Abstract
Product customization has become more prevalent in today’s manufacturing industry. In fact, given a choice in today’s society and taking into consideration the present technology, customers would prefer a product that can be built according to their specific needs and desires (Kumar, 2008). Customization of a product is typically done by an individual possessing the necessary product knowledge and design skills and applying them to the interpretation of the customer’s desired requirements and specifications. This process is generally costly and time-consuming. As computer-aided design (CAD) software grows in terms of control and functionality, the potential exists to enable customers with little to no CAD skills to customize a product within a defined range of specifications.
This project report describes the creation of intelligent software interface to allow a consumer with minimal CAD knowledge to interact with the CAD software to customize existing product designs. The Visual Basic based user-interface uses the CAD software’s built in application programming interface (API) command structure. This process allows the automation of select embedded CAD productivity tools whereby the customer is able to modify specific parameters to manipulate the shape of their product to automatically generate a 3-dimensional computer-aided model reflecting their specific modifications.
The result of this project was the development of an interactive design tool that prevents design engineers from needing to design the same product family repeatedly to suit the needs of the customer, thereby reducing the design time and mistakes while enhancing the consistency of the product.
Keywords
design, computer aided design, product customization, automation, software integration, user-interface
Date of this Version
7-23-2010
Department
Mechanical Engineering Technology
Department Head
Dr. Vahid Motevalli
Month of Graduation
August
Year of Graduation
2010
Degree
Master of Science
Head of Graduate Program
Dr. Gary Bertoline
Advisor 1 or Chair of Committee
Dr. Mark French
Advisor 2
Professor Brad Harriger
Committee Member 1
Dr. Henry Kraebber