Consumer Products - When can you use it?

Perceived Quality Lifecycle

You can use aesthetica to support critical aesthetic assessment activities at any time during the product development process.

At the Concept stage – feasibility studies to identify the most appropriate concepts, by measuring the ideal or nominal values against typical manufacturing tolerances to expose potential downstream problems that will influence the design.

aesthetica allows you to assess the impact of variation earlier in the process, at the point where change is rapid and when cost of change is minimal.

Designers can take the variation into account, refining the design to reduce or eliminate sensitivities without compromising the visual character and set acceptable targets.

At the Design stage – manufacturing studies to establish the feasibility of locator strategies against design targets early in the design process, by visually reviewing the proposed measurement plans on critical visual surfaces before the design is finalized.

aesthetica allows you to carry out multiple iterations of locator analysis to determine which scheme has the least effect on the appearance of the product and validate targets alongside the manufacturing assembly process.

At the Development stage – flexible part and assembly behavior studies to gain insight into tolerance analysis, using advanced diagnostic capabilities: flexibility, distortion and pitting, misalignment and surface defects, and impacts of stress transmission.

aesthetica allows you to communicate and collaborate with manufacturing by visualizing full design and detail (not just at measurement points) to resolve conflicts between design aspirations and manufacturing reality.

At the Pre-production stage – finished product and cosmetic audits to refine and improve the final output, visualising gaps with extreme or test conditions, and comparing it with nominal digital models.

aesthetica allows you to calibrate the audits and visualise limits of acceptable variation. You can then create pictures of maximum and minimum ‘limit samples’.

At the Production stage – what-if studies to resolve known production issues and provide on-going quality assurance.

aesthetica allows you to review any concerns and issues as you move to full production. You can compare and contrast the actual product with a definitive visualization of the digital model, to give insight to any variation issues and facilitate collaboration between key functions; design, engineering, manufacturing and production.

You can then agree and set parameters for quality assurance and feed them back to the next refresh/upgrade at the concept stage, improving the feasibility assessment and production capability of the next generation of products.

In addition, assessing potential running changes before they are introduced enables you to investigate and manage supplier quality issues, and carry out studies to improve yields.

Icona aesthetica V3 Brochure 2008.pdf