Continuous improvement of mechatronic product development processes

Transcription

1 1st International Conference on Modelling and Management of Engineering Processes Continuous improvement of mechatronic product development processes Dipl.-Inform. R. Woll, Dipl.-Ing. Christian Kind, Prof. Dr.-Ing. R. Stark Industrial Information Technology Technische Universität Berlin School of Mechanical Engineering and Transport Systems Department of Machine Tools and Factory Management (IWF) Virtual Product Creation Fraunhofer Institute for Production Systems and Design Technology (IPK)

2 Content 1. Our subject collaboration in mechatronic product development 2. The project MIKADO - characteristics and approach 3. The MIKADO process improvement approach 4. Conclusion 1

3 Content 1. Our subject collaboration in mechatronic product development 2. The project MIKADO - characteristics and approach 3. The MIKADO process improvement approach 4. Conclusion 2

4 Multidisciplinary Development A theoretical model Processes Product Mechanical engineering Electronic engineering Control engineering Software engineering

5 Multidisciplinary Development The worst case Processes Product Mechanical engineering Electronic engineering Control engineering Problems: long project duration changes require long iterations late identification of deficits and many more... Software engineering Synchronisation of development and requirements Need for changes Caption

6 Multidisciplinary Development The best case Processes Product Mechanical engineering Electronic engineering Control engineering Software engineering Advantages: Characteristics: parallelization (shorter project duration) everybody knows what to do everybody cooperates synchronisation of development and requirements Caption technologically flexible seamless communication need for changes

7 Multidisciplinary Development Reality Processes Product Mechanical engineering Electronic engineering Control engineering What s really happening here? Software engineering Task: Descriptive Research KONSTRUKTIONSTECHNIK

8 Content 1. Our subject collaboration in mechatronic product development 2. The project MIKADO - characteristics and approach 3. The MIKADO process improvement approach 4. Conclusion 7

9 The joint research project MIKADO PROJECT CHARACTERISTICS name: duration: funded by: MIKADO 3 years project end: 04/2009 German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) partners: GOALS 2 research institutes (Fraunhofer, TUB) 2 software vendors (CADsys, PDTec) 3 consulting companies (ITQ, InMediasP, intec) 3 mechatronical product vendors (Liebherr, Sitec, iplon) To develop methodologies for functional testing and diagnosis of mechatronical products and (software) tools that support these methodologies for SMEs. 8

10 Design Research The ideal procedure understand the processes understand the problems develop solutions to the problems evaluate the solutions specify further research questions 9

11 Design Research What happened in the project assume the processes collect requirements assume the problems develop solutions to the requirements evaluate the solutions surprise specify further research questions 10

12 Assumptions about processes and problems? Most companies lack formal processes for the coordination between the different engineering disciplines This results in late identification of deficits and iterations 11

13 Use cases and requirements Mechanical and plant engineering Energy industry Project planning Change management Small batch production Data acquisition and control for photovoltaics Use case scenarios in MIKADO require ments Building automation Automotive engineering Intelligent Area Controller Seat development Sunroof Adjusting device for interior equipement 12

14 The complex surroundings in engineering today engineering processes Engineering processes are the glue that hold the activities [ ] together. CLARKSON data Handle the complexity and support testing and diagnosis CAE tools people KONSTRUKTIONSTECHNIK

15 MIKADO Solution approach engineering processes data collaboration platform CAE tools people KONSTRUKTIONSTECHNIK

16 MIKADO collaboration platform Mechatronics collaboration platform process-based tool integration & service brokering (ESB) meta-model for mechatronic product development Cooperation and information model Connectors for CAx data storage and access PDM/PLM Partial models (integrated by meta-model) Systemstruktur structure Mech. mechanical Struktur Software software Struktur structure structure Elek. Structure electronical structure E-CAD M-CAD Systemstruktur structure Mech. mechanical Struktur structure Systemstruktur mechanical Mech. Struktur structure Software Struktur software structure Elek. Structure electronical structure Elektrische. Structur Struktur System structure view for mechanical engineer view for electronic engineer KONSTRUKTIONSTECHNIK

17 MIKADO big (process) picture Make the development verifiable at any time according to demand and requirements in order to recognize certain variations in time Requirements Weakness: integration happens after domain-specific modeling Feature validation Product Collect requirements Specify functions Define rough product structure Define and assign test cases Assign function owners, components,disciplines Define parameters Experimental mould 1 Experimental mould n FMU Process Mechanical engineering Electronic engineering Information engineering Control engineering Requiremts model Function model Product structure Test operation V-Model as macrocycle in accordance with VDI 2206 Test parameters Test log Domain specific draft Mechanical engineering Electronic engineering Information engineering Modeling and model analysis KONSTRUKTIONSTECHNIK

18 Content 1. Our subject collaboration in mechatronic product development 2. The project MIKADO - characteristics and approach 3. The MIKADO process improvement approach 4. Conclusion 17

19 MIKADO reference processes Reference processes can be considered on level 2 of the FORFLOW model. In MIKADO we defined 16 reference processes constituting the overall process: collect requirements verify requirements system specification specify requirements specify solution create structure tree create project plan change management configuration management project management plan the project create BOM risk analysis monitor project quality assurance create test plan create integration plan supplier management approval KONSTRUKTIONSTECHNIK

20 The structure of a reference process in detail process diagram extract from a questionnaire (in German) A reference process specifies one specific subprocess within the overall development process of mechatronic product consists of a process diagram (BPMN) and a reusable workflow template (XPDL) and a questionnaire built around 4 categories (formalisation, automation, institutionalisation, multidisciplinarity) and is used for judging on the quality of an as-is process and specifying its maturity (based on a 4-level maturity model) as an inspiration for a to-be process for creating workflow models for a to-be process.

21 The overall process improvement approach An engineering process is never repeated identically. ALBERS Supporting tools: the BPM life cycle BPMN process modeler (BizAgi) reference processes petri-net based process modeler and simulator (DIMSIMP) DIMSIMP workflow-management-system (jbpm) collaboration platform 20 KONSTRUKTIONSTECHNIK

22 Evaluation of the approach during an evaluation we check: applicability and usefulness of the solution The solution approach has been evaluated in 2 companies: 1 medium sized company (~50 employees) developing and producing machines for microproduction 1 small sized company (~15 employees) developing and servicing monitoring systems for electricity plants The evaluation lasted for 2 days in both cases and included interviews, questionnaires and practice sessions with the developed tools. The results (regarding the prior assumptions) were both companies were lacking formalized processes for assuring that the product model parts from the different engineering disciplines fit together assumption 1 was correct both companies seemed to have working processes for that kind of coordination assumption 2 was wrong Note: the evaluation results can be considered pointers but are not statistically reliable. 21 KONSTRUKTIONSTECHNIK

23 Lessons learnt from the evaluation Findings that could have been expected: due to wrong assumptions about the problems the developed solutions usefulness was limited joint process modeling helped establish common a understanding workflow-management made data exchange easier and safer but was rejected for its use for informal processes implementing interfaces with the collaboration platform required a high effort the concept of the collaboration platform was well received Interesting findings: as-is processes were very similar to reference processes the reference processes seemed to be too generic as-is processes usefulness was limited to indicating where additional activities would make sense questionnaires were more useful than process diagrams the common domain model was not used 22

24 Content 1. Our subject collaboration in mechatronic product development 2. The project MIKADO - characteristics and approach 3. The MIKADO process improvement approach 4. Conclusion 23

25 Conclusion cross-discipline coordination in mechatronic product development is still insufficiently understood and formalized before developing yet another solution more design research is required in this field the MIKADO approach was generally positively received but didn t solve the assumed problem reference processes need to be more detailed in order to be useful, but probably more detailed processes will not be generic anymore 24

26 Further research at IPK Automating cross-discipline functional test routines with workflows Multitouch technology for process modelling in a local team Linking process models and CAD data for PSS design Linking workflow activities to knowledge bases for proactive information delivery Design research on managing design constraints across different engineering disciplines 25

27 Produktionstechnisches Zentrum Berlin Thank you for your attention Acknowledgments: The project MIKADO was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) 26