| EPSRC Reference: |
GR/N16754/01 |
| Title: |
IMPROVED PRODUCT DESIGN & MANUFACTURING THROUGH ECONOMICAL EXPERIMENTATION |
| Principal Investigator: |
Lewis, Professor SM |
| Other Investigators: |
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| Project Partners: |
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| Department: |
School of Mathematics |
| Organisation: |
University of Southampton |
| Scheme: |
Standard Research (Pre-FEC) |
| Starts: |
01 June 2000 |
Ends: |
30 November 2003 |
Value (£): |
276,252
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| EPSRC Research Topic Classifications: |
| Design Processes |
Manufact. Enterprise Ops& Mgmt |
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| EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications: |
| Aerospace, Defence and Marine |
Transport Systems and Vehicles |
| No relevance to Underpinning Sectors |
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Summary on Grant Application Form |
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Production of high quality manufactured products requires identification and understanding of the key design and manufacturing parameters, and how they inter-relate. Essential to gaining this knowledge is the availability of economical methods for experimentation on prototypes. Conventional methods (e.g. Taguchi) are not viable for many products in the general mechanical engineering sector. Specific barriers are: the high costs of specially produced components, the impact on performance of factors arising from component assembly, the lack of reusable components due to bedding-in, and the need to investigate a very large number of possible factors within tight financial and time constraints. This project will produce new methods that will enable experimental investigations to be exploited close to the manufacturing process of such products. In particular, experiments within a just-in-time manufacturing process will be enabled through a sequence of planned component assemblies which build knowledge on-line. Techniques for including manufacturing variables and making the experiments more sensitive to detecting key factors will be incorporated into the methodologies. A practical basis for determining the costs and the risks of various screening strategies by grouping factors will be developed and validated. The programme includes validation of the methods within the aerospace, automotive and electro-mechanical manufacturing sectors.
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Key Findings |
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This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
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Potential use in non-academic contexts |
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This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
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Impacts |
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| Description |
This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk |
| Summary |
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| Date Materialised |
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Sectors submitted by the Researcher |
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This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
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| Project URL: |
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| Further Information: |
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| Organisation Website: |
http://www.soton.ac.uk |