Integrated product and process development using rapid prototyping and rapid tooling technologies

Manufacturing firms are forced to devise in new information systems and more intensive methods for both products design and processes development in a totally changed modern manufacturing environment. Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) system is more attractive and useful for survival of a manufacturing company in quickly changing marketplaces [1]. The use of CIM systems requires a large number of advanced computer tools and high information and manufacturing technologies to assist the design of products and processes. Such techniques are indispensable for concurrent design of products and processes at an early stage of the product design in particular. Design for Manufacturing (DFM) and Design for Assembling (DFA) have been elaborated for the approaches of concurrent product and process development [2]. The implementation of these methods requires a lot of intelligent functional models and interfaces between standard Computer-Aided Design (CAD), various ComputerAided Process Planning (CAPP) and Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP) systems, because DFM and DFA are strongly related with the above recited systems. On the other hand the shape of the newest products becomes more and more complicated and during their development the discussions among customers, developers, producers and users have to be based on virtual and physical prototypes. Virtual Prototyping (VP), Rapid Prototyping (RP) and Rapid Tooling (RT) assist in quick pattern creation of a new product as well as in its evaluation, testing, and decision making of product customization. The early stage of the product design has the greatest influence on its quality, manufacturing costs and the parameters of the product life cycle. The virtual environment, therefore, is often used for the conception of the new product development. This practice is very convenient when developers of products and processes are located in different countries and companies. RP and RT are very effective when the results of VP are incomplete for deciding the manufacturing costs, functionality and the parameters of the new product design. The small quantity of products (1-20) produced by means of RP and RT methods can come to assistance to decision making on their handling in various marketplaces. Decision making is based on the validation and testing results of new products. This paper deals with the creation of CIM system interfaces using RP and RT technologies for the integrated product and process development. Application of interfaces is aimed at minimizing time and costs of the new product and process development changing product structure, parts, and components as well as the production plan, machine tools and producers. Our work has been used both in various production firms and studies in universities and colleges.