Product and process integrated design to enhance smart manufacturing systems

During recent years, industrial world faced transformations that led companies to introduce the concepts and the technologies of a new industrial paradigm, named Industry 4.0 (I4.0), in order to improve their products and their production processes. In the context of I4.0, factories are becoming smart, more flexible and collaborative, satisfying the current demands of increasingly competitive markets and of products closer to the real needs of customers. Within this framework, the approach to product and process design is changing too, supported by the use of complex numerical analyses for testing and validating the performance of both products and production processes. This is made possible thanks to the Digital Manufacturing (DM) approach, that allows to reduce the design times and to validate the design solution in virtual environments, without setting up detailed and expensive experimental sessions. This paper aims to propose a possible methodological framework to better carry out the design of new products and production systems, according to the DM principles.