| description abstract | Assembly variant design in agile manufacturing involves modifying components or mixing and matching existing components from valid assemblies to proliferate new variant products. (2001, “ Assembly Modeling for Complex Assembly Variant Design,” Tenth Industrial Engineering Research Conference, Dallas TX; 2005, “ Complex Assembly Variant Design in Agile Manufacturing. Part I: System Architecture and Assembly Modeling Methodology,” IIE Transactions on Design and Manufacturing, 37(1), pp. 1–15; 2005, “ Complex Assembly Variant Design in Agile Manufacturing. Part II: Assembly Variant Design Methodology,” IIE Transactions on Design and Manufacturing, 37(1), pp. 17–33) developed an assembly variant design methodology based on a component relationship model that captures assembly mating relationships at the feature level referred as assembly mating graph. This paper is devoted to formulation of assembly mating graphs from legacy computer-aided design models. Mating relationships are classified as direct, indirect, and interference relationships. Direct mating relationships are identified using geometric methods while a ray-firing algorithm is used to identify indirect and interference type mating relationships. The effectiveness of the developed methodology is demonstrated using illustrative examples. | |
