Search results

Discusses experiences on the development and use of horizontal and vertical prototypes. Explains the difference. Resolves that horizontal prototypes can be developed with ′little effort′, but end users are reluctant to become involved in the development process. Contrastingly resolves that vertical prototypes appear to stimulate constructive response. Reasons that developers should be aware of the tacit knowledge which plays an important part in users′ work practices and should be involved early in the development process. Proposes three techniques to meet the requirements – participation, simulation and evaluation.

Reviews, for the USA, Europe and Japan, the current state of development and application of rapid prototyping techniques and their impact on time‐to‐market for new products. These techniques, which are still undergoing rapid development, have already had a dramatic effect on reducing the time‐to‐market for new products by between 60 per cent and per cent and on reducing the cost‐to‐market by between 40 per cent and 70 per cent. Concludes that although the US is ahead of the rest of the world in terms of depth of experience and range of techniques, Europe and Japan are catching up fast in terms of experience and applications. Gives guidelines for the managers of manufacturing companies on the importance of the techniques, the selection of the most appropriate system and how to obtain most of the techniques adopted.

This paper introduces a knowledge‐based environment dedicated to the choice of rapid product development processes. Rapid product development processes are not limited to layer‐manufacturing machines, but they also integrate CAD, reverse engineering, indirect methods for metallic and plastic part manufacturing, etc. The aim of the proposed knowledge‐based environment is to propose, from a detailed functional specification, different alternatives of rapid product development processes, which can be ordered and optimised when considering a combination of different specification criteria (cost, quality, delay, aspect, material, etc.).

To provide an innovative way for manufacturing in which the integration of rapid technologies is simultaneously used methodologically in real‐time for the rapid product and process development (RPPD).

A range of related works are discussed and an experimental implementation of the RPPD methodology is described for composite functional prototype design and rapid manufacturing (RM). The simultaneous integration of VP/RP/RT/RE/RM technologies consolidates a powerful methodology to achieve the RPPD objectives.

The RPPD developed methodology takes advantage of both virtual prototyping (VP) and physical prototypes made by rapid prototyping (RP) technology to evaluate performances and design ergonomic aspects. The increasing needs to reduce lead‐time and costs have direct converting RP in rapid tooling (RT) technology for RM. Furthermore, to verify the parts and tools geometry accuracy the simultaneous use of scanning techniques for metrology control aided by reverse engineering (RE) as allow decreasing the RPPD time.

This paper evaluated RPPD results and the metrology control plotted in error distribution function and cumulative error distribution histograms validate the best practice developed that industrial manufacturers could implement allowing time and costs reductions.

The purpose of this paper is to present an integrated design approach for rapid product development (RpD) of a broken product.

Reverse engineering (RE), re‐engineering (ReE) and RpD systems have been incorporated to infuse agile characteristics in the proposed design and development process. A case study involving a broken clutch shoe was selected to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed integrated approach.

Integration of RE, ReE and RpD presented an unconventional approach towards achieving reduced lead times for design and development of products. Agile characteristics have been manifested for the broken clutch shoe by retrieval of a digitized parametric computer aided design (CAD) model. Moreover, development and selection of an enhanced feasible design (M₃) as well as delivery of the corresponding prototype was accomplished just in one week.

The proposed integrated approach for RpD can provide solutions to similar industrial situations wherein agility in the product design and development process can be infused so that the developed part can be delivered quickly to the customer at the reduced time and costs.

This paper aims to present a reverse engineering (RE) approach for three-dimensional (3D) model reconstruction and fast prototyping (FP) of broken chess pieces.

A case study involving a broken chess piece was selected to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed unconventional RE approach. Initially, a laser 3D scanner was used to acquire a (non-uniform rational B-spline) surface model of the object, which was then processed to develop a parametric computer aided design (CAD) model combined with geometric design and tolerancing (GD&T) technique for evaluation and then for FP of the part using a computer numerical controlled (CNC) machine.

The effectiveness of the proposed approach for reconstruction and FP of rotational parts was ascertained through a sample part. The study demonstrates non-contact data acquisition technologies such as 3D laser scanners together with RE systems can support to capture the entire part geometry that was broken/worn and developed quickly through the application of computer aided manufacturing principles and a CNC machine. The results indicate that design communication, customer involvement and FP can be efficiently accomplished by means of an integrated RE workflow combined with rapid product development tools and techniques.

This research established a RE approach for the acquisition of broken/worn part data and the development of parametric CAD models. Then, the developed 3D CAD model was inspected for accuracy by means of the GD&T approach and rapidly developed using a CNC machine. Further, the proposed RE led FP approach can provide solutions to similar industrial situations wherein agility in the product design and development process is necessary to produce physical samples and functional replacement parts for aging systems in a short turnaround time.

In recent years, rapid prototyping (RP) and rapid tooling (RT) technologies have been implemented in many aspects of industry, especially in the area of new product development. Based on RP and RT technologies, the paper proposes a rapid design and manufacturing system of the product. There are two ways to develop a new product in this system. One is beginning with a design concept, and another is from a sample as a reference. The reverse engineering technology, transmission processing software or modules of the input data, structure analysis and optimization means and manufacturing process analysis tools were integrated in the system. Some examples show that the integrated system not only can reduce the number of design iterations but also improve the efficiency and reliability of the product design.

The purpose of this paper is to apply rapid prototyping (RP) philosophy as a technology transfer in industries to take its time and cost‐effective advantages for development of rapid tooling (RT).

Experimentations are performed for development of RT for sand casting, investment casting and plastic moulding applications.

This paper reports the procedures developed for manufacture of production tooling using RP. A cost/benefit model is developed to justify implementation of RP as a technology transfer in industries.

The examples are limited to parts build by fused deposition modelling RP process. However, the concepts experimented may be applied for other RP processes.

RP has proved to be a cost‐effective and time‐efficient approach for development of RT, thereby ensuring possibility for technology transfer in casting as well as plastic industries.

This is the pioneer attempt towards quantifying RP benefits, in view of technology transfer. This paper presents original case studies and findings on the basis of experimentations performed in foundries.

Rapid tooling (RT) integrated with additive manufacturing technologies have been implemented in various sectors of the RT industry in recent years with various kinds of prototype applications, especially in the development of new products. The purpose of this study is to analyze the current application trends of RT techniques in producing hybrid mold inserts.

The direct and indirect RT techniques discussed in this paper are aimed at developing a hybrid mold insert using metal epoxy composite (MEC) in increasing the speed of tooling development and performance. An extensive review of the suitable development approach of hybrid mold inserts, material preparation and filler effect on physical and mechanical properties has been conducted.

Latest research studies indicate that it is possible to develop a hybrid material through the combination of different shapes/sizes of filler particles and it is expected to improve the compressive strength, thermal conductivity and consequently increasing the hybrid mold performance (cooling time and a number of molding cycles).

The number of research studies on RT for hybrid mold inserts is still lacking as compared to research studies on conventional manufacturing technology. One of the significant limitations is on the ways to improve physical and mechanical properties due to the limited type, size and shape of materials that are currently available.

This review presents the related information and highlights the current gaps related to this field of study. In addition, it appraises the new formulation of MEC materials for the hybrid mold inserts in injection molding application and RT for non-metal products.