackets are shown in Figure 4-2.
Figure 4-2: Mounting brackets (Atlings Maskinfabrik AB).
for
slant-
and
flat
bed
machines.
59
The interface between the steady rest and the mounting bracket is standardized by the market. There are certain distances between the mounting holes, the hole diameters are chained to the size of the steady rest and the shape of the interface is of a flat surface on both steady rest and mounting bracket. Geometrical data, see Figure 4-3. L1 64 85 102 135 135 210 220 260 L2 118 170 220 262 365 400 510 620 L4 (hole diameter) 11 14 14 18 23 23 26 26
L1
L2
L4
Figure 4-3: The interface between the steady rest and the mounting bracket consists of four holes. The distance and diameter of the holes are standardized by the market. The steady rest consists of four main parts. Housing is the chassie-part, bearer of cylinder and levers. Another important function of the house is to be the interface to the mounting bracket. Different sizes of workpieces can be clamped by rotating the levers. The contact element between the rotating shaft and lever are rollers which are mounted on the levers. The clamping force is produced by a hydraulic cylinder. (pneumatic cylinders can be used on the smaller gripping ranges). See Figure 4-4.
60
Lever
Roller
Housing
Cylinder
Amax = maximum gripping size Amin = minimum gripping size C = roller diameter C1 = roller shaft diameter C2 = roller thickness G2 = housing thickness G3 = (housing width) / 2
H = lever thickness H3 = lever length L1 = horizontal distance between mounting holes L2 = vertical distance between mounting holes L4 = diameter of mounting hole Z = cylinder diameter Z1 = cylinder length Z2 = cylinder thickness
Figure 4-4: The main parts of the steady rest. (Atlings Maskinfabrik AB).
61
The line up of the standard range of steady rests at Atlings AB comes in eleven different gripping ranges, from 3-65 until 100-500. See Figure 4-5. These gripping ranges are mainly determined by their main competitors in the market. As can be seen in the figure all these eleven different gripping ranges drives a lot of variants, e.g. seven variants of rollers and ten variants of housings.
Steady Rest platform LE/LZ Gripping range 3-65 8-100 12-120 12-155 20-170 35-245 50-310 50-360 150-420 125-460 100-500 Rollers C 19 C1 6 C2 12 H 26 H3 50
35 15 19 37
75 88
47
52 20 25 53 130 90 157 135 262 18 80

365
62
72 30 29 68
80 35
72 30
7 variants 19 35 6 15 12 19
of Rollers 47 52 62 72 80 20 20 30 30 35 25 25 29 29 29
Lever
116
160 100 219
210
235
270
98 300 142 340 260 620 26
325
11 variants of Levers 26 37 37 53 53 53 68 68 98 98 98 50 75 88 116 130 160 210 235 270 300 325
10 variants of Housings 57 70 70 90 100 70 102 142 157 219 64 85 102 135 135 118 170 220 262 365 11 14 14 18 23 110 250 210 400 23 110 142 265 295 210 220 400 510 23 26 142 340 260 620 26 142 350 260 620 26
Housing G2 G3 L1 L2 L4
70 57 70 102 142 64 85 102 118 170 220 14 11 50

109 120 136
110
250 265
210 400 23
295 220 510
350
Cylinder Z 40 Z1 94 Z2 57
140
70
90
90 169 100
198
100 220 110
213
120 242 142
120 276
11 variants of Cylinders 40 50 50 80 80 90 100 100 100 120 120 94 109 120 136 140 169 198 220 213 242 276 57 70 70 90 90 100 110 110 142 142 142
Figure 4-5: Examples of variants to cover all gripping sizes of the steady rest at Atlings AB. 4.3 Setting up the project team The project team consisted of five employees from Atlings AB and two teachers from the mechanical department at Dalarna University. The five employees from Atlings AB were in fact all personnel responsible for selling, designing, making preparation for manufacture and assembly of the steady rest. The project team met on a regular basis every fortnight for six times. Participants from Atlings AB were: Managing Director Sales and Marketing Manager Production Engineer Design Engineer Workshop Technician 62
Dalarna University was represented by: Project leader and writer of the thesis Conceptual Product Development in Small Corporations Discussion partner
4.4 QFD The customer demands were created by the team members. The task was to find as many customer demands as possible in each segment and write them on yellow patches, one demand on every single patch. All yellow patches were grouped on a white board and every group was assigned a label. The work of grouping the CD resulted in nine customer demands, eight external demands (Design, Easy to Center, Fast to Use, Easy to Install, Easy to Maintain, Easy to Repair, High Quality and Short Lead time) and one internal demand (Low Production Cost). See Table 1. Table 1: Grouping of yellow patches into customer demands.
Label (CD) Yellow patches
Design Easy to Center on the work piece Fast to Use
Compact Design Maximum gripping diameter Rapid motions Fast to open and shut
Nice to look at. Big gripping diameter Easy to adjust work pressure Easy to load work piece
Easy to Install
Easy to install Rapid installation Easy to connect Equipped with eyebolts. peripheral equipments Documentation in many languages
Easy to Maintain
Fast bearing change
Easy to replace scraper
Easy to repair
Fast delivery of spare Good service parts Spare parts on stock Documentation Ready-made spare parts kits 63
High Quality
Good packed upon delivery Tested and verified on delivery from factory
No returns for adjustment Consistent quality
Short lead time Low Production Cost
Short delivery time Short lead time Meet deadline for delivery Low Production Cost
Trends in Customer Demands: Every customer demand was judged by the team in respect of how important it will be in the future, i.e. the future trend of the customer demand. The trends can be more-, same- and less important. The team members did the judgment of the trends based on their long experience in selling and producing steady rests, the result can be seen in Figure 4-6.
Customer Demand Design Easy to center Fast to use Easy to install Easy to maintain Easy to repair High quality Short lead time Low cost Trend, judged by the team members More important. Competitors models are more stylish. More important. Fast and accurate to save time. Same important. More important. To shorten set up time. More important. To shorten maintain time and simplify maintain. Same important. Same important. Same important. Sign
production More important. To increase the revenue.
Figure 4-6: Future trends for the customer demands. 64
Customer Segments: The project team decided that the steady rest will be sold in the customer segments End Users and Machine Builders. The End User is e.g. a shop floor worker who uses the steady rest in his daily work as an operator at the lathe. The second segment, Machine Builders, is a manufacturer of turning machines who equips the lathe with a steady rest. Ranking of the customer demands: To facilitate the necessary priorities and tradeoffs in the future development work, a weighting of the customer demands must be carried out. Pairwise comparison, chapter 2.1.1, was used to make the weighting of the nine customer demands. The project team made all the decisions taken in the task. One pairwise comparison was made for the customer segment End Users and another was done for the segment Machine Builders. See Figure 4-7 and Figure 4-8. End Users
Figure 4-7: Ranking of customer demands of the segment End Users with the method Pairwise Comparison.
65
According to End Users the most important customer demand is High Quality which received the maximum 5 points and the least important are Design, Easy to Repair and Short Lead time with the score 1 point. Machine Builders
Figure 4-8: Ranking of customer demands in the segment Machine Builders with the method Pairwise Comparison. As can be seen in Figure 4-8 Machine Builders is ranking High Quality as the most important customer demand (the same as End Users), but in the segment machine builders the lowest scores goes to Fast to Use, Easy to Maintain and Easy to Repair. Qualifier, Order winner and Delighter: According to the members in the project team all customer demands are Qualifiers, except for the customer demand Design which is an Order winner. It may sound strange that the present design is an order winner, due to the fact that one of the reasons to redesign the steady rest is the lack of design, see chapter 4.1. But many customers chooses Atlings steady rest because of the compact design and compact design is a part of the customer demand Design and therefore 66
Design is an order winner. The project team did not find any Delighter among the customer demands. Product properties is how the product will take care of or meet the customer demands, see chapter 2.1.4. Primarily some Ishikawa fishbone diagram was done with the starting point in the present products bill of material (BOM). The task was to find out which product properties every detail was beholder of, see an example in Figure 4-9.
Figure 4-9: Example of Product Properties found by analysing the details in BOM. The total list of PPs found is shown in Figure 4-10.
Product Properties Tolerances Size Number of parts in the product Shape Material quality Time to repair Time to maintain / number of moments Set up time Life time Cycle time (time to open and close the steady rest) Gripping size Clamping force Leakage Goal value Set to standard Reduced by 20 percent Uniform across the model range. Material cost reduced with 20 percent
Max. 5 minutes to change three bearings. Max. 10 minutes to change the scraper. Maximum 30 minutes Maximum 5 seconds to open and 5 seconds to close the jaws. Yawn as standard. As present Minimum 2 bar pressure in the steady rest
Figure 4-10: The total list of Product Properties in the steady rest.
67
Steady Rest QFD: Customer demands, ranking of customer demands, trends, order winners and product properties was put together in an adapted QFD. See Figure 4-11.
Steady Rest. Atlings AB in Ockelbo. 2009
Customer Segment
V. Pd
v Pd Pd
QFD
Weight (1-5)
Machine Builders (MB)
v v Pd Pd
Product Properties
Time to maintain
Number of parts
Material quality
Clamping force
End Users (EU)
Time to repair
Gripping size
Mean value
Set up time
Tolerances
Cycle time
Life time
Q, OW, D
Customer demands
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Leakage 3 1 1
1
Shape
Trend
Size
Sum.
22 41 41 12 15 27 34 27 32
High Quality Low production cost Design Easy to center Fast to use Easy to install Easy to maintain Short lead time Easy to repair
5 4 4 2 1 3 1 3 1
5 4 1 3 4 2 3 1 1
5 Q 4 Q 2,5 OW 2,5 Q 2,5 Q 2,5 Q 2 Q 2 Q 1 Q

MB EU Mean Value
9 9
1 9 9
3 9 9 3 9 3 3
3 3 1
3 9 9 9
3 3 9 3 3 3 1
3 9 1
3 3
1 1 9 9 9
1 3 1 9 9 9 3
9 3 3 1
Product
Sum:
102 102 85 82 65 51 30 39 37 18 36 36 22 119 90 79 66 56 32 42 30 28 45 9 9 21 111 96 82 74 61 42 36 35 33 32 23 23 22 17 12 6 16 9 19 12 9 9 27 27 27
Max value - Min value
Figure 4-11: The complete Steady Rest QFD at Atlings AB 2009. The customer demands were sorted according to the mean value. As can be seen in Figure 4-11 the most important customer demand is High Quality followed by Low production cost. A normal QFD matrix was formed, connecting Customer Demands with Product Properties. The standard connection values was used, 9 for strong, 3 for medium and 1 for weak connections. The black squares in Figure 4-11 symbolises strong connections with the weight 9. The different customer segments (MB and EU) product sum was calculated as well as the mean value and (Max-Min) value.
68
Product Development (Pd): Special attention should be paid on order winners (OW) found in customer demands. Product properties associated with customer demands who are bearer of the status OW should be marked with Pd (product development). An order winner must be paid special attention and taken care of in the downstream product development. Order winners are perhaps the most important customer demands, reasons for why customer buys the companys product, and probably therefore is it a good idea to make sure that these PPs linked to OW are constantly developed so that the company can maintain its advantaged to the competitors. (According to Sweden Modular Management AB). In Figure 4-12 four PPs are indicated with a product development Pd icon which means that these product properties should be carefully examined with respect to future demands on the product and to be developed according to the order winning customer demand Design.
Customer Segment
V. Pd
v Pd Pd
QFD
Weight (1-5)
v v Pd Pd
Product Properties
Time to maintain
Number of parts
Material quality
Clamping force 9
End Users (EU)
Time to repair
Gripping size
Mean value
Set up time
Tolerances
Cycle time
Life time
Q, OW, D
Customer demands High Quality Low production cost 3 Design 4 Easy to center 5 Fast to use 6 Easy to install 7 Easy to maintain 8 Short lead time 9 Easy to repair
1 2
5 4 4 2 1 3 1 3 1
5 4 1 3 4 2 3 1 1
5 Q 4 Q 2,5 OW 2,5 Q 2,5 Q 2,5 Q 2 Q 2 Q 1 Q
9 9
1 9 9
3 9 9 3 9 3 3
3 3 1
3 9 9 9
3 3 9 3 3 3 1
3 9 1
3 3
1 1 9 9
1 3 1 9 9 9 3
9 3 3 1
Figure 4-12: Indication of product properties that probably will undergo a product development (PD) in a near future.
69
Leakage 3 1 1
Shape
Trend
Size
Variance (v): Some product properties may need to be divided into different variants in order to meet different customer demands that origins from diverse customer segments. By marking these PPs with a v for variance they will not be forgotten in the subsequent product development process. (According to Sweden Modular Management AB). To evaluate if a certain PP should have one or many variants the value on line Mean value and (Max Min) value is to be compared. If the (Max Min) value is significant big compared to the Mean value there is a certain possibility that the PP must have a number of variants to meet the variance in customer demand on that product property. In Figure 4-13 the PP cycle time has a Mean value of 32 and a variance (Max Min) value of 27 indicating that the PP needs to have a number of variants, therefore marked with a v. On the other hand, PP set up time in the matrix has a Mean value of 35 and (Max Min) value of 9 which can be interpreted as that the product property set up time not has to be varied.
Figure 4-13: Product Properties cycle time, gripping size and clamping force are likely to be subjected to variances due to the fact that the (Max Min) value is high compared with the Mean value of the product sum. 70
Analyse of the QFD: Referring to Figure 4-14, High Quality is the most important Customer Demand (CD), weighted 5 in both customer segments. The main Product Properties (PP) that will have the most influence on the CD High Quality is Tolerances, i.e. by choosing the right tolerance on every part in all the Steady Rests, variants will probably decrease the number of rejects from customers and also facilitate ease of assembly. Next CD, ranked two, is the internal Low production cost and once again one of the most important PP to influence the CD Low production cost is Tolerances. But another PP the Material Quality is also of big importance because the time to manufacture a part, by using for instance turning, is very material quality dependant. The order winner Design is mainly dependant on the PPs size, shape, gripping size and clamping force.
Customer Segment
V. Pd
v Pd Pd
QFD
Weight (1-5)
v v Pd Pd
Product Properties
Time to maintain
Number of parts
Material quality
Clamping force
End Users (EU)
Time to repair
Gripping size
Mean value
Set up time
Tolerances
Cycle time
Life time
Q, OW, D
Customer demands
1
Leakage 3 1 1
1
Shape
Trend
Size
Sum.
22 41 41 12 15 27 34 27 32
High Quality Low production cost 3 Design 4 Easy to center 5 Fast to use 6 Easy to install 7 Easy to maintain 8 Short lead time 9 Easy to repair
2
5 4 4 2 1 3 1 3 1
5 4 1 3 4 2 3 1 1
5 Q 4 Q 2,5 OW 2,5 Q 2,5 Q 2,5 Q 2 Q 2 Q 1 Q

MB EU Mean Value
9 9
1 9 9
3 9 9 3 9 3 3
3 3 1
3 9 9 9
3 3 9 3 3 3 1
3 9 1
3 3
1 1 9 9 9
1 3 1 9 9 9 3
9 3 3 1
Product
Sum:
102 102 85 82 65 51 30 39 37 18 36 36 22 119 90 79 66 56 32 42 30 28 45 9 9 21 111 96 82 74 61 42 36 35 33 32 23 23 22 17 12 6 16 9 19 12 9 9 27 27 27
Max value - Min value
Figure 4-14: Steady Rest QFD. Size and shape is important PPs because of the fact that a small steady rest is better since it is less likely to interfere with the turning process. All lines in the QFD have at least one strong connection between CD and PP making sure that all customer demand is taken care of by at least one product property, see Figure 4-14. On the other hand there is a lack of 71
strong connection in two columns, namely Life time and Leakage, indicating that these product properties are perhaps redundant, not requested by customers and therefore candidates to be deleted. But the project team decided to keep both product properties because of the fact that they are after all related with customer demands with medium and weak connections. 4.5 Finding technical solutions In the task of finding technical solutions the project team used the present BOM as technical solutions, see Figure 4-15. Screws, washers, gaskets and seals were not included in the list of technical solutions.
Article Name: A11039 Housing No of parts 1 Article Name: A11040 Cover No of parts 1
A2993 Lever A42380 Piston rod A30609 Cylinder. cover A42640 Wiper A30619 Wiper, lever A5055003 Roller 15 pp A30249 Piston
2 1 1 4 2 3 1
A2595 Rod A30295 Cylinder housing A42298 Roller tap A42024 Shaft tap rear A42160 Shaft tap A5055007 Roller 17X
1 1 2 2 3 2
Figure 4-15: Bill Of Material for the present Steady Rest at Atlings AB.
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4.6 Mapping of TS and PP The next step was the process of linking technical solutions with product properties. For each technical solution the project team had to answer the following question; which product characteristics can be affected if the state of the technical solution is changed and how strong is the influence? Standard connection values was used, 9 for strong, 3 for medium and 1 for weak influenced and the black squares in Figure 4-16 symbolises strong connections with the weight 9.
V. Pd
v Pd Pd
v v Pd Pd
Product Properties
Number of details
Time to maintain
Material quality
Clamping force
Time to repair
Gripping size
Set up time
Tolerances
Cycle time
Life time
Leakage 3 1 1
Shape
Size
Sum.
22 41 41 12 15 27 34 27 32
9 9
1 9 9 102 119 111 17 9 1 3 9 9 9 3 1 3 3
3 9 9 3 9 3 3
3 3 1
3 9 9 9
3 3 9 3 3 3 1
3 9 1
3 3
1 1 9 9 9
1 3 1 9 9 9 3
9 3 3 1
102 85 82 65 51 90 79 66 56 32 96 82 74 61 42 12 6 16 9 19 9 9 9 1 1 3 3 3 3 1 1 3 1 1 1 1 1 9 9 9 3 3 9 3 3 9 1 3 3 1 3 3 3 1 3 3 3 3 1
30 39 37 18 36 36 22 42 30 28 45 9 9 21 36 35 33 32 23 23 22 12 9 9 27 27 27 1
Technical Solutions
9 9 3 9 9 3 3 1 9 3 3 3 1
9 1 3 1 1 3 1 1 9 9
9 9 9 3 9
9 9 3 1
3 9 9 9
3 3687 2854 3 2808 3 2116 1699 1588 1409 1 1342 1114 828 827 9 801 801 439
Figure 4-16: Connection matrix between Product Properties and Technical Solutions.
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4.7 Module creation in MIM The Module Indication Matrix (MIM) was completed by the project team; the result is presented in Figure 4-17. The theory of the MIM and modularity is explained in chapter 2.5.
Technical Solutions 3687 2854 2808 2116 1699 1588 1409 1342 1114 828 827 801 801 439 72 9 3 9 9 3 9 9 9 3 9 9 9 3 9 Technology push 9 9 9 9 30 36 58 9 3 9 9 1 3 3 9 3 3 3 1 1 1 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 9 9 3 9 9 9 3 9 3 9 3 3 3 9 3 3 3 30 28 48 1 3 9 1 3 3 53 1 3 3 20 27 27 19 31 18 27 24 24 18 36 31 25 31
Technical spec.
Service / maint.
Black box eng.
Process / Org.
Separate Test
Common unit
Product plan
Carry Over
Upgrading
After Sale
Figure 4-17: The Module Indication Matrix (MIM) for the Steady Rest.
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Recycling
Styling
Based on the MIM from Figure 4-17 the following modularisation of the Steady Rest was performed by the project team. See Figure 4-18.
Rod: Carry Over Technical Specification Black Box Eng. Service / Maintain Wiper Lever: Technology Push Black Box Eng. Service / Maintain Lever: Carry Over Technical Specification Black Box Eng. Service / Maintain
Chassie: Carry Over Technical Specification Separate Testing Hydraulic cylinder: Product plan Technical Specification Separate Test
Wiper : Technology Push Black Box Eng. Service / Maintain
Figure 4-18: Modularised Steady Rest. The most important module drivers are notified for every module.
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Detail description of the modules: Lever Module: Is the heart of the product steady rest. The uniquely formed lever, see Figure 4-19, makes it possible to design a very compact and small steady rest compared to the competitors who have a different solution to control the movement of the levers. So, the carry over comes from lever design, not to be changed in a foreseeable future. Every gripping size needs a unique shape of the lever; therefore is the lever subjected to technical specification and needs to be produced in different shapes. The Roller is a black box unit bought from a subcontractor.
Module Name Technical Solutions Lever
Module Driver Carry Over Technical specification Black Box Eng. Service / Maintain
A2993 Lever A42160 Shaft Tap A5055003 Roller

Figure 4-19: Lever Module.
Chassie Module: All the three technical solutions in the module chassie, see Figure 4-20 are bearer of the module driver Carry Over. The shape and function of these will not be changed in the near future. However, the next generation of the Steady Rest, Generation 2010, G2010, will have another shape and style to stress that a new generation of steady rests have been launched by Atlings AB. These technical solutions also have technical specification as module driver, due to the fact that the steady rest comes in different gripping sizes. Lubricating channels in cover and housing needs to be tested in terms of function and the presence of chips from production.
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Module Name Technical Solutions Chassie
Module Driver Carry Over Technical specification Separate Testing
A11040 Cover A42298 Roller Tap A11039 Housing Figure 4-20: Chassie module.
Rod module: The rollers in the rod module, see Figure 4-21, are black box engineering supplied by subcontractors. Roller A505503 is also a bearer of the module driver Service/Maintain because the rollers are torn and must be replaced periodically. The rod is subjected to technical specification because of geometrical reasons. There is no need to change the design of the rod once it has been decided and therefore it is also a carry over. Module Name Technical Solutions Rod Module Driver Carry Over Technical specification Black box Engineering Service /Maintain
A5055007 Roller A42024 Shaft Tap, rear A2595 Rod A5055003 Roller A42160 Shaft Tap Figure 4-21: Rod module.
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Wiper modules: It is a constant development of wipers to enhance the ability to seal of the inner moving parts of the steady rest from external environmental factors such as lathe chips and cutting fluid. New designs of wipers, due to technology push, must be able to easily be inserted in an existing product. The wipers are bought from an external supplier and are replaced periodically due to wear (Black box Engineering and Service/Maintain). The two wiper modules are shown in Figure 4-22 and Figure 4-23.
Module Name Technical Solutions Wiper
Module Driver Technology Push Black box Engineering Service /Maintain
A42640 Wiper Figure 4-22: Wiper module. Wiper, lever Technology Push Black box Engineering Service /Maintain
A30619 Wiper, lever Figure 4-23: Wiper lever module. Hydraulic cylinder Module: The next generation of steady rest called G2010 is going to have a standalone hydraulic unit, see Figure 4-24, separated from the housing. The standalone unit solution makes it possible to test the hydraulic unit, with respect to leakage, before it is mounted on the housing. The new design will be introduced gradually according to a product plan in the upcoming models of the steady rest. Module Name Technical Solutions Hydraulic Cylinder Module Driver Product Plan Technical Specification Separate Test
A30249 Piston A30295 Cylinder Housing A30609 Cylinder Cover A42380 Piston Rod Figure 4-24: Hydraulic cylinder module.
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Customer Segment
adapted
V. Pd
v Pd Pd
QFD Machine Builders (MB)
Weight (1-5)
v v Pd Pd
End Users (EU) Mean value

Q, OW, D
Product Properties Tolerances Size
Number of details Shape Material quality Time to repair Set up time Life time Cycle time
Time to maintain
Gripping size Leakage Sum.

22 41 41 12 15
Customer demands

Trend
9 9 3 9 9 1
27 34 27 32
3 9
1 1
Clamping force 3 1 1
1 3 1409 827 3 1 1588 1342 2116 827 828 1409 2808 3687
3 3 1 3 3
3 9 1
9 9 3
High Quality 2 Low production cost 3 Design 4 Easy to center 5 Fast to use 6 Easy to install 7 Easy to maintain 8 Short lead time 9 Easy to repair 1 9 9
102 102 85 82 65 51 30 39 37 18 36 36 22 119 90 79 66 56 32 42 30 28 45 9 9 21 111 96 82 74 61 42 36 35 33 32 23 23 22 17 9 9 3 3 3 9 9 3 3 9 3 1 1 1 1 3 1 3 3 3 9 1 3 9 3 9 1 9 9 3 9 3 9 1 9 3 3 9 9 9 1 3 1 1 3 3 3 9 9 9 9 827 801 439 801 2854 1699 1114 3 3 3 1 3 3 3 9 9 1 3 3 1 9 1 3 3 3 1 3 3 3 3 1 1 9 1 1 1 1 9 3 9 3 3 3 3 9 9 9 3 3 3 9 1 1 9 1 9 9 9 9 12 6 16 9 19 12 9 9 27 27 27
5 4 4 2 1 3 1 3 1 3 9 9 3 9 3 3 3 9 9 9 3 1 9 9 3 3 1
MB EU Mean Value
5 4 1 3 4 2 3 1 1
5 Q 4 Q 2,5 OW 2,5 Q 2,5 Q 2,5 Q 2 Q 2 Q 1 Q
3 3 9 3 3 3 1
Product
Sum: Max value - Min value
Technical Solutions
99 30
36
67
39
28 69 80 9 1 3 3 9 3 3 3 1 9 3 3 9
Modules
20 27
Lever 3 3
36 27 24 18 19 36 18 27
1 9 9
Chassie
Carry Over
Technology push
Product plan
Technical spec.
Styling
Common unit
Process / Org.
Separate Test
Black box eng.
Service / maint.
Upgrading
Recycling
Figure 4-25: Product Management Map (PMM) for the Steady Rest.
The complete PMM for the steady rest is shown in Figure 4-25.
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Rod
9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9
36 31 31
Wiper Wiper, lever 25 Hydraulic 27 cylinder 3 3 9

31 24
A2993 Lever A42160 Shaft tap A5055003 Roller A11039 Housing A11040 Cover A42298 Roller tap A2595 Rod A5055007 Roller A42024 Shaft tap, rear A42160 Shaft tap A5055003 Roller A42640 Wiper A30619 Wiper, lever A30249 Piston A30295 Cylinder housing A30609 Cylinder cover A42380 Piston rod
9 9 3 3 3 3
9 9 9 9
9 3 3 9 9 3 9 3 3 3 3 1 1 1 3 1 3
3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3
9 3 3 9 9 9 3 3 3 3
9 9 9 9 3 3 3 3
Development and Design Variance Production Q. P
After Sale
4.8 Benchmarking A comparison was done between Atlings steady rests and the main competitors Schunk and SMW. The benchmark was done with respect to the gripping range (Figure 4-26) of the steady rests produced by the three companies.
Figure 4-26: Gripping Range is the minimum (Amin) and maximum (Amax) clamping diameter. As can be seen in Figure 4-27 Atlings AB have eleven different gripping ranges, from 3-65 mm until 100-500 mm. Schunk have eight and SMW has nine gripping ranges.
Steady Rest LE/LZ Gripping range Atling 3-65 8-100 12-120 12-155 20-170 35-245 50-310 50-360 150-420 125-460 100-500 Schunk 4-66 8-101 12-152 20-165 35-245 50-310 85-350 125-460 SMW 6-70 8-101 12-152 20-165 50-200 30-245 45-310 85-350 125-460
Figure 4-27: Gripping range comparison of steady rests. Atlings AB is compared to the main competitors Schunk and SMW.
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The following changes were suggested by the project team to reduce the number of variants produced by Atlings. 1. The gripping range 12-120 is unnecessary because it is covered by the size 12-155. 2. Ranges 150-420 and 125-460 are also unnecessary; they can be exchanged by the gripping range 100-500. 3. The gripping range 35-245 can be redesigned and expanded to a new size 20-310, eliminating the present sizes 20-170, 35-245 and 50-310. After these changes in the line up of gripping ranges at Atlings, the number of variants in gripping range can be reduced from 11 to 6. See Figure 4-28.
New Steady Rest platform LE/LZ Gripping range 20-310 (new) Atling 3-65 8-100 12-155 50-360 100-500 Schunk 4-66 8-101 12-152 20-165 35-245 50-310 85-350 125-460 SMW 6-70 8-101 12-152 20-165 50-200 30-245 45-310 85-350 125-460
Figure 4-28: The new line up of Steady Rests at Atlings AB. The number of variants is reduced from 11 to 6 and a new 20-310 gripping range is developed.
The new number of gripping ranges will have a positive effect on the number of parts necessary for manufacturing all sizes of steady rests. The number of rollers will for instance decrease from 7 (see Figure 4-5) to 4 (see Figure 4-29). Other reductions are, lever from 11 to 6, housing from 10 to 5 and cylinder from 11 to 5 variants. To achieve reduction of variants the new gripping range 20-310 needs to be equipped with a new roller diameter 72 mm instead of the present 62 mm (C in Figure 4-29), the housing needs to be expanded from 250 mm to 265 mm (G3 in Figure 4-29) and the length of the cylinder needs to be increased from 198 mm to 220 mm (Z1 in Figure 4-29).
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New Steady Rest platform LE/LZ Gripping range 3-65 8-100 12-155 20-310 50-360 100-500 Rollers C 19 C1 6 C2 12 H 26 H3 50 57 70 64 118 11 35 15 19 37 75 70 102 85 170 14 50 109 70 47 20 25 53 116 90 157 135 262 18 80 136 90 72 30 29 68 210 110 265 210 400 23 100 220 110 72 30 29 68 235 110 265 210 400 23 100 220 110 72 30 29 98 325 142 350 260 620 26 120 276 142
4 variants of Rollers 19 35 47 72 6 15 20 30 12 19 25 29
6 variants of Levers 26 37 53 68 68 98 50 75 116 210 235 325 5 variants of Housings 57 70 90 110 142 70 102 157 265 350 64 85 135 210 260 118 170 262 400 620 11 14 18 23 26 5 variants of Cylinders 40 50 80 100 120 94 109 136 220 276 57 70 90 110 142
Lever
Housing G2 G3 L1 L2 L4
Cylinder Z 40 Z1 94 Z2 57
Figure 4-29: Number of variants to cover the new steady rest platform.
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4.9 DFA The last step was to perform a DFA analysis, according to Boothroyd & Dewhurst method, on every module. Most of the DFA analysis was done as a project by last year students at Dalarna University.
Module Lever Present Version Present Redesigned Assembly time (s) 89 23 Difference (%) Number of parts 6 5 DFAindex (%) 17 64
-74 Redesigned
Cylindrical pin is integrated into lever.
The cylindrical pin is integrated into the lever. In the present assembly a number of manual operations such as adjustment with hammer, riveting and greasing are performed. These operations have been excluded in the redesigned, due to more precise tolerances on the parts. (Theoretical minimum number of parts is 5).
Module Chassie
Version Present Redesigned
Assembly time (s) 347 184
Difference (%)
Number of parts 38 30
Present
-47 Redesigned
DFAindex (%) 16 29
Roller Taps is integrated into housing.
Roller taps are integrated into the housing. A number of cylindrical pins whose function is to target the cover have been removed. In the present assembly a number of manually operations such as adjustment with hammer have been removed. (Theoretical minimum number of parts is 18).
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Two DFA analyses were done for the Rod module.

Module Rod Present Version Assembly time (s) Difference (%) Number of parts DFAindex (%) 3 55
Present Redesign 1
508 27
-95 Redesign 1
12 8
Shaft taps are integrated into the rod. In the present assembly a number of manual operations such as adjustment with hammer, polishing, deburring of edges and drilling have been removed. (Theoretical minimum number of parts is 5). Module Rod Present Version Present Redesign 2 Assembly time (s) 508 22 Difference (%) Number of parts 12 6 DFAindex (%) 3 68
-96 Redesign 2
The front roller tap is integrated into the rod. Rear roller taps and rollers are integrated into the rod as a solid part without any moving parts. As in redesign 1 a number of unnecessary manual operations have been removed. (Theoretical minimum number of parts is 5).
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Module Wiper
Version
Assembly time (s)
Difference (%)
Number of parts
Present Redesign
116 15
Present
-87 Redesign
12 4
DFAindex (%) 10 79
Instead of securing the wiper with two screws the redesigned wiper is slid into a groove milled in the housing. (Theoretical minimum number of parts is 4). Module Wiper Lever Present Version Assembly time (s) Difference (%) Number of parts DFAindex (%) 10 79
Present Redesign
93 37
-60 Redesign
14 4
The redesigned wiper lever is attached to the lever with a snap fit. For security reasons the wiper lever is secured with two screws. The wiper is very close to the rotating work piece in the lathe and should therefore be safely attached to the lever. (Theoretical minimum number of parts is 2). Module Wiper Lever Present Version Present Redesign Assembly time (s) 287 29 Difference (%) -90 Redesign Number of parts 7 5 DFA-index (%) 1 10
(Pmchytech AB, TCD 100/56-150Y-SVSD) The hydraulic unit manufactured by Atlings AB is replaced by a hydraulic cylinder bought from a subcontractor. (Theoretical minimum number of parts is 1).
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Discussion about the result from the case study: The managing director stated in chapter 4.1 the following four challenges/problems to overcome with the present product. 1. The competitors have a much nicer (stylish) design. It is beyond the scoop of the case study steady rest to achieve a detail design and stylish a product. The work of styling the steady rest has to be done by a company specialised in styling. The product should however be prepared for restyling which can be done by equipping the product with a styling module. The PMM reveals that the customer demand design which also is an orderwinner is linked to the technical solutions housing, cover, cylinder housing and cylinder cover via the product property shape. See Figure 4-25. These connections indicate that the chassie module and hydraulic cylinder module should have been marked with a strong module driver for styling and making them styling modules. In study of MIM is detected that there is no technical solution with the module driver styling and consequently no styling module. See Figure 4-30. In the case study steady rest the company did not want to equip the product with a separate styling module instead the styling is supposed to be a feature on the separate parts housing, cover, cylinder housing and cylinder cover.
Technical Solutions A2993 Lever A42160 Shaft tap A5055003 Roller A11039 Housing A11040 Cover A42298 Roller tap A2595 Rod A5055007 Roller A42024 Shaft tap, rear A42160 Shaft tap A5055003 Roller A42640 Wiper A30619 Wiper, lever A30249 Piston A30295 Cylinder housing A30609 Cylinder cover A42380 Piston rod 99 30 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 3 3 3 3 36 67 9 3 3 9 9 3 9 3 3 3 3 1 1 1 3 1 3 39 3 3 9 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 9 3 3 9 9 9 3 3 3 3 1 9 9 9 9 9 3 3 3 3 3 28 69 80 9 1 3 9 1 9 9 3 Modules
20 27
Lever
36 27 24 18 19 36 18 27 36
Chassie
Rod
9 9 9 9
3 3 9
Wiper Wiper, lever 25 Hydraulic 27 cylinder

31 31 31 24
Technology push
Separate Test
Process / Org.
Product plan
Service / maint.
Technical spec.
Black box eng.
Common unit
Carry Over
Upgrading
Development and Design Variance Production Q. P After Sale
Figure 4-30: MIM without styling module for the product analysed at Atlings AB. 86
Recycling
Styling
2. No profit is earned on the smaller variants due to the fact that market prices are too low compared to the manufacturing cost. The benchmark performed in chapter 4.8 reveals that Atlings AB has eleven different gripping ranges compared to the competitors eight and nine. The number of gripping ranges was reduced to 6 by deleting one unnecessary variant, expanding one variant to cover two gripping ranges and designing a new variant with the gripping range 20-310 replacing three previous versions. The new variant 20-310 will be developed according to a modular design and analysed with DFMA to make it as cheap as possible to manufacture, increasing revenue of the product. 3. Some quality problem with leaking hydraulics and bad surface finish on the product. By designing the hydraulic cylinder as a module that can be tested, prior assembly the problem with leaking cylinders will vanish. Atlings AB has not yet decided if they are going to buy the hydraulic module from a subcontractor or manufacture it in-house. The customers are linking high quality to good surface finish of the product, in fact some customer do not accept the slightest scratch on the surface of the product. To avoid the quality problem of surface finish Atlings is going to improve the packing of the steady rest on delivery. 4. The varying quality of the produced articles in the workshop causes problem in the assembly. It is in some way addressed by the DFA analysis performed in the case study. (See chapter 4.9). The reduction of parts in the modules will lower the risks for problems in assembling the product. Problems stemming from poor design, such as inadequate tolerances, or poor manufacturing processes have not been analyzed in the case study steady rest.
87
Result and discussion
The main objective of the research project is to test the MFD/PMMmethod in product development at small corporations. Can a small company with limited financial and human resources assimilate and use the MFD/PMM-method in product development? The reflections and discussions below are based on the case study steady rest at Atlings AB and the authors participation in other industry projects. Product development by teamwork in a small company: It was the first time for Atlings AB to use team work in their product development work. The team consisted of management director, a sale and marketing manager, a production engineer, a design engineer and a workshop technician. The team represented all key personnel at Atlings AB making it easy to take decisions in the project work, especially since the management director was present at all project meetings. (The presence of the management director at Atlings AB is a strength compared to big companies where top management seldom have the time to actively participate in development project). All team members had a positive attitude to take part in the project and to contribute of improving the product. Why did the team work so well? The authors experience from teamwork in larger companies is that severe disagreement among the team members is rather common. The answer is perhaps that in the small company the management, engineers and workshop technicians in the day to day business always is working as a group, they all belong to the same department, mentally and physically. In the large company the development team is a mixture of employees from different departments that perhaps never have been working together earlier. One way of forming teams is to use some personality test, e.g. the Belbin test. See appended paper A.
88
Is it possible at all to conduct a product development project with the small companys limited in house human recourses? A lot of development methods are presented for the team members, e.g. QFD and MIM. It requires no prior knowledge in order to use and understand these methods, but the large amount of new ways of working can make it difficult for a person who has never before been in contact with these methods to use them. The PMM consists of many matrixes with a lot of decisions to make, e.g. the team must decide whether it should be a strong or weak connection in a certain matrix! These decision matters worked very well at the project steady rest, the team agreed on all issues. Working with PMM also requires that project members can be creative and come up with new ideas, such as when customer demands are created in the QFD. The creative phase in the case study steady rest also worked very well, all the team members participated and had a lot of new ideas. The project teams work with filling in and taking decisions in the PMM worked very well, no real problems occurred. Can the mathematical clustering method (Brjesson, 2009) used for making potential modules be of any help in the small company? One observation is that a small company can possibly only develop and manufacture uncomplicated products consisting of a limited number of parts. The limited number of parts in the product makes it easy to manually perform the task of creating and working with the PMM, e.g. manually grouping the modules. The mathematical clustering method is therefore perhaps more useful for development of products consisting of a large number of parts. What is the possibility for the small company to continuously use MFD/PMMmethod in its product development work? The market window for the present product steady rest has been approximately twenty to twenty-five years. A market window of twenty years is a long time compared to consumer products like for example mobile phones, which have an estimated marked window of one to two years. One of the reasons to make a modular design is the ability to perform concurrent product development, i.e. working parallel on different modules. The need for concurrent product development at Atlings AB is 89
limited due to the length of the market window. The initial creation of the first MFD/PMM must be done in cooperation between the company and a consultant well familiar with the development method. None of the personnel at Atlings AB could have done the work of creating the MFD/PMM because the knowledge and skill of the personnel in product development is too low. The next step to maintain and update the MFD/PMM should mainly be done in-house by the employees. In the day-to-day improvement and changing of the design of the product steady rest the employees of Atling AB could use the incremental development model proposed in chapter 3.3. To perform the more demanding evolutionary product development, see chapter 3.2, the small company probably needs external help. If the present MFD/PMM-method does not work, is it possible to make a light version of the method? The MFD/PMM-method could be used at Atlings AB without any changes. There was no need for a light version. The development team at Atlings AB did not express any desire for a less complicated method. Some final thoughts about product development in small corporations: The real problem and challenge for the small company is to maintain and in the long run work with a strategic development method such as the MFD/PMM which have high demands on financial and personnel assets. The small company probably do not have the financial strength to continually work with product development based on the MFD/PMMmethod. Neither do the company have the resources to employ a fulltime engineer to manage the development projects. However, if the managements firm conviction is to work long-termed in the development of products the only way is probably to establish a good and long relation to a university or a regional development centre such as Triple Steelix. The establishment of such a relation makes a win-win situation. The small company can use the knowledge transferred from the university or the regional centre and the university can establish a good relation with the regional industry to be used in students projects and in research projects for the personnel. 90
Future research
Is a simplified PMM useful? A possible usage of the PMM is to connect the QFD, via CM, to the technical solutions in the product without using the MIM. By doing so the company can ensure that the customer demands expressed in the QFD is taken care of in the product. There is also possible to check the reverse connection, from TS to CD, to make sure that technical solutions used in the product have a corresponding demand in the customer domain. See Figure 6-1.
PP1 PP2 PP3 PP4
TS1 TS2 TS3 TS4
PP1 PP2 PP3 PP4
QFD
CD1 CD2 CD3
QFD
CD1 CD2 CD3
TS1 TS2 TS3 TS4
CM
CM
Figure 6-1: The PMM without the MIM can be used in a normal way to analyse and check for inconsistencies between the product- and customer domain. The simplified PMM may be a gateway; the first step for a small company to start using a structured method in development of new products.
91
Clustering product properties into modules? There is also an option to group the connection dots in the CM into modules of product properties. See Figure 6-2!
QFD
CD1 CD2 CD3
PP1 PP2 PP3 PP4 PP5 PP6

TS1 TS2 TS3 TS4 TS5 TS6
MO1 MO2
CM
MO3
Figure 6-2: Alternative usage of a modify PMM. The modules are clustered from technical solutions with the same product property pattern. The clustering of technical solutions into modules based on product properties have been proposed by Stake (Stake, 2000), he has also developed a computer based technique to automatically make the clusters. The clustering technique is just a mathematical approach to cluster dots in a matrix; the final clustering must be based on other additional engineering perspectives such as the geometry of the products. Some of these engineering considerations have been used in the proposed paper by Brjesson (Brjesson, 2009) to improve the quality of the output from mathematically and statistically created modules. More research must be done about these mathematically created modules. How is the module structure going to look like if the modules are created with the PP-pattern compared to using the MIM. What are the differences and is it a good idea at all to make for instance modules via PP-patterns?
92
How to use DFX in the created modules? The created modules in the PMM can be of different types, e.g. service module, recycling module or styling module. How can these modules be analysed with the DFX-method? Research should be done about which DFX-method to use for analysing a specific module driver. The question to be answered is maybe: which DFX-method is the best to use on a given module/part, carrier of these module drivers? How to convert product properties into technical solutions? One of the most difficult steps in the MFD/PMM is to translate product properties to technical solutions, especially if it is an original design never done before in the company. See Figure 6-3. Tools like axiomatic design, TRIZ and benchmarking are available to support the project team in converting PP to TS. But the success of converting PP to TS is still very dependent on the engineering skill of the personnel in the project team. The research should concentrate on finding new supporting methods and tools to help the project team in finding technical solutions.
PP4
Axiomatic Design TRIZ Benchmarking
TS?
Figure 6-3: The difficult task of converting a product property into a function carrier expressed as a technical solution. 93
7 References Akao, Y. (1990). QFD Integrating Customer Requirements into Product Design. Productivity Press. Andersson, R. (1991). QFD, ett system fr effektivare produktframtagning. Lund: Studentlitteratur. Andreasen, M., & Olesen, J. (1993). WDK Workshop of Design For X. Lyngby: Institute for Engineering Design, Technical University of Denmark. Atlings Maskinfabrik AB. (n.d.). LE/LZ/LEA/LZA. Product Catalog . Self centering steady rest
Belbin, R. M. (1993). Management Teams. IHM Forlag. Boothroyd, G., & Dewhurst, P. (1989). Product Design For Assembly Handbook. Wakefield. Boothroyd, G., Dewhurst, P., & Knight, W. (1994). Product Design for Manufacture and Assembly. New York: Marcel Dekker, Inc. Brjesson, F. (2009). Improved output in modular function deployment using heuristics. ICED 09, (p. 12). Stanford CA US. Eaton, R. (1987). Product planning in a rapidly changing world. International Journal of Technology Management . Ericsson, A., & Erixon, G. (1999). Controlling Design Variants Modular Product Platform. Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME). Erixon, G. (1998). Modular Function Deployment - A Method for Product Modularisation. Stockholm: The Royal Institute of Technology KTH. Erixon, G. (June 3-4, 1996). The 2:nd WDK Workshop on Product Structuring. Modular Function Deployment (MFD), Support for Good Product Structure Creation. Delft, Holland. Erixon, G. (1997). The 3rd WDK Workshop on Product Structuring. Modular Function Deployment - Industrial Experiences. Delft, Holland. 94
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Conceptual Product Development in Small Corporations

Licentiate Thesis by Per Nilsson

TRITA-IIP-10-03 ISSN 1650-1888 ISBN 978-91-7415-657-7

Proposed method .......................................................................................... 33

Test of the MFD/PMM-method in a case study ................................ 57

4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 4.9 5 6 7 8

Problem formulation and objective

Shops Ind. Dist.

Market segmentation can be divided into different levels and patterns:

Mass marketing is the broadest attempt to produce and sell products.

Segment marketing is on the other hand a way to make an identifiable

Individual marketing is the ultimate level of segmentation leading to

Homogeneous preference is when the customers have nearly the same

Diffused preference is the opposite of homogeneous preference; the

Bases for segmenting consumer markets

Selecting the market segments

Full market coverage

PP1 PP2 PP3

Our product: Competitor A: Competitor B:

Figure 2-8: QFD with benchmarking matrices. 15

where FR and DP are expressed as vectors and A is the design matrix.

Three basic types of design equations can be observed.

concept generation concept screening concept scoring concept testing

5% 15% 10% 25% 15% 20% 10% Total score. Rank

0.15 0.45 0.20 0.75 0.30 0.60 0.30 2.75 4 No

0.15 0.60 0.30 0.75 0.75 0.60 0.30 3.45 1

0.20 0.60 0.50 0.50 0.60 0.40 0.30 3.10 2 No

0-20 0.45 0.50 0.75 0.45 0.40 0.4 3.05 3 No

List of functions Database of effects

to change the length of an object

V Physical realizations done by engineer

Black box eng.

Development and Design Variance Production Q.

Wiper Wiper, lever 25 Hydraulic 27 cylinder

Development and Design Variance Production Q.

parts manufacturing assembly distribution service discarding

risk environmental effect

(Boothroyd & Dewhurst, Product Design For Assembly Handbook, 1989)

PP1 PP2 PP3 PP4

Figure 3-2: The MFD/PMM-method. 33

PP1 PP2 PP3 PP4

PP1 PP2 PP3 PP4

Q, OW or D Customer Segments Trend

Variance Product Development

Goal Value Product Properties

PP1 PP2 PP3 PP4 PP5

Customer Segments Product sum. Mean value (Max Min) value

TS3 TS4 TS5

Figure 3-5: The complete PMM.

Weight mean value of Weight

Customer Segments Weight A 2 5 1 1 B 5 4 3 1 C 5 4 2 3 X 4

L < 10/ 20mm

Goal Value Product Properties

PP1 PP2 PP3 PP4 PP5

CD1 CD2 CD3 CD4

Variance Product Development

Goal Value Product Properties

PP1 PP2 PP3 PP4 PP5

CD1 CD2 CD3 CD4

Customer Segments Product sum. Mean value (Max Min) value

Variance Product Development

Goal Value Product Properties

PP1 PP2 PP3 PP4 PP5