An integrated product and process development model supporting entire life cycle

Product and its development process modeling are very important to product life cycle design. Product's life cycle is a continuous and changing time process, and can be divided into a sequence of life phases. The product status evolves from one to another through these life phases. Some evaluation factors, such as cost, reliability, time and environment impacts can be applied on each life phase to evaluate its corresponding performance. In this paper, in order to improve product quality, minimize the life cycle cost and optimize the design process, the three-dimensional model of life cycle design and the frame of integrated product and process development were developed. Product development process was viewed as an optimization process to find a process set under given evaluation factors such that the set of evaluation indices of entire life cycle is optimized. The state equations of process, energy, material and information of product development were developed. Finally, we provide a brief report of our application of the methodology proposed above to a loader development.