| dc.description.abstract | Kongsberg Maritime is a leading maritime company in Norway. Due to the significant labour costs and the pressure to outsource manufacturing operations, the organization has decided to automate the assembly processes in their facility. The company hypothesizes that such a move can minimize labour hours. Additionally, automating the processes increases the repeatability of the assembly operations(by avoiding human errors), thereby increasing the quality of the same. Furthermore, this can help the organization move in the direction of lean manufacturing by reducing assembly lead time and avoiding unnecessary movement of personnel and parts within the factory, thus increasing efficiency. The company have developed a new product called the Thrust bearing module and believes that the same could be part of a pilot project to test and understand the feasibility of automating the assembly operations of one of their typical products.
This scenario makes the premise for this particular thesis project. In this thesis, a Thrust bearing module, a typical product offering of the company is scaled down, simplified and redesigned using DFA2 methodology so that it is fit to be assembled by robots and feeders. Designs for assembly fixture and grippers for the same are also created so that an automatic assembly process could be proposed. Based on the experience from the redesign process, the original DFA2 method is modified so that it is better suited to cover all the important design aspects of a typical product fabricated by the organization. Since the company is preparing to move in a different direction with regards to designing their products(for automatic assembly), the possibility of using rapid prototypes as a means to train their engineers for DFAA is also investigated in this thesis.
A qualitative survey done with an expert committee at the end of the thesis concludes that the DFA2 method is a useable approach for the company so as to fulfill their vision. The survey also validates the modifications that were done to the original DFA2 method, proving that the adapted methodology can add value from the company’s perspective. The expert review committee was also presented with the 3D printed scaled down models of the original and modified Thrust bearing module and agreed that these prototypes are efficient in conveying the idea of DFAA to engineers and could thus be used as a training tool. | |