Improving Product Realization Through Intelligent Information Management

1. Improving Product Realization Through Intelligent Information Management S.K. Gupta Mechanical Engineering Department and Institute for Systems Research University of Maryland

2. Background • Information: structured and relevant data that has known semantic interpretation for a specific task • Description of available alternatives • Quantitative and qualitative evaluation results • Plans • Instructions • Information Management: The creation, classification, storage, retrieval, and dissemination of information • Product Realization Systems: People, hardware, and software working together to convert market opportunities into profits by realizing successful products

3. Product Realization Challenges • Decreasing time to market • Shorter window of opportunity for new products • Geographically distributed operations • Desire for lean operation, and economics of scale • Rapidly changing manufacturing technology • Need to train employees quickly • Global competition • Need to be cost-effective and timely • Need to consider life-cycle impact from the outset • Cost, performance, serviceability, environmental impact

4. Improving Product Realization Systems Physical Processing Decision Making • Improve Organizational Structure • Improve Decision Making Processes • Use Computer-Aided Decision Support Tools • ……. • Improve Processes • Reduce Waste • Automate • …. A possible way to improve product realization systems is by improving information management

5. Role of Information Management in Product Realization Systems • Quality of decision making depends on quality of information used • Delay in getting right information results in delay in decision making • Information that is not in the right form may result in unnecessary delay due to extra time needed to process it • Information generated during previous projects is often useful for future projects Delivering the right information at the right time and in the right form is crucial to success in product realization systems

6. Current State of Information Management in Product Realization Manage Information • Currently Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems are unable to archive all relevant design information • There is no connectivity between the final product geometry and requirements & specifications • A significant amount of information archived by PLM systems is not computer-interpretable • A significant amount of information is used as text documents • Content-based search cannot be performed on a significant amount of information archived by PLM systems • Text and file name based search techniques do not work for retrieving design information Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) Systems Integrated Computer Aided Design, Analysis, and Manufacturing Systems Create Information Just using the state of the art PLM system is not enough

7. Information Management Challenges • Eliminate information loss • Provide seamless integration among systems that use different representations • Ensure that archived information can be retrieved efficiently • Ensure that the information is delivered to human users in the most effective form Last two challenges have received lesser attention in research community; So I will focus on the last two challenges

8. Information Retrieval Challenge • Archived information can only be utilized if it is easily retrievable Information is lost Information is archived Cannot be retrieved Not Computer interpretable Computer interpretable Cannot be easily retrieved Efficient search methods are not available Efficient search methods are available Cannot be easily retrieved If archived information cannot be easily retrieved, then for all practical purposes it is lost

9. Information Delivery for Human Use Challenge • Many tasks in the product realization system are performed by humans • Human users often learn how to perform certain tasks by receiving and processing information • Different modes of delivering information can have significant differences on human learning efficiency • Poor instructions can lead to many mistakes and delay • Different humans have different learning styles Not having the information in the right form can significantly increase time for a human to learn it

10. The Consequences of Poor Information Management • Information is lost • Information is not searchable • Information is not in the most effective form • It takes new employees a long time to become productive • Same mistakes are repeated • Significant effort is spent on creating designs that already exist Information is a very valuable asset; Not utilizing it effectively is like throwing away money

11. Design Navigator System: Overview Design Navigator System • Were there any projects in which metal parts were replaced by ceramic parts? • Why was this material selected in previous design? • Motivation: Loss of design information • It takes new designers a long time to become productive • Same mistakes are repeated • Significant effort is spent on creating designs that already exist • Goal: Develop design information management tools to improve the product development process • Approach: Develop algorithms for archiving and retrieving all relevant design information • Anticipated Benefits: • Make new designer productive quickly • Effectively reuse existing design information • Learn from relevant prior experiences Product Improvement Project Alternatives Considered Design Evaluations Selected Design Design History Change Rationale Requirements and Specifications Functional Decomposition Assembly Information Repository of Previous Designs

12. Design Navigator System: Details Designers Design Navigator System CAD PLM Design History Management Search Tools Functionality Modeler Rationale Modeler Functionality Based Search Rationale Based Search Visual Search Geometry Based Search

13. Scenario Illustrating Problems Resulting Due to Poor Information Management • Bill is a new designer • He is given the task of reducing the cost of manufacturing a bracket being used in an ejection system • He does not have a concrete idea as to where to begin • Time taken to get information on relevant previous projects is 1 day Call senior designers and get information on previous projects with similar goals

14. How Design Navigator System Overcomes the Problem in Previous Scenario • Bill uses Rationale Based Search module • He uses the cost consideration attributes in the rationale search to locate previous projects with this goal • He finds an example of a parachute deployment device for which ‘cost reduction’ had been successfully performed • Bill uses these examples to proceed with his project Padding reduces manufacturing cost • Time taken is reduced by 98% Time taken to find relevant examples is 10 minutes

15. Operator Training Using Virtual Environments: Overview • Motivation: Training operators for performing specialized manufacturing operations is a time consuming process • Goal: Utilize virtual environments for training operators • Approach: Develop algorithms for generating and visualizing multi-media interactive training instructions • Adaptive; random access; variable speed; user-specified camera angle and position • Anticipated Benefits: • Reduction in training time • Increase in agility of work-force Operators can visualize instructions and practice assembly steps using virtual environment

16. Operator Training Using Virtual Environments: Details Training Progress Log Authoring Module Training Supervisor Multi-Media Instructions Training Module Training Software Text Instructions Video Audio Animation Interaction VR Hardware Operator

17. Scenario Illustrating Benefits • Current Practice: Jane develops training instructions for assembling new products and trains assembly-line operators • Currently she uses text based instructions with few illustrations • Generating instructions takes two weeks of her time • Training and certifying the team takes two months • Many employees find it difficult to understand the intricacies of some steps • Training using virtual environment • Jane uses virtual environment to put together the assembly • Training instructions are automatically created by the system • Time taken to generate instructions reduces to two days • Multiple people can begin training simultaneously without Jane’s constant supervision • Jane gets summary report from the system on potential difficulties • She only needs to focus in the problem areas with trainees • She can train and certify the team within two week • Trainees learn faster using hybrid system composed of Animation, Interaction, Video, etc. instead of text based manual

18. Anticipated Benefits of Improved Information Management • Reuse existing information • No need to recreate designs that already exists • Learn from relevant prior experiences • No need to consider options that were already evaluated and discarded • Bring new employees up to date quickly • New designer can learn in minutes why certain design decisions were made • Improved way of training workforce to deal with new opportunities • Increase agility of workforce Significant Improvement in Product Realization Process Improved Information Management

19. Open Research Issues • Develop new representations • Need to represent and archive all relevant information • Representations need to be based on well defined semantics • Develop processes to proactively record rationale during the design • Make recording process as transparent as possible • Develop new content-based information retrieval methods • To achieve acceptable retrieval speeds in case of large databases we will need fundamentally new methods • Develop new ways to train personnel • Advent of desktop virtual environment is opening up new possibilities