Using Templates To Support The Engineering Designer Performing Computer-Based Design Analysis

• In their quest for a more efficient and effective utilization of the resources allocated to engineering design projects, and thus to the overall product development project from which the current design task(s) originate, an increasing number of companies allow engineering designers to perform Computer-Based Design Analysis (CBDA) on their own – CBDA is here confined to quantitative analyses using finite element-based structural and thermal analyses, Computational Fluid Dynamics, and Multi-Body Systems. Since all of these tools require a certain level of expertise in order to be successfully utilized in industrial practice, the types of analyses performed by the engineering designers are confined to simple, straightforward ones.In striving for an increase of the individual engineering designer’s possibilities to actively participate in CBDA in industrial practice, an online survey has been carried out and reported in [1]. The main objective set out for this survey was to give an overview of the current situation in the global industry regarding CBDA-tasks being performed by engineering designers, what positive effects it might present to the industry and how it should be implemented for best result. Resulting from this survey, one new support, Template Based Design Analysis (TBDA), singled out as very promising for future development. TBDA is a support to be used in engineering design analyses based on the utilization of the advanced features provided by high-end Computer Aided Design (CAD)/Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) software in supporting, guiding as well as monitoring the design analysis performed by the engineering designer. It was also found that TBDA was gradually being introduced in some industrial companies.Since TBDA is still in its infancy, substantial development needs to be invested in it to make it the full-blown support needed in industrial practice. To be able to contribute to the development of TBDA, it is essential to acquire knowledge about how companies, both national and international, are planning to introduce and utilize TBDA in industrial practice.To that end a new online survey has been carried out, focusing on the introduction and benefits associated with TBDA. Out of a total of 64 respondents, 41 of the these were selected from the previous survey [1] and 23 came from companies known to the authors to utilize CBDA on a regular basis; these 23 were invited to participate in the interviews and as a first step, before carrying out the interviews, all of them were requested to answer the survey. 42 of them, from 17 countries, completed the online-survey. In addition to this survey, 5 Swedish companies, all utilizing CBDA on a regular basis, were participating in qualitative interviews. The main objective was to get an in-depth view on the use of engineering designers performing CBDA as well as an indication on the validity of the responses obtained in the online survey by comparing the results from the interviews and the companies response to the online survey – all companies interviewed answered the online survey in advance before the interviews were carried out.The introduction of TBDA in an industrial setting has resulted in many advantages, such as shorter lead times, opportunities to generate more concept candidates, and increased collaboration between the engineering designers and the design analysts, all of them contributing to more mature technical solutions. Three different automation levels of TBDA have also been identified and accounted for as well as being exemplified. In the companies in which TBDA has not been implemented, some of the reasons for not doing so are high costs, company policy, and the lack of knowledge and experience on the part of the engineering designer. This paper presents the results both from the new online survey as well as from the interviews. © 2015 by ASME

Ämnesord

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Maskinteknik -- Annan maskinteknik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Mechanical Engineering -- Other Mechanical Engineering (hsv//eng)

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Maskinteknik -- Produktionsteknik, arbetsvetenskap och ergonomi (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Mechanical Engineering -- Production Engineering, Human Work Science and Ergonomics (hsv//eng)

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