Automatic Assembly in Batch Production

Abstract

In light manufacturing industries, assembly operations play an important economic role.The development of advanced technologies and the automation of manufacturing processes has led to ever decreasing prices for components while assembly operations continue to be carried out manually.It may thus happen that it is cheaper to manufacture a part than it is to assemble it. The traditional methodes of mechanising assembly operations consist in rotating table or transfer machines of very high cost and suitable for high volume productions. The main obstacle to the wide diffusion of the traditional automation equipment is its rigidity; this makes it unsuitable in the presence of varying production rates, product modifications or product diversification for different markets. Further in real industrial environments, one often finds small and medium sized production volumes which require a job-lot organization rather than a continuous-flow one. To solve these problems one needs flexible automation ecuipment which may be readily and easily re-tooled to pass from one product to another.Modern second generation computerised industrial robot technology enables this important problem area to be faced. However, to develop a new technology one must not only design and manufacture new equipment; but one must also study the problems connected with the introduction of such equipment in the production process. In the following pages we will therefore attempt to analise the peculiar characteristics of the assembly process to determine conditions which must be respected during the design of the products and the organizational implications which drive from the introduction of such equipment.Finally we will examine the information flows which interest the assembly process.