Design for Additive Manufacturing and Advanced Development Methods Applied to an Innovative Multifunctional Fan

1. Introduction

New product development means new products for the market that have never appeared before. In some cases, these already exist on the market, but they are new to the company. A process of product development can also take place in terms of improving products made by the company and on the market, seeking to reduce costs. Generally speaking, innovation can be defined as market-pull innovation (starting from customer needs), technology-push innovation (made by scientific breakthrough) and design driven innovation.

The development and launch of new products in the market is one of the most frequent activities in the business environment and it is always a very risky action to take up. In many sectors, the ability to develop new products quickly and efficiently has become a fundamental and indispensable element for the success of the company. Therefore, the positive outcome of businesses depends on their ability to identify the needs of consumers, to design and manufacture products that meet these targets quickly and at low cost. Reaching these objectives is not just a commercial or design problem: it’s closely linked to innovation and product development that involves all the company functions. For these reasons it is necessary to build and adopt modern models, processes and technologies to minimize risk and costs. In addition, nowadays businesses are marked by:

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  Strong product customization

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  High production mix

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  Variability

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  High quality

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  Low Time to Market

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  Prices

In order to fulfill these goals, businesses implemented different types of resources. For instance:

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  Flexible manufacturing systems

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  Product development techniques

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  High product modularity

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  Flexible Automation

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  Integrated production systems and new technologies

Figure 1.

A generic product development process

For decades, economists and researchers have been focusing on the entire process of product development. A generic process involves different stages as shown above. The whole process can be compared to a funnel (funnel model) that starts with a variety of ideas and a huge amount of information and ends with one idea in production. The process consists of different stages:

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  Planning: Includes assessment of technological developments and market objectives. The result of the planning activity is the declaration of intent (mission statement) of the project. Beta tests, surveys and Crowdsourcing are usually accomplished during this phase;

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  Concept Development: A concept is the description of the form, function and characteristics of a product. It is often accompanied by a set of specifications, an analysis of competitive products and a preliminary economic justification of the project. Techniques such as Conjoint Analysis, QFD and Design Failure Mode & Effects Analysis (DFMEA) are usually used;

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  System Level Design: The layout of the product is the typical output of this stage;

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  Detail Design: The result of this phase is the technical documentation with drawings and files that describe the components of the product and its specifications. Powerful tools such as CAD-CAM systems and CAE techniques are involved at this stage;

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  Testing and Refinement: The initial prototypes are made by different processes such as the technology of Additive Manufacturing that will be discussed in the article;

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  Production and Ramp-Up: The final stage is where costs rise up. It also contains the take-off phase and the timing of the product launch, essential for the final success. In the ramp-up phase the product is built using the planned production system. This last phase is indispensable to reduce the barriers that hinder or delay the adoption of innovation. Empirical evidence highlights a first phase of ramp-up of slow growth and finally a take-off phase with an increase in sales.