Product and process dimensioning and tolerancing techniques. A state-of-the-art review

Dimensioning and tolerancing are important engineering processes in the different phases of a product development cycle. The two main phases in a product cycle, where dimensioning and tolerancing techniques are extensively employed are in the areas of product design and process planning. Tolerance and dimension assignment in both product design and process planning has an equally important role in keeping the production cost down and hence, requires equal attention as far as research into these areas are concerned Another important motivating factor for research is that manual dimension and tolerance assignment is often tedious, time-consuming and requires a considerable amount of skill and experience on the part of the engineer, resulting in inconsistencies and errors. Extensive research, in the area of dimensioning and tolerancing in both product design and process planning, has been carried out with the advancement in computers since the 1970s. The purpose of this paper is to review the state-of-the-art dimensioning and tolerancing techniques in both product design and process planning and explore the opportunities for future research in these areas.