LIFE CYCLE APPROACH TO SUPPORT TOOLING DESIGN DECISIONS
Year: 2011
Editor: Culley, S.J.; Hicks, B.J.; McAloone, T.C.; Howard, T.J. & Malmqvist, J.
Author: Ribeiro, Ines; Peças, Paulo; Henriques, Elsa
Series: ICED
Section: Design for X, Design to X
Page(s): 28-38
Abstract
The design and production of tools is a time consuming, technically difficult and expensive activity. Moreover, tool design choices highly affect the efficiency of the final parts manufacturing process in which they are used. Sometimes the least expensive tool does not lead to the least resource demand part production. It is then necessary to shift the paradigm from the cost of the tool as the main decision factor to the tool life cycle cost and even to other aspects not included in conventional costing. In this context, this research presents a new methodology to approach decision making in tooling design. It captures not only the conventional costs, but also more unattainable tooling aspects such as reliability. Moreover, as some cost items and unattainable aspects are differently valued by different stakeholders, these dissimilar perspectives are modelled and quantified in order to support a structured comparison between tooling design alternatives. The methodology will be applied to a case study in the moulding industry in order to exemplify its application.
Keywords: TOOL DESIGN LIFE CYCLE COST; PROCESS-BASED COST MODELS; INJECTION MOULDS