A grammatical approach for real-time design of engineer-to-order products

Products built around common platforms and modified through scaling and configuration, based on customer input, can satisfy needs of individuals. Engineer-to-order (ETO) products require a company to design the product from user specifications, which entails generating models, performing analysis, optimizing performance, and providing feedback to the customer to facilitate decision-making. ETO products require better integration of the customer in the design of the product, which differs from selecting products from catalogues or providing product varieties. In this paper, a web-based framework is presented that supports the design of ETO products. The framework utilizes a formal representation, to denote the entire product customization space, based on two grammars: the first grammar transforms the functional options selected by the customer to high-level functional modules, and the second grammar is used to transform the functional modules to generate detailed computer-aided design and finite element analysis models of the customized product. Automated analysis and optimization are then performed on these generated models to complete the design of ETO product. A solid model of the ETO product, along with analysis results, are shown to the user in real time as feedback. The proposed setup is demonstrated through the design of ETO bicycle frames.