WiToPro – Method for the knowledge-based tolerance design and function-oriented process planning

• Applicants: Dr.-Ing. Volker Böß; Professor Dr.-Ing. Benjamin Schleich
• Subject Area: Engineering Design, Machine Elements, Product Development ; Production Systems, Operations Management, Quality Management and Factory Planning
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 544947135

Increasing competitive pressure in international competition requires companies to realize short time-to-market of high-quality products while keeping manufacturing costs low. In order to achieve this, on the one hand, the technical possibilities of manufacturing must already be considered during product development and the manufacturing costs, which depend on the product design and in particular the tolerances assigned, must be estimated. On the other hand, the functional requirements demanded by the customer and the development department must be taken into account in the process planning in the best possible way. To support these tasks, the WiToPro project is developing basic scientific knowledge for establishing a continuous flow of knowledge and information between product development and process planning for machined components. This continuous information flow allows, on the one hand, a partially automated tolerance assignment in the CAD-CAM chain, i.e. the automated transfer of the nominal product shape as well as the function-relevant tolerances from the CAD authoring tool to the subsequent process planning and design. On the other hand, it enables the feedback of manufacturing information into the CAD authoring systems, i.e. the reflection of the achievable manufacturing accuracies and the manufacturing effort associated with the assigned tolerances from manufacturing into development. The scientific issues, that have to be solved for the realization of such an information flow, concern the architecture of the data and information flow, the design of the interfaces between different stages of the computer-aided CAD-CAM process, as well as the early prediction of the realizable manufacturing accuracy taking into account the manufacturing process and the respective machining task. Overall, the implementation of such an information flow results in a shorter time-to-market, because it avoides iterations between development and manufacturing. In addition, there are cost advantages because tolerances in development are only as tight as necessary, but at the same time as wide as possible. Finally, it reduces the manufacturing effort by the function-oriented approach, since increased manufacturing effort only takes place where it is also necessary and with this justified for the functionality.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants