The paper addresses the need for innovation in order to achieve sustainable growth and business development within the manufacturing industry, and further how that can be enabled by striving towards functions. Adopting an open perspective, the paper proposes a function innovation model involving academia, potential function providers and customers in order to create a long-term win-win situation between function providers and their customers.

Based on empirical studies combined with a literature review, the paper proposes a comprehensive framework defining Functional Products (FP) through their constituents. The framework adds additional specificity to the literature by identifying and discussing existing and emerging constituents of FP, shedding further light on what is needed to create a long and trustful win-win situation between providers and customers in an FP context

A functional product (FP) comprises of an integrated package of hardware and support services sold under a performance-based contract. A barrier to the adoption of FP is the lack of tools for obtaining predictions of availability and support costs during product development. A previous paper by the authors described a simulation-driven development strategy for designing FP that are optimised for functional availability and support costs. This iterative strategy involves representing the FP design in a modelling language; using a software code to automatically generate and analyse a simulation model from this representation to produce detailed performance predictions; and using these predictions as feedback to improve the design. The use of a modelling language facilitates the representation of the design details within the hardware and support system that influence availability and support costs. This includes the maintenance process design, maintenance strategy design and maintenance resource availability design. In this paper, an overview of a modelling language the authors have developed for this purpose is described.

The development process for a Functional Product (FP) is complex and there is a need to coordinate, monitor, control and share information as well as to communicate properly among the parties involved in the process. This paper proposes a conceptual development process to manage the FP development, including development of hardware, software, service support system, and how to manage the operation of an FP. Further, challenges related to the integrated development of FPs are also discussed.

This paper presents a modelling language for representing the details necessary to analyse and model the implementation of maintenance strategies for generic hardware. The maintenance strategy determines which, and when, restorations and inspections should take place whilst the scheduling of maintenance tasks implements these goals. The manner of maintenance strategy implementation therefore has important implications for maintenance cost and other performance metrics. Despite this, maintenance strategy optimisation models found in the literature lack detailed maintenance implementation models, which may lead to inaccurate and misleading results. The presented modelling language permits the representation of all common constraints and outcomes between maintenance tasks that influence task schedules. In doing so, it provides a platform for the future development of maintenance task schedule modelling, planning and decision support tools. The modelling language is demonstrated through application to part of a car braking system

In most variation simulations, i.e. simulations of geometric variations in assemblies, the influence from the heating and cooling processes, generated when two parts are welded together, is not taken into consideration. In most welding simulations the influence from geometric tolerances on parts is not taken into consideration, i.e. the simulations are based on nominal parts. In this paper these two aspects, both crucial for predicting the final outcome of an assembly, are combined by linking two commercial software packages for variation simulation and for welding simulation together. Monte Carlo simulation is used to generate a number of different non-nominal parts in the variation simulation software. The translation and rotation matrices, representing the deviations from the nominal geometry due to positioning error, are exported to the welding simulation software, where the effects from welding are applied. Thereafter, the results from the welding simulation are exported back to the variation simulation software in order to compute and illustrate the deviations and variations of the final subassembly. The method is applied on a simple case, a T-weld joint, with available measurements of residual stresses and deformations. The effect of the different sources of deviation on the final outcome is analyzed and the difference between welding simulations applied to nominal parts and to disturbed parts is investigated.

In most variation simulations, i.e., simulations of geometric variations in assemblies, the influence from heating and cooling processes, generated when two parts are welded together, is not taken into consideration. In most welding simulations, the influence from geometric tolerances on parts is not taken into consideration, i.e., the simulations are based on nominal parts. In this paper, these two aspects, both crucial for predicting the final outcome of an assembly, are combined. Monte Carlo simulation is used to generate a number of different non-nominal parts in a software for variation simulation. The translation and rotation matrices, representing the deviations from the nominal geometry due to positioning error, are exported to a software for welding simulation, where the effects from welding are applied. The final results are then analyzed with respect to both deviation and variation. The method is applied on a simple case, a T-weld joint, with available measurements of residual stresses and deformations. The effect of the different sources of deviation on the final outcome is analyzed and the difference between welding simulations applied to nominal parts and to disturbed (non-nominal) parts is investigated. The study shows that, in order to achieve realistic results, variation simulations should be combined with welding simulations. It does also show that welding simulations should be applied to a set of non-nominal parts since the difference between deviation of a nominal part and deviation of a non-nominal part due to influence of welding can be quite large.