Title: Function performance evaluation and its application for design modification based on product usage data

Authors: Jong-Ho Shin, Hong-Bae Jun, Dimitris Kiritsis, Paul Xirouchakis

Addresses: Institute of Mechanical Engineering (STI-IGM-LICP), Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne CH-1015, Switzerland. ' Department of Industrial and Information Engineering, Hongik University, Seoul 121-791, Republic of Korea. ' Institute of Mechanical Engineering (STI-IGM-LICP), Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne CH-1015, Switzerland. ' Institute of Mechanical Engineering (STI-IGM-LICP), Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne CH-1015, Switzerland

Abstract: In this study, we propose a new method to analyse newly gathered data for product design improvement. The proposed method provides the transformation from usage data gathered in the middle-of-life (MOL) phase to information for design improvement in the beginning-of-life (BOL) phase. To this end, we first define function performance, function performance degradation and the behaviour of function performance degradation changed during MOL. The proposed definitions help product design engineers to understand components/parts| working status during the usage period of a product. Based on the evaluation of components/parts| working status, critical components/parts can be discriminated. For the found critical components/ parts, their working status are examined and correlated with field data which consist of operational and environmental data. The correlation provides the engineers with critical field data which have main effects on the worse working status of products. To verify our method, we have carried out a locomotive case study.

Keywords: performance evaluation; design improvement; multilinear regression modelling; degradation; product usage; product design; function performance; locomotive performance.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPLM.2009.031668

International Journal of Product Lifecycle Management, 2009 Vol.4 No.1/2/3, pp.84 - 113

Received: 02 Apr 2009
Accepted: 14 Sep 2009
Published online: 17 Feb 2010 *

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