Research themes Wingquist laboratory

Over the years, the research projects have evolved in an overlapping way. Therefore, the research in the centre is now organized in three research themes. In each theme, a number of topics and research questions are formulated in collaboration with the industrial partners. Based on these research questions case studies and projects are defined.

The change from more narrow projects to three broader themes, is a way to open up for wider collaboration. It will also enhance marketing of the centre and its results, and thereby improve the implementation of results in new companies and business areas. The theme leaders are all researchers with pronounced industrial experience.

Product Development 4.0

Product Development 4.0 (PD 4.0) aims to understand and develop theory, methods and tools necessary for new products and manufacturing systems, aligned with the ideas of Industry 4.0.

PD 4.0 realizes the potential in Set-Based Engineering and Platform-Based Development by capitalizing on the advancements in digital design, simulation, visualization and digital prototyping. This enables exploration and evaluation of design spaces, as parts of a fully digitalized development process. The theme aims to integrate and model all aspects of complex product and production systems, including models for novel manufacturing technologies and product technologies. These models are the basis for multi-aspect simulation to assist complex design decisions on value, functionality and cost, using the large amount of data produced within and outside of the development cycle.

Smart Assembly

Assembly systems and technologies are key processes in the manufacturing of complex products. Focus areas in this theme are robust design, tolerance analysis, sequencing, path planning, assembly ergonomics, human/machine interactions, resource allocation and energy optimization.

The potential of increased digitalization, with better product and process knowledge, is used in an interlinked approach, where the conditions for each individual product are optimized to reach highest product quality with limited resource consumption. New materials give new manufacturing possibilities, but may also require new joining methods that need to be included in simulations. The area Smart Assembly contributes to the development of new theories, methods and digital tools that support highly efficient and effective assembly processes.

Perceived Quality

Perceived Quality (PQ) signifies how a customer interprets quality with her/his senses. This theme focuses on how to develop products with an accurate level of PQ for the intended customer and product segment. This involves understanding the customers in order to find the adequate level, verifying PQ virtually and also understanding the impact on PQ from other attributes.

Product specifications to reach PQ can be very expensive, which means that sub-attributes within PQ need to be optimally balanced during product development. New methods and tools, to track PQ progress in developing programs in combination with qualitative and quantitative customer data, will be developed to support this process in the theme. Automated data gathering methods, connected products, and data sharing increase the availability of data. This enhances the possibilities to understand customer behaviour and interaction with other attributes. The theme also intends to investigate how adjacent attributes and customer interaction indirectly affect interpretation of PQ.