The product is strongly influenced by the production technologies; therefore, theproduct and its manufacturing system must be concurrently designed. Nevertheless, atan early stage of the product development process, scarcely concrete information isavailable.The principle solution of a product offers a rough concept of the desired product; it isthe result of the conceptual design phase and specifies the products basic structureand function. Based on the principle solution of the product, a first rough concept of itsmanufacturing system can be derived. This first rough concept of the manufacturingsystem is named here as the principle solution of the manufacturing system.In this work was developed a specification technique for the conceptual design ofmanufacturing systems. Specification techniques are a type of language that can beused as communication medium. This specification technique was designed to be usedas a language for the early coordination and exchange of information between theproduct conceptual design and the manufacturing system conceptual design.This specification technique allows an holistic description of the manufacturingsystems principle solution at an early stage of the product development process. Itdocuments a domain-spanning visualization of a manufacturing systems principlesolution by means of diagrams, graphics and tables. The principle solution was dividedinto partial models. With this division, a balanced consideration of the involved domainswas provided. Additionally, these partial models can be modified, concretized orcomplemented at any moment. Finally, with this specification technique, amanufacturing system can be represented with different levels of detail as well asdifferent levels of abstraction. These characteristics assist the developer during theconceptual designs typical iterative process. |