Concept exploration — A tool for creating and exploring conceptual hierarchies

Abstract How can the manufacturability of different product design alternatives be evaluated efficiently during the early stages of concept exploration? The benefits of such integrated product and manufacturing process design are widely recognized and include faster time to market, reduced development costs and production costs, and increased product quality. To reap these benefits fully, however, one must examine product/process trade-offs and cost/schedule/performance trade-offs in the early stages of design. Evaluating production cost and lead time requires detailed simulation or other analysis packages which 1) would be computationally expensive to run for every alternative, and 2) require detailed information that may or may not be available in these early design stages. Our approach is to generate response surfaces that serve as approximations to the analyses packages and use these approximations to identify robust regions of the design space for further exploration. In this paper we present a method for robust product and process exploration and illustrate this method using a simplified example of a machining center processing a single component. We close by discussing the implications of this work for manufacturing outsourcing, designing robust supplier chains, and ultimately designing the manufacturing enterprise itself.

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Concept Exploration of the Amphibious Combat Vehicle

10.5957/smc-2014-t19 ◽

2014 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

John Burrow ◽

Norbert Doerry ◽

Mark Earnesty ◽

Joe Was ◽

Jim Myers ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Design Method ◽

High Water ◽

The United States ◽

United States Marine Corps ◽

Concept Exploration ◽

Technical Risk ◽

Combat Vehicle ◽

Set Based Design ◽

Water Speed ◽

Study Plan

In 2013, the United States Marine Corps (USMC) conducted a study to determine the technical feasibility and affordability of a High Water Speed Amphibious Combat Vehicle, quantify performance, determine capability tradeoffs that can be made to reduce cost and reduce technical risk, and compare capabilities with those of a Low Water Speed variant. This paper describes the organizational structure, the study plan, and the innovative Set-Based Design method used by the ACV Directorate to conduct the study.

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Concept Exploration Methods for the Small Surface Combatant

10.5957/wmtc-2015-036 ◽

2015 ◽

Author(s):

Matt Garner ◽

Norbert Doerry ◽

Adrian MacKenna ◽

Frank Pearce ◽

Chris Bassler ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Task Force ◽

Design Approach ◽

Small Surface ◽

Design Concepts ◽

Concept Exploration ◽

Surface Combatant ◽

Set Based Design ◽

Littoral Combat Ship

In 2014, the Small Surface Combatant Task Force completed an innovative study on alternate proposals to procure a capable and lethal small surface combatant. Modified Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) concepts, new design concepts, and existing design concepts were examined. This paper describes the set-based design approach employed to conduct this study.

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