Modern manufacturing has to deal with global competition, in which customers have high purchasing power. Production efficiency and rapid response to customer demand are dominant conditions for enterprises to stay successful. Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems (RMSs) are designed to have a modular architecture in both mechanical design and control system. The architecture enables change of the machine structure quickly, by adding and removing parts of the system, and by changing the corresponding software programming. It can handle short times to market. This paper presents an ‘Index-Method’ to monitor the reconfiguration of RMS. The method is able to categorise the reconfiguration and related development in seven stages. It focusses specifically on the Independence Axiom. The main goal is to find all relevant parameters to cause interactions, and to decouple them. The solution, aiming to be scientifically vigorous and practically applicable, was applied to a true case; the development of a manufacturing system for an inkjet print head for industrial applications. The realisation of the system required the development of new process technology. The index-method may be considered successful. It has the ability to structure the configuration process of RMSs. The method harmonises well with the industry known V-model.
From the article: "Axiomatic Design and Complexity Theory as described by Suh focus heavily on the coupling often found in functional requirements. This is so fundamental to the analysis of the design that it is the core of the Axiom of Independence which examines the coupling between functional requirements due to chosen design parameters. That said, the mapping between customer needs and functional requirements is often overlooked. In this paper we consider coupling, found due to this mapping, as a possible source of complexity in terms of a user interface to a designed product. We also re-examine the methodology of how customer needs are generated and translated into the other domains to understand how they can give further insight into the customer mindset. Based on this analysis, we believe customer domain complexity should always be examined in design that includes end-user interaction."
From the article: Abstract The Information Axiom in axiomatic design states that minimising information is always desirable. Information in design may be considered to be a form of chaos and therefore is unwanted. Chaos leads to a lack of regularities in the design and unregulated issues tend to behave stochastically. Obviously, it is hard to satisfy the FRs of a design when it behaves stochastically. Following a recently presented and somewhat broader categorization of information, it appears to cause the most complication when information moves from the unrecognised to the recognised. The paper investigates how unrecognised information may be found and if it is found, how it can be addressed. Best practices for these investigations are derived from the Cynefin methodology. The Axiomatic Maturity Diagram is applied to address unrecognised information and to investigate how order can be restored. Two cases are applied as examples to explain the vexatious behaviour of unrecognised information.
