Design and manufacturing support device, design and manufacturing support method, and program

Abstract

To visualize a relationship between design and manufacturing standards and product manufacturing performances without specifying parameters or keywords.SOLUTION: A design and manufacturing support device includes: a language extraction unit configured to extract product language information from product design and manufacturing performance information; a standard application range DB that stores application range language information indicating an application range of each of multiple accumulated design and manufacturing standards; an applicability calculation unit configured to refer to the standard application range DB and calculate, for each of the design and manufacturing standards, a similarity between the application range language information and the product language information extracted from the design and manufacturing performance information corresponding to each of multiple products designed or manufactured during a specified period, to obtain a calculated statistical value of the similarity as applicability; and an applicability history DB that stores a history of the calculated applicability for each design and manufacturing standard.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 1

Description

[Technical Field]

[0001] The present invention relates to a design and manufacturing support device, a design and manufacturing support method, and a program. [Background technology]

[0002] Manufacturers have accumulated knowledge and know-how regarding the design and manufacturing of their own products over many years, and design and manufacturing standards that have been generalized to a certain extent have been passed down.

[0003] On the other hand, product design and manufacturing changes due to product improvements and advances in manufacturing equipment and materials, so some of the accumulated design and manufacturing standards will no longer be referenced, some will become more important, and some will be newly introduced. For this reason, if design and manufacturing standards are accumulated over many years, the number of standards that are not suitable for the current product group will increase, and as such standards accumulate, time will be required to select the truly necessary standards, leading to an increase in work man-hours.

[0004] To avoid such a situation, it is necessary to evaluate the relationship between the accumulated design and manufacturing standards and the current products (including materials and manufacturing processes), and to revise the design and manufacturing standards based on that evaluation.

[0005] Regarding technology for associating design and manufacturing standards with design results, for example, Patent Document 1 describes a "design rule update support device comprising: model input means for inputting model information such as shape models and analysis results via an input / output device; a model parameter database in which the shape models input by the model input means are registered; a design rule database in which the design rules are registered by associating the applicable range of design rules with the parameters of the shape models or analysis results and their possible ranges; design rule check means for comparing the parameters of the shape models and analysis results registered in the model parameter database with the design rules registered in the design rule database and outputting a check result; check result display means for displaying the check result by the design rule check means; design rule validity evaluation means for determining the validity of the design rules based on the parameters of the analysis results registered in the model parameter database and the design rules registered in the design rule database, and generating change proposals for design rules that need to be changed; and design rule change proposal presentation means for presenting the change proposals for the design rules generated by the design rule validity evaluation means."

[0006] Patent Document 2 also describes a design document management support device comprising: "a first identification unit that identifies the relationship between mechanical component documents describing design information for mechanical components and identifies keywords for each mechanical component document; a second identification unit that identifies the relationship between electronic component documents describing design information for electronic components that control the mechanical components and identifies keywords for each electronic component document; a third identification unit that identifies the relationship between program documents describing the operation of a program that causes the electronic components to execute processing and identifies keywords for each program document; and a fourth identification unit that associates each program document with each electronic component document and each mechanical component document by interrelating documents that have common keywords among the identified keywords for each program document, the keywords for each electronic component document, and the keywords for the mechanical component document." [Prior art documents] [Patent documents]

[0007] [Patent Document 1] International Publication No. 2012 / 053103 [Patent Document 2] Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2015-138490 Summary of the Invention [Problem to be solved by the invention]

[0008] In the case of the technology described in Patent Document 1, the user must specify in advance parameters as keys for checking whether design rules are applied to design performance data. In the case of Patent Document 2, design documents are correlated with each other using the names of mechanical parts adopted in the product as keywords. However, since there are many design and manufacturing standards, it is difficult to specify keywords such as parameters or part names as keys for each design and manufacturing standard, and therefore the range in which design and manufacturing standards can be correlated with design performance using the technologies of Patent Documents 1 and 2 is limited.

[0009] The present invention has been made in consideration of the above points, and aims to make it possible to review design and manufacturing standards by visualizing the relationship between design and manufacturing standards and product manufacturing performance without specifying parameters or keywords. [Means for solving the problem]

[0010] The present application includes a number of means for solving at least part of the above problems, examples of which are as follows.

[0011] In order to solve the above-described problems, a design and manufacturing support device according to one aspect of the present invention includes a language extraction unit that extracts product language information from design and manufacturing performance information of a product; a standard application range DB (Data Base) in which application range language information indicating the application range of each of a plurality of accumulated design and manufacturing standards is recorded; an applicability calculation unit that refers to the standard application range DB and calculates, for each design and manufacturing standard, a similarity between the application range language information and the product language information extracted from the design and manufacturing performance information corresponding to each of a plurality of products designed or manufactured within a predetermined period, and calculates a statistical value of the similarity as an applicability; and an applicability history DB that stores a history of the calculated applicability for each design and manufacturing standard. [Effects of the Invention]

[0012] According to the present invention, the relationship between design and manufacturing standards and product manufacturing performance can be visualized without specifying parameters or keywords, which makes it possible to review the design and manufacturing standards.

[0013] Problems, configurations, and effects other than those described above will become apparent from the following description of the embodiments. [Brief explanation of the drawings]

[0014] [Figure 1] FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an example of the configuration of a design and manufacturing support device according to an embodiment of the present invention. [Figure 2] FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating an example of the data structure of the reference range DB. [Figure 3] FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example of the data structure of the applicability history DB. [Figure 4] FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating an example of an applicability calculation process performed by the design and manufacturing support device. [Figure 5] FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a display example of a UI (User Interface) screen. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0015] An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. The embodiments are merely illustrative and are omitted or simplified as appropriate for clarity of explanation. The present invention can be implemented in various other forms. Unless otherwise specified, each component may be singular or plural. The position, size, shape, and scope of each component shown in the drawings may not represent the actual position, size, shape, and scope in order to facilitate understanding of the invention. In all drawings used to explain the embodiments, identical components are generally designated by the same reference numerals, and repeated description of such components will be omitted. Furthermore, in the following embodiments, a component (including an element step, etc.) is not necessarily essential unless otherwise specified or considered to be clearly essential in principle. Furthermore, when the term "consisting of A," "composed of A," "having A," or "including A" is used, it does not exclude other elements unless otherwise specified, specifically referring to only that element. Similarly, in the following embodiments, when referring to the shape, positional relationship, etc. of a component, etc., it includes substantially similar or similar shapes, etc., unless otherwise specified or considered to be clearly essential in principle. Furthermore, "obtaining" includes, as specific examples, at least the subject generating, calculating, or receiving from outside.

[0016] <Configuration example of design and manufacturing support device 10 according to one embodiment of the present invention> FIG. 1 shows an example of the configuration of a design and manufacturing support device 10 according to an embodiment of the present invention.

[0017] The design and manufacturing support device 10 inputs, for example, a bill of materials (BOM) or a bill of process (BOP) as product design and manufacturing performance information, calculates the similarity between linguistic information (words, sentences, etc.) extracted from the design and manufacturing performance information (referred to as product linguistic information) and linguistic information (words, sentences, etc.) describing the scope of application of design and manufacturing standards (hereinafter referred to as application range linguistic information), calculates statistical values ​​of the similarity for each design and manufacturing standard, visualizes them, and presents them to the user.

[0018] In addition to manufacturing process charts and parts lists, design and manufacturing performance information can include, for example, annotations added to product drawings and CAD (Computer-Aided Design) data, reports on design and manufacturing, process management tools for the design and manufacturing process, and documents related to design and manufacturing included in requirements definition documents.

[0019] Furthermore, the design and manufacturing performance information may include linguistic information indicating the means and processes actually performed in the design and manufacturing of the product, or linguistic information indicating the shape, color, etc. of the product converted from non-linguistic information that can be converted into linguistic information. Examples of non-linguistic information that can be converted into linguistic information include product images and CAD data. To convert non-linguistic information into linguistic information, for example, a machine learning model that has been trained in advance to input non-linguistic information and output linguistic information corresponding to the non-linguistic information may be used.

[0020] The design and manufacturing support device 10 includes an input unit 11, a storage unit 12, a processing unit 13, an output unit 14, and a communication unit 15.

[0021] The design and manufacturing support device 10 is realized by a general computer such as a personal computer, a server computer, etc. The computer includes a processor such as a CPU (Central Processing Unit), a memory such as a DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory), a storage such as an HDD (Hard Disk Drive) or an SSD (Solid State Drive), input devices such as a keyboard, a mouse, and a media drive, an output device such as a display, and a communication module such as an Ethernet (trademark) card or a Wi-Fi (trademark) adapter.

[0022] Furthermore, the design and manufacturing support device 10 may be realized by one physical or logical computer, or by two or more physical or logical computers, which may be distributed and arranged on a network.

[0023] The input unit 11 is realized by an input device of the computer. The input unit 11 accepts various operations and inputs from a user. Specifically, the input unit 11 accepts inputs of multiple pieces of design and manufacturing performance information corresponding to multiple products manufactured (or designed) in the past month, for example, from the user, and outputs the inputs to the processing unit 13.

[0024] The storage unit 12 is realized by the memory and storage of the computer. The storage unit 12 stores a criterion application range DB 121, an applicability history DB 122, an importance DB 123, and a criterion reference record DB 124. Note that the storage unit 12 may store information and data other than the criterion application range DB 121, the applicability history DB 122, the importance DB 123, and the criterion reference record DB 124.

[0025] The standard application range DB 121 stores, in association with the identification information (ID) of each design and manufacturing standard, application range linguistic information obtained by extracting portions describing the range to which the design and manufacturing standard can be applied from documents, etc. that describe the design and manufacturing standard, or application range linguistic information converted from non-linguistic information, such as drawings, that show the range to which the design and manufacturing standard can be applied. To convert non-linguistic information into application range linguistic information, for example, a machine learning model that has been trained in advance to input non-linguistic information and output application range linguistic information corresponding to the non-linguistic information may be used.

[0026] 2 shows an example of the data structure of the standard application range DB 121. In the example shown in the figure, for example, for the design and manufacturing standard with design and manufacturing standard ID: 0001, "This relates to fillet welding of aluminum alloys" is recorded as its application range language information. Also, for the design and manufacturing standard with design and manufacturing standard ID: 0002, "This relates to a method for selecting the material of insulation for passenger cars" is recorded as its application range language information.

[0027] Returning to Fig. 1, the applicability history DB 122 stores, in association with the identification information (ID) of each design and manufacturing standard, the applicability, which is a statistical value (average value, etc.) of the degree of similarity between the applicability range language information of the design and manufacturing standard and the product language information of the product's design and manufacturing performance information, calculated by the applicability calculation unit 132, along with the calculation date of the applicability.

[0028] 3 shows an example of the data structure of the applicability history DB 122. In the example shown in the figure, for the design and manufacturing standard with design and manufacturing standard ID: 0001, it is recorded that the applicability calculated on February 1, 2001 was 0.5, the applicability calculated on April 2, 2002 was 0.6, and the applicability calculated on October 31, 2002 was 0.85.

[0029] Returning to Figure 1, the importance of components and processes for each product is recorded in the importance DB 123. The importance is used as a weighting coefficient when calculating the weighted average value of similarity as the applicability.

[0030] The standard reference record DB 124 records, in association with the product, the design and manufacturing standards that design and manufacturing engineers have referred to in the design and manufacturing process.

[0031] The processing unit 13 is realized by the processor of the computer. Each functional block of the processing unit 13, namely, a language extraction unit 131, an applicability calculation unit 132, a revision standard identification unit 133, a standard reference management unit 134, and a UI control unit 135, is realized by the processor executing a predetermined program stored in a memory.

[0032] The predetermined program executed by the processor may be stored in memory in advance, or may be downloaded from a predetermined server or the like via a removable medium (CD-ROM, flash memory, etc.) or a network such as the Internet, stored in storage, which is a non-transitory storage medium, and read from the storage when needed. For this reason, it is preferable that the computer has an interface for reading data from removable media.

[0033] The language extraction unit 131 extracts product language information consisting of, for example, part names, site names, material names, manufacturing process names, etc. from the design and manufacturing performance information of the product. The language extraction unit 131 also converts non-language information (for example, product images, CAD data, etc.) as the input design and manufacturing performance information into product language information using, for example, a trained machine learning model. Furthermore, the language extraction unit 131 extracts the design (or manufacturing) date and time of the product from the design and manufacturing performance information.

[0034] The applicability calculation unit 132 calculates the linguistic similarity between the application range linguistic information indicating the application range of the design and manufacturing standards recorded in the standard application range DB 121 and the product linguistic information extracted from or converted from the design and manufacturing performance information by the language extraction unit 131. Specifically, for example, the application range linguistic information and the product linguistic information are each converted into vectors, and the cosine value between the vectors is calculated as the similarity.

[0035] Furthermore, the applicability calculation unit 132 calculates, for each design and manufacturing standard, a statistical value (average value, weighted average value, etc.) of the degree of similarity between the design and manufacturing performance information corresponding to each of multiple products and the design and manufacturing standard, and records the calculation result as the applicability of the design and manufacturing standard in the applicability history DB 122. When calculating the average value as the statistical value of similarity, similarities below a predetermined threshold value may be calculated as 0. When calculating the weighted average value as the statistical value of similarity, the importance DB 123 is referenced and can be used as the importance and weighting coefficient of the components and processes of each product.

[0036] The revised standard identifying unit 133 detects time-series changes in applicability (monthly, yearly, etc.) based on the applicability of each design and manufacturing standard recorded in the applicability history DB 122 and the calculation date, and identifies design and manufacturing standards whose applicability has remained below a threshold in recent years as design and manufacturing standards that should be revised or abolished. In addition, the revised standard identifying unit 133 identifies design and manufacturing standards whose applicability has increased rapidly in recent years.

[0037] The standard reference management unit 134 identifies design and manufacturing standards for which the applicability calculated by the applicability calculation unit 132 is not 0 and for which there is no record of the design and manufacturing engineer having referenced them in the product design and manufacturing process, by referring to the standard reference record DB 124.

[0038] The UI control unit 135 causes the output unit 14 to display a UI screen. For example, the UI control unit 135 visualizes, for example, a graph or the like, the time-series change in applicability detected by the revision standard identification unit 133 and displays it on the UI screen. The UI control unit 135 also displays, on the UI screen, design and manufacturing standards identified by the revision standard identification unit 133 as those that should be revised, and proposes to the user that the design and manufacturing standards be revised. The UI control unit 135 also displays, on the UI screen, design and manufacturing standards identified by the standard reference management unit 134 as having a non-zero applicability level and no records of reference in the product design and manufacturing process, and proposes to the user that the design and manufacturing standards be revised. The UI control unit 135 also displays, on the UI screen, design and manufacturing standards identified by the revision standard identification unit 133 as having a rapidly increasing applicability level in recent years.

[0039] Furthermore, the UI control unit 135 causes the communication unit 15 and the terminal device 20 connected via the network N to display a UI screen.

[0040] The output unit 14 is realized by an output device of the computer, and displays a UI screen.

[0041] The communication unit 15 is realized by a communication module of the computer. The communication unit 15 is connected to the terminal device 20 via a network N, such as the Internet. The terminal device 20 is used, for example, at a product manufacturing site, and displays a UI screen.

[0042] <Applicability Calculation Process by Design and Manufacturing Support Device 10> FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating an example of an applicability calculation process performed by the design and manufacturing support device.

[0043] The applicability calculation process is executed in response to a predetermined start operation that is performed by the user periodically (for example, once a month).

[0044] First, the input unit 11 receives from the user input of multiple pieces of design and manufacturing performance information corresponding to multiple products manufactured (or designed) during the period from the previous execution of the applicability calculation process to the current execution (in this case, during the most recent one month), and outputs the information to the processing unit 13 (step S1).

[0045] Next, the applicability calculation unit 132 sequentially focuses on the multiple design and manufacturing standards recorded in the standard applicability DB 121 one by one (step S2), and reads out the applicability range language information indicating the applicability range of the focused design and manufacturing standard (step S3).

[0046] Next, the language extraction unit 131 sequentially focuses on each of the multiple pieces of design and manufacturing performance information input in step S1 (step S4), and extracts product language information (part name, part name, material name, manufacturing process name, etc.) from the focused design and manufacturing performance information. If the design and manufacturing performance information is non-language information, the language extraction unit 131 converts the non-language information into product language information using, for example, a trained machine learning model (step S5).

[0047] Next, the applicability calculation unit 132 calculates the similarity between the application range language information of the design and manufacturing standard under consideration and the product language information of the design and manufacturing performance information under consideration (step S6).

[0048] Next, the language extraction unit 131 determines whether there is any unexamined design and manufacturing achievement information among the plurality of design and manufacturing achievement information input in step S1 (step S7). If it is determined that there is unexamined design and manufacturing achievement information remaining (YES in step S7), the process returns to step S4 and the subsequent steps are repeated. Thereafter, if it is determined that there is no unexamined design and manufacturing achievement information remaining (NO in step S7), next, the applicability calculation unit 132 calculates a statistical value (average value or weighted average value) of the similarity (calculated in step S6) between the applicable range language information of the design and manufacturing standard being examined and the product language information of each of the plurality of design and manufacturing achievement information input in step S1, as the applicability to the design and manufacturing standard being examined (step S8). Next, the applicability calculation unit 132 outputs the applicability to the design and manufacturing standard to the applicability history DB 122 and records it in association with the calculation date (step S9).

[0049] Next, the applicability calculation unit 132 determines whether there is any unexamined design and manufacturing standard remaining among the plurality of design and manufacturing standards recorded in the standard application range DB 121 (step S10). If it is determined that there is unexamined design and manufacturing standard remaining (YES in step S10), the process returns to step S2 and the subsequent steps are repeated. Thereafter, if it is determined that there is no unexamined design and manufacturing standard remaining (NO in step S10), the applicability calculation process is terminated.

[0050] According to the applicability calculation process described above, the applicability of products designed (or manufactured) in the most recent predetermined period (in this case, one month) to each design and manufacturing standard recorded in the standard application range DB 121 can be calculated and recorded in the applicability history DB 122.

[0051] <Display example of UI screen 1000> FIG. 5 shows a display example of the UI screen 1000. In the UI screen 1000, the time-series change of the applicability of the design and manufacturing standard is graphically displayed.

[0052] Note that in the UI screen, for example, the user may be able to specify a design and manufacturing standard and display the time-series change of its applicability.

[0053] As described above, according to this embodiment, it is possible to visualize and present to the user the time-series changes in the applicability of the accumulated design and manufacturing standards to the design and manufacturing of a product, thereby allowing the user to consider revising or abolishing the accumulated design and manufacturing standards.

[0054] The present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiments, and various modifications are possible. For example, the above-described embodiments have been described in detail to clearly explain the present invention, and the present invention is not necessarily limited to those including all of the described configurations. Furthermore, it is possible to replace part of the configuration of one embodiment with or add to the configuration of another embodiment. [Explanation of symbols]

[0055] 10...Design and manufacturing support device, 11...Input unit, 12...Memory unit, 121...Standard application range DB, 122...Applicability history DB, 123...Importance DB, 124...Standard reference record DB, 13...Processing unit, 131...Language extraction unit, 132...Applicability calculation unit, 133...Revised standard identification unit, 134...Standard reference management unit, 135...UI control unit, 14...Output unit, 15...Communication unit, 20...Terminal device, 1000...UI screen

Claims

1. a language extraction unit that extracts product language information from product design and manufacturing performance information; a standard application range database (DB) in which application range language information indicating the application range of each of a plurality of accumulated design and manufacturing standards is recorded; an applicability calculation unit that refers to the standard applicability DB, calculates a similarity between the applicable range language information and the product language information extracted from the design and manufacturing performance information corresponding to each of a plurality of products designed or manufactured within a predetermined period, for each of the design and manufacturing standards, and calculates a statistical value of the similarity as an applicability; an applicability history DB that stores a history of the calculated applicability for each of the design and manufacturing standards; A design and manufacturing support device equipped with:

2. 2. The design and manufacturing support device according to claim 1, a UI control unit that references the applicability history DB, visualizes a time-series change in the applicability of the predetermined design and manufacturing standard, and displays the visualized change on a UI screen. Design and manufacturing support equipment.

3. 2. The design and manufacturing support device according to claim 1, a revision standard specification unit that refers to the applicability history DB and specifies the design and manufacturing standards to be revised or abolished based on a time-series change in the applicability. Design and manufacturing support equipment.

4. 3. The design and manufacturing support device according to claim 2, a standard reference record DB in which design and manufacturing standards referred to by design and manufacturing engineers in the design or manufacturing process of the product are recorded in association with the product; a standard reference management unit that identifies a design and manufacturing standard for which the applicability calculated by the applicability calculation unit is not 0 and for which no record has been referenced in the product design and manufacturing process by referring to the standard reference record DB; The UI control unit displays the design and manufacturing standard specified by the standard reference management unit on the UI screen. Design and manufacturing support equipment.

5. 2. The design and manufacturing support device according to claim 1, The applicability calculation unit calculates an average value of the similarities as the applicability. Design and manufacturing support equipment.

6. 2. The design and manufacturing support device according to claim 1, an importance DB in which the importance of at least one of the component parts and the process of each product is recorded; The applicability calculation unit uses the importance recorded in the importance DB as a weighting coefficient and calculates a weighted average value of the similarity as the applicability. Design and manufacturing support equipment.

7. A design and manufacturing support method using a design and manufacturing support device, a language extraction step of extracting product language information from product design and manufacturing performance information; a similarity calculation step of referring to a standard application range DB in which application range language information indicating the application range of each of a plurality of accumulated design and manufacturing standards is recorded, and calculating, for each of the design and manufacturing standards, a similarity between the application range language information and the product language information extracted from the design and manufacturing performance information corresponding to each of a plurality of products designed or manufactured within a predetermined period; an applicability calculation step of calculating a statistical value of the similarity as an applicability; a recording step of recording a history of the calculated applicability for each of the design and manufacturing standards in an applicability history DB; A design and manufacturing support method including:

8. Computer, a language extraction unit that extracts product language information from product design and manufacturing performance information; a standard application range DB in which application range language information indicating the application range of each of a plurality of accumulated design and manufacturing standards is recorded; an applicability calculation unit that refers to the standard applicability DB, calculates a similarity between the applicable range language information and the product language information extracted from the design and manufacturing performance information corresponding to each of a plurality of products designed or manufactured within a predetermined period, for each of the design and manufacturing standards, and calculates a statistical value of the similarity as an applicability; an applicability history DB that stores a history of the calculated applicability for each of the design and manufacturing standards; A program that makes it work.

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