Product design evaluation based on the concept of rapid response manufacturing

Abstract

The highly competitive and rapidly changing global business environment requires companies to deliver new products with better performance, lower cost, higher quality and shorter time to the market. To develop a successful product, due to the significance of decision made at the early design stage, great attention should be paid to support the design concept evaluation in product concept development. A poor design concept can rarely be compensated at later design stage and incurs great expenses in redesign cost. During the design evaluation process, designers are required to take into account the multiple design attributes, such as manufacturability, assembliability and cost concurrently at the preliminary design stage. As such, a systematic approach that is capable of facilitating the efficiency of product concept development is highly desirable.