FEEDBACK APPROACH TO DESIGN FOR ASSEMBLY BY EVALUATION OF ASSEMBLY PLAN

One of the questions that intrigues many researchers is that of how a product can be designed that is good for assembly. A product which is assembly-oriented is easier and less costly to assemble. The benefits are many, but the ways of achieving it are certainly not unique. One way is the concurrent-engineering/design-for-assembly approach. In this approach, all the lifecycle issues are taken into consideration during the design phase. A different but complementary approach is that of allowing redesign as soon as specific information is made available during a later stage of the lifecycle, such as the planning stage. The paper adopts the second approach. It examines how information available from the planning stage can aid in identifying areas for redesign. Evaluation criteria are formulated that provide enough information to allow redesign suggestions to be generated. The effects of these redesign suggestions are simulated on screen via suitable geometric manipulation. Suggestions that cause the failure of some existing functions of the product are discarded. When all the suggestions have been processed, the simulated resultant product is shown to the designer. This allows the designer to view the redesigned product rather than having to imagine what it looks like.