A Co-Evolution Model for Prediction and Synthesis of New Products and Manufacturing Systems

A model for predicting the future codevelopment of new products and manufacturing systems is presented. The model incorporates a set of manufacturing co-evolution hypotheses that promote association between manufacturing systems and product variants throughout their shared evolution courses based on a biological analogy. It shows the impact of the different co-evolution states particularly the imperfect co-evolution, which can be remedied by predicting new systems and products. A novel mathematical technique for co-evolution knowledge synthesis is used to analyze the relationships between manufacturing capabilities and product features and discover the human synthesis knowledge implicit in their codevelopment. A set of rules and linear system of equations is formulated to discover such knowledge. The co-evolution model is mathematically established using Cladistics and trees reconciliation techniques that are used extensively in Biology. The model is validated by data sets of milling machine tools and the corresponding machined prismatic parts. The application of the developed model yields suggested directions for the future planning and development of the analyzed machine tools and potential new products features, products and variants that would further sustain and prolong the useful life of the current manufacturing capabilities and systems. [DOI:10.1115/1.4006439]