Research on collaborative concept design integrating the application of virtual reality and DFMA

Because the concept design phase in the product initializing stage is usually the key for defining the cost and the quality of the product, this draws an intention to the purpose of using design for manufacturing and assembly (DFMA) in this stage in order to achieve optimal design from the very beginning of a product development project. On the other hand, because available product development management (PDM) systems do not provide a good communication environment which helps developing better design concepts, this research uses not only DFMA for innovative concept design and filtering process, but also virtual reality (VR) technologies for visualized collaborative concept-design communication. Based on these ideas, this research performs a complete system analysis and design process for a collaborative concept design system. The outcome of this research is able to resolve communication and interaction problems during concept-design phase.