Product Development

Production process or product parameters

Intelligent product development has two main goals with respect to engineering and manufacturing designs. Firstly, the product characteristics must be optimally designed from a holistic standpoint to ensure that they conform to the application requirements and the demands placed on them at a later point. Secondly, the production process must be designed as efficiently as possible.

Information captured by nondestructive sensors play an essential role here. Even during the product design phase, information about the materials, such as data from NDT sensors, can be factored into the layout. Moreover, sensor data is needed to optimize the quality and the production process as desired. This data is captured from semifinished products, components, assemblies and products, ideally in real-time during any phase of the production process.

As a consequence, future product and production planners will be tasked not only with the typical design optimization, but also incorporating and optimally designing sensor-based monitoring in the various production steps.

Fraunhofer IZFP's core competence for production and product monitoring is reflected in the qualification for sensor-based data recording, sensor implementation and diagnostics or monitoring by nondestructive, mostly multi-modal sensor systems. Even during the product development phase, sensor integration and the capture and processing of all relevant and adequate data for production, process control, quality assurance and quality optimization, have to be taken into account. Fraunhofer IZFP provides sensor-based tools that can be used to rapidly optimize the quality, efficiency and cost of the production processes during the development phase, thus drastically reducing development and start-up timeframes.

These methods can also be applied during unstable process phases, such as after a component change or re-tooling. Intelligent product and production development arises by using design know-how that relies on "tailored sensing" and "smart monitoring" in which these systems track adjacent phases and states during the product life cycle

Keywords

Smart Sensors, Nondestructive Process Monitoring, Smart Product, Smart Production, Tailored Design for Smart Sensing and Optimization