A novel means of generating assembly sequences using the connector concept

Abstract

Assembly planning attempts to arrange product assembly sequences on the basis of the input of product description, similar assembly plans and assembly constraints. Assembly planning is frequently viewed as a creative thinking process, which requires extensive assembly planning experience. Assembly product modeling with mechanical connection functions has increasingly focused on assembly sequence planning. When considering the connection functions, the relationships between assembled components can act as a foundation for assembly clustering. Despite the merits of assembly sequence planning in lieu of considering connection functions, previous investigations have focused primarily on product representation with the connector concept. However, to our knowledge, generation of the assembly sequence on the basis of the connector concept has not been previously discussed. In this study, we present a novel means of generating assembly sequences on the basis of the connector concept. The proposed method initially defines different types of connectors and representation schemes. Through the definition and representation scheme, an assembly product can be decomposed into a set of connector-based assembly elements. The connector-based assembly elements then serve as input for an assembly sequence generation algorithm, which is connector-based, to generate an assembly sequence. The final output is a connector-based assembly sequence graph, resembling an assembly precedence diagram. In addition, this graph can act as the input for any line balance method when designing work elements for each assembly workstation.