De La Salle University

Gokongwei College of Engineering

Manufacturing Engineering and Management (MEM) Depatment
S.Y. 2016-201

CRITICAL REVIEW

In Partial Fulfillment of The

Requirements for The

Course PRBSTAT EG1

Submitted by:

Rodillo, Crizoe

Delfin, Anferli Elijah

Submitted to:

Dr. Melvin Vidar

 Daniel Rappel et al. Local characterisation of variances for the planning and configuration
of process chains in micro manufacturing, Bremer Institut fr Produktion und Logistik GmbH at
the University of Bremen; 2016, pp 79-87, 2017.

In the research Local characterization of variances for the planning and configuration of
process chains in micro manufacturing, Rappel discusses about the proposal for the extension of
the -ProPlAn methodology wherein it provides tools to characterize and utilize the relationship
between production relevant parameters of the process chains of micro manufacturing. Aside from
the -ProPlAn methodology, other processes were also introduced for the modelling of process
chains of micro manufacturing. In this paper, the alternative methodology proposed uses a local
estimation of variance of relevant process parameters using sample data. In the proposal, he used
compared data from different process of micro manufacturing.

One of the major challenges in micro manufacturing is the planning and the configuration
of the process chains wherein its tolerances of the design are relatively small. These small
tolerances are characterized by the contrast of high variances during the processing and the
variances with the material characteristic. With these, it greatly affects the quality of planned
process chains and thus, on the efficiency of the overall production system. In order to characterize
the variances, the researchers used Micro Processes Planning and Analysis (-ProPlAn)
methodology and provided an extension of this method which will optimize the expected
variances, in order to achieve more stable process chains. At the remaining sections, the
researchers provides a short description of occurring size-effects, followed by an overview of the
process planning of micro manufacturing. The extension of the method was then discussed which
adds the ability to characterize variances during the modelling stage. At the end of the article, the
proposed method by Rappel was evaluated according to the parameter characteristics and
estimation results.
 In the first section, Rappel discussed the different methodologies in creating developing
micro components and planning of process chains in micro manufacturing. The article was able to
properly define the methodologies presented in micro components developing. However, only one
process was able to explain fully and analyzed. In the article, the authors presented the use of
Micro-Electro-Mechanical-Systems (MEMS) and pne of its sub processes which is cold forming.
The processes of the cold forming was not thoroughly explained which let the readers wonder its
full process. Even though it is not fully explained on its operation, the impact of micro cold forming
in the size effects of the development of micro components was explained. The researchers also
discusses the different aspects of the size effects from the micro cold forming. The density size
effect occur when the density of a material is held constant while scaling down its geometrical
dimensions. The shape size effect occur due to the increasing ratio of an objects total surface area,
compared to its volume. And lastly, Micro structure size-effects occur because micro structural
features cannot be scaled down the same way as the geometrical size of an object.

In the second section, the authors introduced the planning methodology to be analyzed
which is Micro Processes Planning and Analysis (-ProPlAn). The experiment presented the
challenges faced while the experiment is being done: low tolerances, size-effects, applicability of
processes and machines, and availability of different specialized processes. In this section, the
material tested was not specified in the explanation of the procedures. Also, the modelling process
of the process chains was generally explained and no specific type of micro component
development was used as an example. The procedure module was also presented by creating a
process overview map wherein it is divided into two main steps, modelling and evaluation. The
different sub procedures were also presented in diagrams. The different process explained were
easier to understand due to the diagrams presented and the use of simple manufacturing terms in
explaining the specific processes of the micro component development.

In the third section, the computation of the estimation of the local variances in the
modelling of the process chain was presented. The -ProPlAn provides experiment data from
estimated distributions like mean and standard deviation values. The researchers calculated the
variances in each point available on the sample data. In getting the parameters like the mean and
standard deviation, the researchers used the basic formulas in getting the parameters. One of the
challenges in gathering the parameters is the variation between the variables. The independent
variables are dependent with each other because it represents the laser power and feed rate of the
system. The variances between the groups may be difficult to quantify without using statistical
software. However, the researchers was able to easily quantify the parameters of the experiment
and were able represent the data in graphical figures. The data collected can be understood clearly
due to the use of a three dimensional diagram to be able to see the trend of the date in each variable.

For the fourth section, the researchers evaluated the variance quantification of the
experiment. The set of data points is simulated using a predefined function with a specified,
normally distributed error term y = f(x)+ N (0, 2 ). With the utilization of the error term, a direct
comparison between the creating parameters for f(x) and is possible. Besides these
twoparameters, the ranges on the x- and y-axis as well as the numberof sampling points (points on
the x-axis which have correspondingy-values) and the number of repeated measurements per
sampling point for each scenario are given. A table was also provided wherein show that the
relative estimation error for the local standard deviation remains more or less stable across all
selected percentiles for within a given scenario. The researchers only computed for the
estimation errors for each variable rather than computing the square errors and treatments for the
whole experiment in order to understand the effect of the different characteristics of the variances
per variable.

In conclusion, the researchers were able to properly characterize the variances of the
variables of the process chains in micro manufacturing. The researchers were also able to prove
the use of -ProPlAn in generating probability distributions around the expected value for each
combination of the independent variables values. The only problem in achieving the extended
process of the methodology is the amount of data that it needs in order to characterize the local
standard deviation correctly. For each sampling point, the approach requires several repeated
measurements to provide an accurate estimate. While it is possible to increase the window size,
the approach will react slower to changing variations.