CODING AND CLUSTERING OF DESIGN AND MANUFACTURING FEATURES FOR CONCURRENT DESIGN

A feature modeling system using two types of features, design features and manufacturing features, is introduced for modeling these two prod uct life-cycle aspects. Design features, represented as mechanical com ponents and mechanisms, are used for modeling design candidates to sat isfy design functions. A design feature coding system is developed bas ed on the analysis of design functions. A fuzzy pattern clustering alg orithm is employed to organize the large design feature library into h ierarchical feature groups. Required design features are identified us ing graph-based search. A manufacturing feature is a geometric element to be produced. A manufacturing feature coding system is developed ba sed on the analysis of product geometry and production operations. A g roup-technology-like approach is introduced to organize components int o groups according to their manufacturing feature codes using a fuzzy clustering algorithm. Production operations are optimized by a special optimization module. The two coding systems have been implemented in a feature-based, integrated concurrent design system for generating de sign candidates and planning production processes. (C) 1997 Elsevier S cience B.V.