Application of virtual technology in new product development1

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Application of virtual technology in new product development1 [Copy link]

1. Introduction

With the rapid development of science and technology, competition among enterprises is becoming increasingly fierce, and market changes are accelerating. New product development by enterprises has also shown some new characteristics:

(1) Product life cycles have been significantly shortened. Taking automobiles as an example, the life cycle of new products has dropped from 5 to 8 years in the 1990s to 3 to 5 years today.

(2) Product variety has increased dramatically. To meet user needs, companies have vigorously developed customized products. Even for mass-produced products, they can be sold in an order-based manner based on the diverse functional requirements and preferences of customers.

(3) Product development cycles have been greatly compressed. Taking automobiles as an example, the product modification design and development cycle has been compressed from 4 to 5 years in the past to about 2 years at present.

Therefore, for large enterprises, timely development of high-quality, high-performance and low-cost products that meet market demand has become the key to maintaining competitiveness, and the establishment of an efficient, low-cost new product rapid response development system is the guarantee for achieving this goal. Obviously, traditional product design methods can hardly meet the needs. In the face of such severe challenges, it is required to continuously develop and apply advanced production and manufacturing technologies to adapt to this change. It is precisely under the impetus of this increasingly harsh environment that virtual product development technology is developing rapidly. It has brought a new development space for enterprises.

2. Classification of Virtual Product Development Technology

Virtual product development technology does not directly establish an intelligent thinking model, but combines dynamic simulation technology with a virtual environment, allowing developers to perceive and judge the operation of products in a virtual environment through vision and thinking. The two can interact with each other, thus more perfectly combining people and computers into one, allowing human wisdom to be fully utilized and applied, rather than just being a passive partner of the computer. This has led to new breakthroughs in product development technology.

Virtual product development technology can be divided into three categories according to its functions and the different models it handles: product virtual design technology, product virtual manufacturing technology and virtual manufacturing system.

1. Different object-oriented

The object of product virtual design technology is the structure and performance of the product. Starting from product design, analysis, simulation and evaluation, it optimizes the product performance and cost required by customers. Its object is the product itself.

The virtual manufacturing technology of products is to simulate, test and optimize the manufacturing process of products, test the manufacturability of products, the rationality of processing methods and processes, so as to ensure the manufacturing quality of products, shorten the manufacturing cycle and achieve the lowest manufacturing cost. Its object is the manufacturing of products.

The virtual manufacturing system focuses on the modeling, simulation and optimization of production process planning, organizational management, resource scheduling, logistics, information flow, etc. Its object is the entire factory and enterprise.

2. Different application stages in the enterprise product development process

For enterprises, there are two key stages in the new product development process: product design and development, and process design and development. The former focuses on the product's function, design feasibility, and whether it can meet customer requirements, while the latter focuses on the feasibility, controllability, and economy of product production. The virtual design of products belongs to the category of product design and development, the virtual manufacturing system belongs to the category of process design and development, and the virtual manufacturing of products organically combines the two: it is both the feasibility output of the product and the input of the process design.

3. Different software platforms are required

Based on current software development and computer capabilities, these three types of virtual technologies have different requirements for software platforms: virtual design requires computers to provide convenient and diverse modeling capabilities, stable and high-precision graphics display capabilities, and corresponding measurement and analysis capabilities. Virtual manufacturing needs to process not only virtual prototypes, but also virtual models such as equipment, environment, and operators. The data capacity and type are much more complex than the former. At this time, the computer needs to focus more on graphics display and data processing speed. The virtual manufacturing system focuses on the performance analysis of the entire manufacturing system, and the scale of data to be processed is relatively larger. In addition, the software is required to provide various process reports and charts required by the management. Of course, it is not ruled out that one day in the future, with the improvement of computer capabilities and software levels, a software platform integrating all virtual product development technologies will appear.

Although virtual product development technology is divided into three types, they all revolve around products and are an organic whole that is interconnected. The general relationship of virtual models is shown in Figure 1.

Fig.1 Relationship diagram of virtual manufacturing models

3. Application of Virtual Product Development Technology

From the above introduction, we can see that virtual technology can basically be divided into three categories, and the output content of each type of virtual product development technology is of course different.

1. Virtual design of products

At present, 3D product design software has been widely used in factories, while traditional 2D design software is gradually being phased out. In general, product design and development in modern production is to build virtual prototypes. Compared with 2D design, 3D design not only allows designers to evaluate products intuitively, but also makes the design itself more convenient and faster. If necessary, material rendering can be selected for appearance evaluation.

In addition, these modeling software basically have functions such as motion analysis and product interference analysis, and some even have finite element analysis tools.

Modern design software also integrates processing and manufacturing auxiliary functions, with the ability to directly transition from product design to tooling and mold design, and finally to the manufacturing data output of CNC processing equipment, thus forming a product design chain consisting of product and processing data. The main outputs of this stage are as follows:

• Virtual product prototypes, including tooling and mold design;
• Product design drawings with complete information;
• Product appearance and performance evaluation;
• Processing procedures;
• Preliminary process flow.

2. Virtual Manufacturing Technology

Based on the data of the virtual prototype, the corresponding processing equipment, tooling, molds, operators and other virtual station models are introduced, and pre-manufacturing simulation can be performed on the computer. Figure 2 shows the virtual welding manufacturing of the chassis bracket of the automobile engine. Through simulation, it is possible to check whether the position of the welding robot is appropriate, whether all the welding point requirements can be completed, the safety space and time required for the manufacturing process, the action requirements of the operator and other factors.

Figure 2 Virtual manufacturing of automobile engine chassis bracket welding

Compared with physical verification and development, it is obvious that the use of virtual manufacturing technology can shorten the development cycle, greatly reduce the investment of manpower and material resources, and save development costs. An enterprise with complete virtual manufacturing technology is equivalent to having a sample trial production workshop. In the manufacturing feasibility analysis process of virtual prototypes, the following information can be obtained:

• Virtual prototype overall coordination analysis report;
• Manufacturing feasibility analysis report;
• Reasonable process path and arrangement;
• Preliminary determination of process parameters;
• Estimated operating hours.