Development of Information System for Product Redesign: Evaluation of Assembly Process and Characteristics of Product Functions

Since product design strongly depends on the experience and ability of the designers, and a long lead time is required for the product design stage, introducing a support system related to this experience and ability is an effective technique to reduce the lead time. In this paper, an information system is developed to support the development of engineering mechanisms with the evaluation of the assembly process on the basis of the abstract functions required for new products. The developed system is based on a database system involving the following data structure: (1) a hierarchical structure related to information about the product functions, (2) the relationship between the parts and engineering functions and/or mechanisms of products, and (3) the relationship between the parts and manufacturing characteristics. The system stores the relationships between the product functions, structure of parts, and assembly characteristics. This information can then be interactively retrieved using the data structure described in (1), (2), and (3). A procedure for designing new products is proposed that involves using the information about existing products. This paper presents the characteristics of the proposed procedure and the developed information system. In addition, a case study of the redesign of a simple structured robot by using the proposed procedure is discussed.