Airbus Light Rider Electric Motorcycle Product Families and Modularity: New Options through Additive Manufacturing Timothy W. Simpson (tws8@psu.edu), Michael A. Yukish (may106@arl.psu.edu), Simon W. Miller (swm154@psu.edu) Investigate impact of additive manufacturing (AM) on the design and production of product families Develop rules and economic models that can be used to develop platforms and product families that leverage additive manufacturing (AM) Identify a suitable product family that could utilize AM Design, print, and validate consumer case study Apply method to product family and compare variety and cost metrics between the set of artifacts Increase product variety and reduce manufacturing cost and lead time through combination of platforms, modularity, and additive manufacturing Enable user customization without increasing manufacturing costs via additive manufacturing technology Firestorm Toolkit Powder bed fusion Length of project: 10-12 months Resources: $75,000 for 1 student plus materials and supplies Collaborators: IE, ME, and Applied Research Laboratory Understand how additive manufacturing (AM) expands the definition of platforms and product families through new design metrics and cost analysis Metrics for characterizing effectiveness of product families that use AM Develop cost analysis and metrics that inform decisions about the integration of AM into product families Companies have benefited from our product family work: Integration of design and manufacturing Tools for efficient and effective product family design are lacking The capabilities of AM (additive manufacturing) are evolving rapidly in both polymers and metals Few have explored implications of additive manufacturing on design decisions and product platform – no metrics or guidance on what to platform or how to platform with AM 2 – Concept formulated 5 – Key elements demonstrated End New 0% Start Shift companies from reactive to proactive design approach Understand key variety drivers within a family Identify common platform elements and key modules for differentiation Marry platform design principles with economic advantages of additive manufacturing to enable rapid, cost-effective product customization Improving commonality and user-centric solutions by providing modularity and flexibility in products through “massively customized” parts enabled by additive manufacturing Modular – customizable user-centric components Flexible – can accommodate greater variety of components in product architecture Customized – economical production through AM Bicycles – customizable shocks, brakes, suspension, etc. for rider Furniture – ergonomic, “right-sized”, geometric artifacts for human variability Medical – patient-specific implants and prosthetics Aerospace – customized drones and unmanned air systems Google’s Project Ara 3D printed drone Airbus Light Rider Electric Motorcycle Source: (Anderson, 1997)