Design For Manufacturing - methods for improved aerospace components manufacturing

Purpose and goal

The purpose of the project was to create solutions for a more for a more structured and systematic approach to enhance manufacturability and robustness of the manufacturing associated with new product development, focusing on fabricated products. Goal and the project deliverables have been to develop and demonstrate a methodology for a comprehensive assessment of manufacturability for different phases of product development, the concept stage as well as during design when the fixtures and production equipment will be designed along with tolerance and geometry assurance.

Results and expected effects

The result of the project identified of the factors that affect manufacturability and secondly the development of methods for quantitative analysis. Some concepts for the method and tools have been demonstrated to show the usefulness and potential. The project also has collaborated with functions responsible for product development methodology and has made initial studies how this work will be integrated into the development process and other engineering tools. The work will continue in a project in NFFP6 and in this more complete verified tools will be developed.

Approach and implementation

The plan was to compile existing knowledge via literature and experience on fabrication of jet engine components at GKN, and create methods for the analysis of concepts and design solutions. It turned out that the knowledge base is relatively fragmented due to the level of innovation and maturity of this technology. A number of studies and concepts for methods are delivered which can be further developed and implemented as additional data is obtained. The project has had some problems in recruiting PhD student and part of the work has been done by students (diploma work), which worked well.