A Value Proposition for Cloud-Enabled Process Planning

Abstract: To stay competitive in today’s fast-paced market, manufacturing companies must shorten their time-to-market and decrease their costs by efficiently utilizing their resources. Here, improved software and better software integration throughout the product realization process is considered to be a key enabler. The aim of this thesis work has been to investigate the current workflow in design and process planning to outline a cloud-based application to support these activities. Pains and bottlenecks in these workflows have been identified through interview and field studies at six Swedish manufacturing companies of different sizes, in different industries, and with different operational models. The major areas of improvement were identified whereof one them, the initial activity of understanding customers’ needs, was decided to further focus on. From receiving a request for quotation from the customer to acceptance of an order, the following time-consuming activities were recognized: understand and discuss design intent as well as suggest possible design changes to improve manufacturability, analyze and review 2D drawings and 3D models, and develop order quotations. In this thesis work, a mock-up prototype has been put forward. The intent with this is to bridge a gap that has been identified through the mapping between manufacturers needs and functionality of available CAD/CAM software and the identified areas of improvement from the workflow investigations. The proposed solution, as presented in the mock-up prototype, has been validated together with three of the studied companies. At its current state, further improvements and validations are needed. Nevertheless, if further developed, it has the potential to create value within the entire manufacturing value chain.