Integration and Assembly in the Alvey “Design to Product” Demonstrator Project

Abstract

The Alvey “Design to Product” large scale demonstrator project (DtoP) ended in March 1990 after five years and almost two hundred man years of effort from its eight collaborators. Part of the UK Government’s Alvey Programme of research into advanced information technology, the project aimed to demonstrate computer based lifecycle support for a class of engineering products termed “light electro-mechanical devices”. Beginning with design and going through manufacture (machining and assembly) to service life, the project aimed to use the techniques of artificial intelligence to maximise re-use of information in an integrated product support system for diesel fuel injection pumps. The project demonstrated its prototype system in February and March 1990 and has produced a specification of its approach to product support which is planned to be published as a book.