Classifications

• • G—PHYSICS
  • G05—CONTROLLING; REGULATING
  • G05B—CONTROL OR REGULATING SYSTEMS IN GENERAL; FUNCTIONAL ELEMENTS OF SUCH SYSTEMS; MONITORING OR TESTING ARRANGEMENTS FOR SUCH SYSTEMS OR ELEMENTS
  • G05B19/00—Program-control systems
  • G05B19/02—Program-control systems electric
  • G05B19/418—Total factory control, i.e. centrally controlling a plurality of machines, e.g. direct or distributed numerical control [DNC], flexible manufacturing systems [FMS], integrated manufacturing systems [IMS] or computer integrated manufacturing [CIM]
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING OR CALCULATING; COUNTING
  • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
  • G06F30/00—Computer-aided design [CAD]
• • Y—GENERAL TAGGING OF NEW TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS; GENERAL TAGGING OF CROSS-SECTIONAL TECHNOLOGIES SPANNING OVER SEVERAL SECTIONS OF THE IPC; TECHNICAL SUBJECTS COVERED BY FORMER USPC CROSS-REFERENCE ART COLLECTIONS [XRACs] AND DIGESTS
  • Y02—TECHNOLOGIES OR APPLICATIONS FOR MITIGATION OR ADAPTATION AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE
  • Y02P—CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION TECHNOLOGIES IN THE PRODUCTION OR PROCESSING OF GOODS
  • Y02P90/00—Enabling technologies with a potential contribution to greenhouse gas [GHG] emissions mitigation
  • Y02P90/02—Total factory control, e.g. smart factories, flexible manufacturing systems [FMS] or integrated manufacturing systems [IMS]

Definitions

• the invention relates to a method for managing industrial data pertaining to a mass-produced discrete product that encompasses multiple physical modules, which method is based on digital control information and allows interfaces in the respective categories of between various mechanical parts, between various electrical parts, and between various software parts, as well as between various parts of more than one of the above categories.
• a non-limiting embodiment of such product is a consumer electronic product.
• the manufacture thereof requires a correct functionality of many internal and external interfaces between disparate partnering modules or parts.
• many changes may be implemented throughout by different persons and groups of persons. An additional complication occurs when the same product part may figure in various different products or in separate instances within the same product. Often, the above procedure may lead to design results that will not conform to each other through electrical, mechanical, or data processing misfits, although taken in isolation, various such changes are fully in order.
• US Patent 5,392,220 to the present assignee discloses a method and system for organizing data pertaining to an engineering process.
• the environment of the prior art is the design of subprocesses and the linking of the data between various versions of the same process or subprocess.
• the present invention may use the prior art for linking recent data to earlier data, the invention proper is dedicated to caring that the interfaces between parts of the product and/or its manufacture procedure would effectively conform. Provided that it is well-measured, the above recited bottom-up method helps avoiding most or all misfit problems.
• the manufacturing is distributed into a plurality of parallel-arranged bundles that exclusively interface to preceding or succeeding stages of the manufacturing column. This allows to avoid almost all discordance relating to individual parts within a particular bundle.
• the invention also relates to a system for implementing the method recited supra. Further advantageous aspects of the invention are recited in dependent Claims.
• Figure 1 a first type of manufacture organization
• Figure 2 a second type of manufacture organization
• Figure 6 the development of a part list
• Figures 6, 7a-7c various effects of part modification
• Figure 8 a product with various hierarchical interfaces
• Figure 12 an interface data accessing mechanism
• Figure 13 a system according to the invention.
• Figure 1 shows a first type of manufacture organization.
• the overall production process is symbolized by element 20 that broadly represents an assembly- line, although various other manufacturing organizations would lend itself to the improvements according to the invention.
• Elements like item 22 are successive sub-modules or parts that must be added to a provisional product to eventually produce the overall product that would be ready for application by a user entity, which eventual readymaking in this Figure has been symbolized by packaging step 24.
• the manufacture may pertain to various branches of mass-producing industry, the inventors foremostly intend the manufacture of consumer electronic products that are assembled from numerous parts or subassemblies, and moreover, are manufactured in large series that may number up to hundreds of thousands of ready products.
• Figure 2 shows a further type of manufacture organization according to the invention, which to an appreciable degree would lessen the recited problems.
• various logistic bundles or intermediate assemblies like 28, 30 are entered. These are self-contained items and may each comprise a larger number of the earlier items which internally interface within the assembly in question. Generally, only a fraction of these internal items will interface immediately to any item outside the subassembly in question, so that in the overall assembly this organization may cause fewer interfacing variables than before.
• the same type of presentation to user entity 24 as before takes place.
• logistic bundles 28, 30 is not restricted to physical subassemblies such as those that are plugged into sockets and the like; for example, they may represent software to be loaded into EEPROM, or a subsystem encompassing both software and hardware.
• Figure 3 shows various inter-part information relations for the system of
• Figure 1 as they evolve in the design process.
• product management specifies commercial features, which are generally operational functionalities of the eventual product.
• family group features which should be represented by the design itself.
• development functions that are aspects of the product in question which need to be developed by a systems architect.
• the development functions are listed as a column of partial functions in block 42.
• Various industry prescriptions such as process codes, preferred components and standard designs (46) now imply various further specifications for the items subsequently to be entered into the overall constituting process for the product, and thus, will present further conditions for the items in column 42 to adhere to.
• the items in column 42 now represent mappings on elementary parts of the product generation, each such mapping being symbolized by one of the dots 44 which link to the product parts on row 47 that together are intended for being assembled into product 48. Inasmuch as they are indiscriminately linked to that product, amendment of any interface of these parts may or may not influence the correct conformance with any of the other parts. Such in effect represents a great burden for the procedures that are necessary for part amending, as well as for the negotiating process that is required in a larger organization encompassing many persons and departments.
• Figure 4 shows the inter-part information relations for a system like the system of Figure 2.
• the development functions exactly correspond to those of Figure 3.
• the eventual product 48 from an external point of view exactly conforms to the requirements 40 of Figure 3.
• the constituting parts 54 from Figure 4 have been bundled into respective logistic bundles 50, 52.
• the pattern consisting of dots like 44 remains unchanged.
• any change in one of the blocks 54 need only be considered by the other blocks 54 from the same bundle, but not in the other bundle, inasmuch as the external interface of block 52 remains the same.
• the schematic of Figure 4 can be hierarchized in a multi-level fashion, thereby relatively further restricting the number of amendable interfaces.
• Figure 5 shows a organization based on multiple factories for use with the invention.
• the inventors have recognized that the manufacturing of each of various particular product types from scratch to finalizing, in a respective factory location, is outdated, because the reusability of various partial solutions will more and more favour the centralized manufacture of a particular partial solution or part, that may subsequently be applied in various different products, at geographical locations that are in principle arbitrary.
• the manufacturing column has been separated into printed board factory 60, subassembly factory 62, bundling factory 64, and distribution factory 66.
• Inter-factory interfaces have been indicated by tube-like constructions that may or may not include non-local physical transport, and possibly intermediate packaging and unpackaging.
• Printed board factory 60 needs as building blocks printed circuit boards from supplier 72, electronic components such as integrated circuit chips, capacitors, etcetera from component supplier 70, and various modules, such as plug-in programmed memories from module supplier 68.
• subassembly factory 62 next to receiving the mounted printed boards from factory 60, may need further modules, such as smaller printed circuits that may be inserted by edge connectors, from module supplier 68.
• module supplier may in principle refer to multiple independent physical and/or economic entities.
• bundling factory 64 receives the sub-assemblies from sub-assembly factory 62, and needs further modules, such as casings and ready-to-insert OEM modules from module supplier 68.
• distribution factory 66 receives bundling assemblies from bundling factory 64, and needs further modules, such as packaging material, user instruction matters, and further products from module supplier 68 that by themselves would be fully functional, such as headphones and remote controllers, but are necessary to constitute a commercially viable entity. After traversing all successive stages from the manufacturing column, the product is ready for distribution. Further, net or line 74 symbolizes information procurement from the development system, and by itself may operate in a conventional manner.
• feeding branches may be more extensive, for example in that printed boards from various printed board factories would be combined to a single logistic bundle.
• derived branches may be more extensive, for example in that a subassembly may be used in various different logistic bundles that would constitute the next stage.
• the column may in principle encompass a loop, for example when testing would show a defect that should be corrected in a preceding stage of the manufacturing column.
• Figure 6 shows the development of a parts list.
• a product T is associated to a list Q of parts which if bundled, will form the product or assembly T. All parts, not shown for simplicity, within the product have a relation with at least one other part of the product, and furthermore, an interface with the product T itself. Nevertheless, in certain circumstances assembly T may exclusively have an existence, and therefore an external interface, on the basis of its presently constituting parts.
• Figure 7a shows the interfaces between the above product T and two constituent parts or modules Z en Y thereof. If a change in a part on the parts list does not influence the product T in any of its functionalities as recited therefor, the relevant interface is not changed.
• Figure 7b shows an interface between the above product T and two constituent parts or modules Z en X, the latter being amended with respect to module Y supra, in such manner that the interface with respect to the overall product T remains the same. In this case, no new version of T is necessary to distinguish previous and new versions of the changed parts in the parts list.
• Figure 7c shows a further interface between the product K and the two constituent parts or modules Z en X. Here, the latter has been amended with respect to module Y (as symbolized in a pictorial manner), in such a manner that the interface with respect to the overall product T is changed. Therefore it is necessary to distinguish the new version of the hierarchically higher product K with respect to its earlier version T.
• Figure 8 shows an exemplary product in exploded view with various hierarchical interfaces.
• Plug-in modules 104, 106 must fit into corresponding sockets of hierarchically higher part 102.
• This "fitting" has a mechanical aspect, as well as an electrical aspect, in that electrical correspondence must exist between pin pairs that will match mechanically.
• various software aspects should match, for example, in that a program memory present in part 104 should carry the correct software information, such as data or program.
• part 102 should fit into casing 100, which again might have the same three categories of interface aspects.
• the Figure clearly shows various plug-in circuits, that itself may be printed circuit boards or standard elements.
• Element 108 can be clearly distinguished to be a third level printed circuit board that has horizontally been inserted in a vertical printed circuit board of next higher level. The structure of the various interfaces will be discussed infra.
• Figure 9 shows a first interface situation in an abstracted manner.
• mechanical part 110 interfaces to a second mechanical part 118 through interface 116 that is based on mechanical parameters.
• Part 110 interfaces to electrical part 114 through interface 112 that is based on electrical and/or electronic parameters.
• Part 114 in its turn interfaces to software part 122 through interface 120 that is based on software parameters.
• Figure 10 mostly repeats Figure 9, be it that items 114, 120 and 122 have been combined into a higher level bundle 124.
• interface 112 may contain different categories of parameters, for example, if the software 122 is directly controlling one or more aspects of mechanical part 110.
• Figure 11 presents a further extension of Figure 10, wherein part 114 has been separated into subaltern electrical parts 128, 132, 136, that have respective electrical interfaces 126, 130, 134, and together constitute a logistic bundle as recited. As long as amendments in this bundle do not influence mechanical aspects of interface 112, there is no need to reconsider the mechanical parameters of interface 116.
• Figure 12 shows an interface data accessing mechanism according to the invention.
• bundle T comprises the constitory parts Y, R, S, G.
• the internal interfaces of the parts with respect to the bundle have been indicated by interconnecting lines.
• a person may want to know all interfaces of a particular item with other items. Clicking in "Windows" fashion on the displayed image of the part will retrieve data on all relevant interfaces. This may apply to any of items T, Y, R, S, G (172- 178), and to all higher level entities that have the item in question as a constituent element. Similar clicking on the interconnection between the product and one of its constituents will lead to displaying all interfaces related to item T 170, as well as those related to the other item such as G 178, which displaying has been symbolized by blocks 182, 184, respectively.
• Figure 13 shows an exemplary interfacing system according to the invention, which in this embodiment for brevity has been restricted to mechanical aspects of the bundle in question.
• the exploded view only summarizes these various parts of a foot design for a television tube, for use in a particular television set. Some of the parts only interface to one or two other parts within the mechanical item. Others would be "visible" to parts external of the bundle, which could have consequences for the overall bundle during the design process thereof.
• conformance data may relate to sizes, tolerances, surface roughness, elasticity, and a host of other data that by themselves are standard.
• conformance data may relate to electrical quantities, such as voltage, currents, or stray capacitance.
• Software conformance may be defined in quantities like bit rate or format, memory capacity, register set size, and the like.

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• Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
• General Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Theoretical Computer Science (AREA)
• General Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
• Evolutionary Computation (AREA)
• Geometry (AREA)
• Computer Hardware Design (AREA)
• Manufacturing & Machinery (AREA)
• Quality & Reliability (AREA)
• Automation & Control Theory (AREA)
• Management, Administration, Business Operations System, And Electronic Commerce (AREA)
• General Factory Administration (AREA)
• Control By Computers (AREA)

Priority Applications (1)

Applications Claiming Priority (4)

Publications (1)

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• 1998
  • 1998-04-27 EP EP98913990A patent/EP0938702A2/de not_active Withdrawn
  • 1998-04-27 WO PCT/IB1998/000634 patent/WO1998053412A2/en not_active Ceased
  • 1998-04-27 JP JP10529435A patent/JP2001500298A/ja active Pending

Non-Patent Citations (1)

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