Integrated product concepts development and evaluation

The traditional method of developing products suffers from a lack of information of the later stages of the development process when the early decisions are made. This would probably lead to staggering losses in lead time and project resources. This problem could be avoided if the development team makes the early design decisions with sufficient considerations on other aspects such as manufacturing processes, tool making, etc. This paper aims to present the authors' recent research results in the establishment of a decision making framework at the product concept development process. According to the framework and using the knowledge based system methodology, an integrated product concepts development and evaluation system has been developed for plastic injection moulding part. The system is capable of generating the material selection, injection mould design features, injection mould making process plan, production moulding plan, estimated mould making lead time, and cost estimates of injection mould and production moulding at the product concept stage.