Benefits of Rapid Prototyping Supporting Concurrent Engineering along

the Product Development Process

Carlos Eduardo Saura
State University of Campinas - UNICAMP – BRAZIL

Dr. Prof. Franco Giuseppe Dedini

Departament of Mechanical Project
State University of Campinas - UNICAMP – BRAZIL

ABSTRACT: This document has an objective to demonstrate the benefits of the use of Rapid Prototyping
supporting the concurrent engineering and design inside a developer enterprise our outside it through whole
product development chain compound by all range of companies’ size that are part or command this chain.
The rapid prototypes are applied in several forms as for the understanding of conceptual project, intentions of
marketing, a functional analysis or of rabbet of parts, or simply to assist the visualization of the product on
the part of the involved engineers of the companion this development.
1 INTRODUCTION We intend, therefore in this text to explain as
Rapid Prototyping (R.P.), that current it consists of
Nowadays the global market demands a bigger different techniques for which the product
degree of quality, rapidity in the technological (prototype) can be manufactured, is used in the
evolution, delivery of new issues and in the aesthetic numerous and constant involvements among the
update of the products. This impels, on forceful departments of a company our among companies in
way, the products development companies, to search product development chain, contributing in the
complementary abilities inner and out of the scope different development phases of one determined
of company. Creating at the same time one internal product. As well as in the blockages to the use,
concurrent development process that usually mix occurred errors, and finally the experience acquired
with a chain of small and medium companies also for the use of the R.P. as a valorous design tool for
responsible by part of the development process and the development of the product.
participant into concurrent engineering and design Inside of the target of the advanced R.P., the
process. interdisciplinary knowing gains a main significance
In some extreme cases we evidence: the company and is the base for a soft integration of the research
that commands the development process is only the results into industrial process. As we know, few
product patent owner, or either, owner of the technologies are enough versatile in it assists to the
mother-idea and all the remainder of the project and manufacturing of toys, plastics parts,
development process is executed by a developers mechanical parts, and others as the R.P.
chain companies, this demands of all a deep sense of
work in group, much more of that when the project
was restricted to the walls of an unique company, 2 DEVELOPMENT OF PRODUCT DESIGN
and when you do it in concurrent way the efforts of 2.1 Definitions
all involved are very strong to maintain everything
working well.
The Rapid Prototyping or Free Form Fabrication, Some definitions for the process of product
as also it is known, has demonstrated, to be applied development:
in some phases of the product development,
"it is the process from which information on the
innumerable advantages and an enormous potential.
market are transformed into the information and
Being able to be used for the understanding of
necessary benefits for the manufacturing of a
conceptual project, intentions of marketing as for an
product with commercial ends" (Clark &
internal department resolutions or as still for a test
Fujimoto-1991).
of public, a functional analysis or for a test assembly
of parts, or simply for better assists the visualization "the systematic activity necessary since the
of the product by the engineers of the company identification of the marketing/needs of the users
involved in the product development.
 until sold of products capable to satisfy these
necessities - an activity that embody product,
processes, people and organization". Total
Design of Pugh (1990, p.5).
The fast and discerning development of products
has become one of the key processes for the
competitiveness of the companies. The constant
increase of the competition, fast technological
changes, reduction of the products life cycle and
greater requirement by the consumers, demand of
the companies agility, productivity and high quality
that necessarily depend on the efficiency and
effectiveness of the company in this process.
The development process originates essentially
interactive and necessarily multidisciplinary
activities, using a great amount of methodologies,
systems, tools and solutions making with that
professionals/companies of different areas, would be
obligatorily taken to talk among it selves so that the
diverse partial visions over the development
products process could be shared by all involved.
This process is widely enhanced by the use of
Concurrent Engineering that is a systematic
approach to the integrated, concurrent design of
products and their related processes, including
manufacture and support. This approach is intended
to cause the developer, from the outset, to consider
all elements of the product lifecycle from concept
through disposal, including quality control, cost,
scheduling and user requirements.
Integrated Product Development is a philosophy that
systematically employs a teaming of functional
disciplines to integrate and concurrently apply all
necessary processes to produce an effective and
efficient product that satisfies the customer's needs,
these teams no necessarily is composed by internal
employs, sometimes we need the support of external
person from others companies that its part of
product development process.
Benefits of Concurrent Engineering and Integrated
Product Development include:
• 30% to 70% less development time,
• 65% to 90% fewer engineering changes,
• 20% to 90% less time to market,
• 200% to 600% higher quality,
• and 20% to 110% higher white collar
productivity
It is fact that in the process of product
development the degree of uncertainty in the
beginning is well high, decreasing with the time, but
it is exactly in the initial phase that we determine the
most of constructive solutions. It must be considered
that the modification cost increases exponentially to
the along the development cycle, therefore to each
alteration, a bigger number of taken decisions
already can be invalidated, and effectuated
investments already can totally be made unusable
due to a concept change. The challenge then is
succeed to manage the involved uncertainties in a
process of product development, where the decisions
of bigger impact necessarily are taken in the
beginning of the process where a bigger number of
degrees of uncertainties and alternatives exist.
2.2 Integrating companies in a same product project
In a basic consideration of the process of product
development, we come across with the existence of
two main factors that influence all the activities intra
or extra company, are they:
a) Technological factor: materials, tools and
advanced technologies of design e
manufacturing.
b) Organizational factor: culture, structure,
and people.
Currently the majority of the development
processes involves more that only the proper
company owner of the initial idea. It reach, in many
times, the creation of a product development chain,
endowed of effectiveness, integrated and
synchronized participation of some companies in the
intention of the success of the development process.
The collaborative environment among companies
for development of products became a new
paradigm in current engineering. The collaboration
inter-companies allows to a bigger sharing of
information and use of methods and technologies as
concurrent engineering, virtual prototyping, pre-
production tests, management of total quality and
mainly the physical Rapid Prototyping that is the
target of our studies. The results are an increase of
the product quality and reduction in the cost of the
life cycle.
Supplier involvement in the design of a product
is generally regarded as being of substantial benefit.
Early supplier involvement is a means of integrating
suppliers’ capabilities in the buying firm’s supply
chain system and operations state that the suppliers
must be involved in the product design process in
order to optimize their special skills and processes.
Although more research is needed to quantify the
benefits, it is generally agreed that early supplier
involvement in the design provides an environment
in which product components can be designed
separately and simultaneous by different suppliers
using the suppliers design expertise. As a result, the
manufacturing cost and production time for
individual parts can be reduced and the overall cost
and time from product design to market can be
lowered. In addition, later problems in the operation
of the supply chain can be diminished.
 The relationship between a product assembler
and their part suppliers has been called a design
chain but, more properly, can be called a product
development chain, since all the activities associated
with product development are carried out in the
chain. These activities include: design, prototyping,
and testing.
A suitable definition of a product development
chain can be defined as:
A product development chain is a system through
which organizations develop products and services
to meet customer requirements.
3. THE RAPID PROTOTYPING ASSISTING THE
CONCURRENT ENGINEERING IN PRODUCT
DEVELOPMENT PROCESS
3.1 The Rapid Prototyping into product
development process.
As we saw in the research and development
process of a new product, it has a phase where
designers and engineers come across themselves
with the necessity to foresee the real behavior of its
project. The traditional way would be the
construction of prototypes or reduced models for
assays in laboratories, where measurement
instruments strategically distributed would collect
tensions data, deformations, speeds, forces, etc.
However, the methodology of construction and
assay of diverse prototypes usually consume much
more time and resources that would be the desirable,
not being, therefore the ideal solution in cost/benefit
terms.
In this case we lay hold of the technology of
Rapid Prototyping, because without the use of this
technology, it would be necessary to construct a
conventional physical prototype, be used a great
amount of manual tools, specialized staff, and
expensive machining-tool. The conventional method
would burden in terms of time and in the relative
quality of the similarity to the real product.
The prototype then is tested in the purpose to
adjust it to the specifications of the project. Then
corrections and revisions of the project that show
necessary are made, and frequently the next
prototype is constructed with the appropriate
modifications. Rapid Prototyping is the manufacture
of the model for a known process as Solid Freeform
Fabrication (SFF). In this technique the parts are
produced by material addition, instead of deforming
or removing material (forges tooling, electro-
erosion, etc.).
In the Rapid Prototyping, initially a solid model
(3D model generated in CAD) of an object is
decomposed, in layers. Each layer is constructed by
a material deposition that successively one to goes
forming the object. Each deposited layer can be, or
not, followed for some necessary sub-process
(removal of material, tension alleviation).
For being a manufacture based on layers the
Rapid Prototyping system is capable to produce
parts of complex geometry and forms that are
impracticable or impossible, or to much expensive
to construct with traditional systems.
Rapid Prototyping is particularly used to
manufacture prototypes for visualization or
communication of ideas in development groups
through touching and feel visualization of complex
structures, exhibition of marketing, currently with a
bigger and bigger force, which had the evolution of
the diverse processes, as functional prototypes.
3.2 Rapid Prototyping minimizing the cost of delay
Normally, product development projects have
four objectives:
- Develop a product with a certain set of
features and performance levels, as listed in a
product specification (performance objective);
- Satisfy a target unit manufacturing cost for the
resulting product (cost objective);
- Development budget for the project (expense
objective); and
- Adequate the project within a given time
(schedule objective).
We are taught to manage each of these objectives
- performance, cost, expense, and schedule - to its
target and to control variances of each one. In doing
this, we lose sight of the fact that some of these
objectives may be far more important than others. If
we could cut a week out of the schedule, we might
decide that the week is not that important. Just how
important is a week of schedule compared to
development expense?
To be wise shoppers for time compression, we
need answers to such questions. It is not good
enough to manage each of the four objectives to its
target independently; being blind to the fact that one
target may be a thousand times more important to
profitability than another. In fact, the typical project
manager manages project expense very carefully but
is usually less concerned with schedule slippage,
which usually has a far larger profit impact.
Effective developers and project managers do not
manage their projects blindly to the four targets.
Instead, they regard the four objectives as a
balancing act. They are actively looking for
opportunities to trade off one against the other,
gaining net advantage. They can always find more
expense money to buy some time at a bargain price.
And they will refuse to delay a project to add
another product feature if the price (in time) is too
dear.
3.3 The Product Developers Chain and the Rapid sometimes owner of Rapid Prototyping apparatus.
Prototyping However now we came across with a new facet of
the R.P. approach on CE, it is being took to small
Evidencing today a bigger and bigger use of
and medium companies and becoming a valorous
prototypes elaborated in the R.P., since the
tool of development with great potential not only
beginning of the product development process, in
internment, but also for inter-companies
chains of development product companies. Theses
development. Its profits are measurable since the
prototypes these that necessarily transmit faithful the
difference of the time of execution of a conventional
forms of the real product and that also can support a
prototype, passing through the possibility of error
good portion of the mechanical strengths inherent to
and correction in the beginning of the project to a
the real part.
low cost, as selling a product that still only exists
Small or medium companies participant of
conceptually in the project, being showing on a
development teams are using effectively and more
physical form to the future buyer. The set of
prematurely the R.P., therefore they see in these
companies that are part of product development
prototypes a visual and three-dimensional media
chains that had adopted R.P. as one of its main tools,
among the participants of Concurrent Engineering
consider extremely themselves rewarded using of
process and a certification of the routes defined in
this technology.
the product project.
After about three years working together on
bureau of the Ministry of the Science and
5. REFERENCES
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medium companies, holds some knowledge,
but that they had still never used. However
after the initial experiment they pass no more
to develop products without the R.P.
d) The basic development chain that we find in
companies of some areas (domestic utilities,
cabinets, electro-electronic, etc.), thus it is
formed:

4. CONCLUSION
The greater and conscientious use of the R.P. has
brought many benefits to Concurrent Engineering
Process to develop products on great companies,