1. Airbus Light Rider Electric Motorcycle
Product Families and Modularity: New Options through Additive Manufacturing
Timothy W. Simpson Michael A. Yukish Simon W. Miller
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: 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)