A Model-based Approach for Robust Design in the Conceptual Phase of Product Development

Today’s world economy is undergoing a period of massive change and uncertainty. To compete successfully in the global marketplace, manufacturing organizations should have the ability to produce high-quality and low-cost products that fulfill customers’ needs. Quality, in addition to cost and time to market, is the another key factor of the economic success for manufacturing organizations. Moreover, it also has a significant influence on the wealth of the whole society if the cost that poor quality imposes on society is con-sidered. Thus, quality is essential for products and should be designed into products. Among various methods, tools and techniques, Robust Design has become a natural element in product and process development in industrial practice. However, there are few methods and tools that support engineers in developing robust product concepts in the system design, i. e. in the conceptual phase of product development. The present thesis proposes an approach with integrated tools for Robust Design in the early stage of product development. In other words, the objective of the proposed meth-od is to develop a model-based approach with integrated design catalogs for engineers to develop robust product concepts. The proposed approach is realized in form of a framework. In the framework, simulation models of physical effects or working princi-ples in the design catalogs are implemented, which can be used for the evaluation of principle solutions in terms of robustness, as well as for the calculation of system output values. Furthermore, catalogs for identifying uncertainties along the product life cycle were also developed and implemented. The approach or the framework with integrated catalogs are implemented in the GUI (Graphical User Interface) design environment of the software MATLAB (the MathWorks, Inc.), which is called App Designer. At the end of the thesis, a case study of 3D-printers is shown, in which the applicability and the usefulness of the proposed approach and the framework are evaluated.