Transcended Manufacturing

Abstract

The project is divided into three sub-assignments: - A future manufacturing context must be envisioned and the most important requirements synthesized. - An implementation of this envisioned manufacturing system must be developed and validated. - An exemplary-product producible by this system must be designed, showcasing the benefits of the envisioned manufacturing method. Envision Following the problem definition and assignment defined in the Introduction phase, the current state of manufacturing and how we got there is analyzed. A future context around a complete product-life-cycle is envisioned. Within this vision both the product as well as the factory are explored. The design tasks were performed in parallel, but they will be described in sequence. First the factory will be discussed: a manufacturing concept is synthesized, the underlying principles are analyzed, and a factory classification is done. Then the exemplary-product will be discussed: the underlying principles of product personalization are explored, and the principles of a product within the developed future context are described. The acquired knowledge gets integrated in a design brief and a list of directing requirements. These form together with the future vision, a starting point to design an actual realization of both product and factory in the phase after the Envision phase. Actualization Following the design brief defined in the Envision phase, the conceptualization of both product and production need to go hand in hand. A realizable future production system must be accompanied by a product that showcases this manufacturing method and the other way around: the personalizable product-family requires a production system that is capable of producing these one-off-products at a high production-capacity. Both design tasks were performed in parallel, but they will be described in sequence in this part of the report. First the exemplary-product will be discussed: the choice, the conceptualization, and the embodiment. Then the Transcended production system will be discussed: the required standardization, the proposed production cluster, conceptualization of the production framework and embodiment of the initial prototype. This prototype can then be used for validation of the propped framework in the phase after the Actualization phase. Validation In the Actualization phase a framework is proposed for the full, so called, pick-and-place on-printing process. This framework should be able to produce the designed computer mouse. And a prototype is developed solving the most important FDM-Cabinet embodiment challenges, resulting in a working system. The goals for this prototype are, firstly to demonstrate an initial framework that is able to produce a personalized consumer electronics product from start to finish at a mass-production output capacity (theoretically). And secondly to validate the pick-and-place on-printing process as a feasible method to produce multi-component parts. The Core Functional Requirements for this prototype are discussed and validated in each of following sub-chapters. The last subchapter validates the Core Functional Requirements for the exemplary-product itself. The research findings will then be used for evaluation in the phase after the Validation phase.