There are several reasons to automate activities in the product and production development processes of which two are shortened lead-time from customer enquiry to production, and to assure a good producibility of the developed products.

There are several reasons to automate activities in the product and production development processes of which two are shortened lead-time from customer enquiry to production, and to assure a good producibility of the developed products. System architectures and solving methods have been tested through earlier developed prototype systems. Now, this project is focused on the implementation of computer systems for engineering design automation. From experiences it is known that it is a big step to move from an idealized prototype system to an industrial implementation, a step that except straightforward tasks also includes general questions that need research effort to gain knowledge about.

Find below a list of the most important milestones in this project (listed in intended chronological order):

  • Visualization of case base (2011)
  • Overview and evaluation of CBR-algorithms (2012) (CBR=Case Based Reasoning)
  • A CBR method to match complex geometries (double curved surfaces) through curvature analysis (2012)
  • Method to automatically establish search weights for CBR (2012)
  • A method to automatically develop FEM-models for crash-tests (2012)
  • Implementation process and documentation of knowledge for design automation system — coordinated documentation of design automation systems from three perspectives (2013)
  • Flexible design automation systems based on knowledge objects (2013)

 
From the partners' (Thule Sweden AB) point of view the following aspects will be studied:

A system to select and develop components for car roof racks

  • CAD-integrated functionality to select and/or automatically generate brackets (watch movie)
  • Function to select foot pads for car roof racks
  • Coordinated selection of brackets and footpads
  • Integration of CAD, FEM, and component database

The intention is that at the end of the project, there is an industrial usable system, TRackS (Thule Rack System), and also that generally usable experiences of the implementation of engineering design automation have been gained.