Session: 02-09-01: Session #1: Variation Simulation and Design for Assembly Description

Paper Number: 90956

90956 - A Model-Based Approach for Integrated Variation Management 

Variation management is a responsible task for product developers, which have to balance the ever-increasing quality demands and cost pressures, while considering the product design as well as the manufacturing and assembly process. These aspects, including functional fulfillment of the finished product, have a direct impact on its subsequent success in the market. Therefore, a large number of different activities of variation management are necessary along the product development process. Among these activities, this contribution will have a closer look on processes in early development stages with a focus on robust design, tolerance analysis or simulation, tolerance optimization and process-oriented variation management. In the four areas, a wide variety of methods support product developers, which not only raise awareness for the importance of integrated variation management, but also enable the identification of robust designs and optimal tolerances for individual components. However, most of the existing approaches have in common that they are document-centered while individual interfaces are present. For this reason, it is currently not possible to map the entire variation management process virtually. Thus, especially with regard to the ongoing digitalization of the product development process and the increasing availability of large amounts of data, the potential of an integrated variation management cannot be exploited efficiently.

However, the shift from document-centric to model-based product development can help to solve this problem by model-based systems engineering approaches, which enable a mapping within the integrated variation management. For this reason, this paper presents a novel model-based approach for the development of a combined system and tolerancing model. This model contains the processes and activities of the four areas of integrated variation management mentioned before and links them with the developed system and its corresponding data. The presented approach can be understood as a superordinate model for variation management and its processes and provides the modeling of individual views of different stakeholders within a development project. In addition, process- and program-specific solutions can be integrated into the model, which enables a cross-linking of the data beyond their interfaces. In this paper, the approach is realized using the system modeling language SysML and the software solution Enterprise Architect from Sparx Systems.

As a result, the proposed approach leads to a combined system and tolerancing model, which improves both the documentation of processes and their in- and outputs as well as the communication between involved stakeholders of integrated variation management. It can be used to make necessary changes in subsequent steps explicit and traceable, allowing the effects of changes, e.g. of tolerance values, to be identified and documented. Furthermore, it enables the reuse of models and the transfer of previous experience into future development projects, thus reducing the risk of repeating mistakes. In summary, the presented approach makes a relevant contribution to the structuring and digitalization of integrated variation management along the product development process. Future research potential currently remains regarding the utilization of the proposed system and tolerancing model to further increase the applicability of the approach, for example, through identification of implicit causal chains within integrated variation management.

Presenting Author: Dennis Horber Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg

Presenting Author Biography: Dennis Horber is a researcher in the research group ‘dimensional management’ at the Institute of Engineering Design of the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg. His main research areas are dimensional management in early stages of product development, including the fields of multi-criteria decision making and model-based systems engineering. In his research he primarly focuses on linking decision and system models and utilizing them to support product developers.

Authors:

Dennis Horber Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg
Stefan Götz Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg
Benjamin Schleich Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg
Sandro Wartzack Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg