Harmonisation of design phase and production process planning by the application of quality gates

Optical components with complex surfaces, like aspherical or free-formed surfaces, can be considered as typical examples for complex products. In the Transregional Research Project SFB/TR4 the manufacturing of such optical components is analysed. One main aspect in the project is the question of how to link the design phase with the production process planning. For that reason an approach has been developed that aims at comparing the capabilities of the single process steps and the manufacturing demands resulting from the design phase. Therefore, the overall requirements on the whole process chain must be assigned to the single process steps in a systematic way. Here the consideration of technical and informational dependencies within the process chain is of high importance.