Integrative conceptual design of products and production systems for mechatronic systems

Mechanical engineering considerably benefits from the increasing use of information technology. The arising new discipline is called mechatronics, which expresses the close integration of mechanics, electronics, control engineering, and software engineering. Hence, the design and production of such systems is an interdisciplinary and complex task, which requires effective and continuous cooperation and communication between developers from different domains during the whole development process. Within this context, a methodology for the integrative conceptual design of products and corresponding production systems has been developed in the collaborative research project VireS - 'Virtual Synchronization of the Development of the Product and the Production System'. The methodology is domain-spanning and model-based and enables the analysis of the model in early design phases e.g. evaluating the costs and the robustness of the product and the associated production system.