Assembly system synthesis using association rule discovery

Abstract

Assembly is the final process for product realization in which various parts, modules, and sub-assemblies are put together to build a product. Designing an assembly system typically involves many issues such as assembly equipment selection, assembly sequence planning, system layout, task assignments, and line balancing. Assembly system synthesis, specifically the choice of assembly resources/equipment, is examined in this paper. An association rule discovery model is employed to extract association relationships between existing and/or previous products and the systems used to assemble them. The extracted knowledge is used to synthesize assembly systems for new products that fall within the scope of their predecessors. The developed method is demonstrated using two examples from the automotive industry. System synthesis results that are consistent with the used assembly data instances are obtained in both examples. The presented systematic system synthesis method supports the utilization of existing legacy data in developing assembly systems for new product generations. This will lead to a significant reduction of time and effort needed to design assembly systems, particularly in applications that feature frequent design changes and updates, as in the automotive industry.