Methodology for the highly iterative design of production process sequences

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Increasing individualization and high market uncertainties force companies to continuously involve their customers in the product development and to take into account product changes even in late development phases. The highly iterative development of physical products offers great potential to meet these challenges. However, it also leads to new demands regarding the parallel planning of production technologies (technology planning). At the beginning of the highly iterative development process of physical products, the requirements to the product are often almost unknown, resulting in uncertain information regarding product properties and features. In the course of the development process, this information uncertainty is continuously diminishing. In order for technology planners to be able to adapt their planning and evaluation methods to the existing information uncertainty in terms of application effort, it must be quantified appropriately. In addition, frequent and far-reaching product changes are to be expected during the highly iterative development process, which must be taken into account and anticipated in the planning of production technologies in a short period of time. Due to the frequent production of prototypes in the highly iterative development process, a systematic evaluation and selection of the manufacturing technologies to be used for this purpose is also required. It must be taken into account at what point in the development process the use of serial technologies for prototype production makes sense, in order to ensure that process uncertainties are minimized at an early stage. According to the current state of research, a methodology that supports technology planners in the design of production process sequences in highly iterative development projects for physical products does not yet exist.The basic objective of the proposed research project is to investigate the interrelationships between the changed framework conditions in highly iterative product development projects and an optimized process sequence design. To this end, a methodology is being developed that supports technology planners in the design of process sequences for prototype and series production in the highly iterative development of physical products. The methodology allows technology planners to make a decision in each iteration loop regarding the manufacturing technologies to be used for the required prototypes. In addition, it should be possible to design the process sequences during development for subsequent series production, taking into account the frequent changes in product design during the development process. Thus, for the first time, the methodology allows the derivation of generally applicable design rules for process sequences in the context of highly iterative development processes.