Advantages of concurrent engineering over traditional engineering - Essay Example

MECHATRONICS 369312 Mechatronics a) Advantages of Concurrent Engineering over Traditional engineering in the State-of the-Art System Design Concurrent Engineering also referred to as Integrated Product Development (IPD) or Simultaneous Engineering refers to the process of integrating design and analysis, requirements, production planning, production and procurement, support of product manufacture as well as activities related to disposal in the initial stages of product development cycle (Douglas, 2009). It involves a new comparative design methodology that enhances productivity and results to better overall design. It is meant to make the developers put into consideration all necessary element of the product's life cycle. One of the major advantage of concurrent engineering over traditional engineering approach is that is significantly improves the performance of product development. Douglas (2009) further indicates that concurrent engineering has been designed to overcome problems experienced in traditional engineering approaches concerning serial product development whereby individuals from several departments perform one after the other following the success of the prior development phases. Under serial product development in traditional engineering, the product to be manufactured is first defined by the department involved in engineering design. After this the department of manufacturing engineering then defines the manufacturing processes. This goes on like in that manner until the final product is produced, inspected and approved of the required quality. The process is usually slow, is of low quality, expensive and results in engineering design changes, which further affects the productivity of the company. It also leads to problems of production, product introduction delays and less competitive goods in the market. According to Stark (1998), concurrent engineering on the other hand, brings together various multi disciplinary operational teams where developers of the product from several functions operate together, in this case in a parallel approach from the initial stages of the project with a single aim of achieving the right things in the right place as fast as possible and as early as possible. Under this approach, a cross-functional team would include different functions representatives like mechanical engineering, systems engineering, electrical engineering, quality department, systems productivity, fabrication productivity, reliability, maintainability and testability, manufacturing, design and layout as well as program management. In other times other department representatives such as marketing, purchasing, quality assurance and field are involved in the process. Clients and suppliers might also be involved in these processes. Another major success of concurrent engineering is due to the fact that in this approach, the input is gotten from several functional areas as much as possible prior to specification finalization. The result for this is that he product development team would be in a better position to clearly comprehend the requirements of the product as far as mission performance, environmental conditions in operation periods, budgeting and production scheduling are all concerned. Under such an approach, the multy-displinary groups would be able to take informed and agreed upon decisions regarding the product development, processes involved as well as cost and matter related to product quality. The team or groups can also make several trade-offs between features of design, parts manufacturability, assembly requirements, the required materials, issues of reliability, demands of serviceability and time and cost constraint factors. Thus concurrent engineering helps in obtaining the design correctly at the initial stages of the product development process, which subsequently reduces the down stream hardships experienced in the workflow. The approach also helps in reducing the need for expensive engineering alterations, which might be required in the later stages of the product development. Concurrent engineering also assist in reducing the number of redesigns more so the ones coming about as a result of post-design input gotten from support groups (Stark, 1998). Thus by having these design groups in the first stages, fewer changes would be involved. The significant changes, which usually happen, would be before the final designs are produced. The overall design and manufacturing time for a new product would thus be substantially reduced since more than one operation would be carried out simultaneously instead of being produced in series. The final production costs are substantially reduced by the design cycle time reductions as a result of adaptation of concurrent engineering. Stark (1998) holds that concurrent engineering provides several benefits, which are not found in traditional engineering such as; reduced time for product development, reduced design work, less costs of product development as well as improved communications. Companies employing concurrent engineering have been found to indicate improvements in overall quality, about 30% to 40 % projects time and costs reduction as well as 60% to 80% design changes after release reductions. b) Benefits of Employing Mechatronics in Systems Design Mechatronics as an engineering science elaborates the interdisciplinary synergy of knowledge, thinking, education, work approach, practices as well as professional skills. It concentrates on the learning process coupled with concurrent synergy of design from the initial design and development stages. Janssens (2009) indicates that Mechatronics has enabled solutions to electrical design challenges pertaining control and sensing applications. There is now versatility, space-savings as well as reduction in cost of materials through adoption of more powerful and compactness of major electrical appliances. The products have now achieved a bigger deal of flexibility. They can easily be modified in size, length and shapes to meet the specified needs of the customer. This extent in compactness implies that the components are now made closer together thus have higher existence and performances even in such demanding and harsh environments (Janssens, 2009). Through Mechatronics there has been development of sensors insensitive to electromagnetic fields which supports the sensor bearing technology development meant to meant to contemporary as well as the future requirements of industrial goods and drive systems with no problem of magnetic comatibility (Janssens, 2009). Mechatronics also helped in achieving the three benefits through eliminating unnecessary mechanical drive parts, minimization of mass which is required for the mechanical components, replacing fluid power with electric actuation, control or guarding access to rotating and moving parts and use of integrated safety systems meant to reduce complexity of the control system. It has also helped in designing of IT connectivity into the machine parts and improved employment of diagnosis. Thus adopting Mechatronics in building of machines has helped leveraging the most appropriate and advanced technologies hence creation of safer, reliable and more cost-effective machines and equipment (Janssens, 2009). c) Operation of Mechatronic systems: Drinks venting Machine Operation: The invention of a venting machine for buying soft drinks is meant to allow the can of the drink to be ejected from the machine. It includes buttons for selling drinks, storing the amount of the respective type of drinks, which is to be ejected following the opening time of the valves for drink ejection. It also comprises of a drink controller. It further contains another button; the mode-selling button, which is used in shifting a mode for setting the drink to be ejected. Flow Chart for buying a soft Drink from a Venting Machine No Yes No Yes-move to next step No-Get change & try again Yes No Operation of Coin Recognition/Swipe Card Circuitry Pafarafa (2004) asserts that the contemporary coin acceptors have a magnetic field, which is created by sensors as the coin moves pas the field. The metal coin in the field leads to magnetic field change that is detected by the sensors thus converted into corresponding readings. In most cases it is usually 10 each time a coin moves past the field. The coin acceptor accuracy relies on the use of the readings. Acceptors are then programmed. This is achieved by passing several coins via the coin acceptors thus averaging the readings hence evaluating the provided data to find out the most appropriate lower as well as upper limits for every coin passing through. These readings are set to be accepting several real coins but not accept fake ones. References Douglas, L 2009.Concurrent Engineering. (Online). Available at: http://www.stsci.edu/rdouglas/publications/thesis/section2_4_3.html [Accessed Feb 9, 2010] Janssens, M. 2009. Plug and Play Speed Sensors Insensitive to Electromagnetic Fields. (Online). Available at: http://evolution.skf.com/zino.aspxarticleID=15087 [Accessed Feb 10, 2010] Pafarafa, G. 2004. How Do Vending Machines Work (Online). Available at: http://answers.google.com/answers/threadviewid=339996 [Accessed Feb 10, 2010] Stark, J. 1998. A few Words about Concurrent Engineering. (Online). Available at: http://www.johnstark.com/fwcce.html [Accessed Feb 10, 2010] Read More