An approach to integrate manufacturing process information in part design phases

Design for Manufacturing (DFM) is the integrated practice of designing components while considering their manufacture (O’Driscoll, M., 2002. Design for manufacture. Journal of Material Processing Technology, 122, 318–321). The benefits of this practice have been widely acknowledged in the industry. Several techniques fall under the umbrella of Design for Manufacturing, and their implementation depends heavily on the context in which they will be applied. How to enhance their use by designers is still an issue. The use of a formalized design process, in which a software application is used to bring manufacturing knowledge to the forefront, would improve DFM implementation. In such a context, a fundamental issue is to define the manufacturing information that should be presented to the designer.This work addresses the capture and documentation of essential DFM information to make design decisions. Essential manufacturing information is that which can affect the fulfilment of functional requirements and product constraints. The proposed approach combines DFM techniques and principles of Axiomatic Design (AD) theory. The manufacturing information is represented by the concepts of Process Property (PP) and process Execution Variable (EV). The ultimate aim of the approach is to define manufacturing knowledge structures and develop a knowledge-based application for DFM.The approach was applied to a case study in which a connecting rod was the part to de designed and manufactured. The manufacturing processes selected were forging and powder metallurgy. The DFM information about these manufacturing processes, related to the connecting rod, was identified and formalized in a table-based data structure.