Selective assembly modeling of non linear assembly for minimizing manufacturing cost

Abstract

Precision assemblies need close tolerance components. A close tolerance component requires secondary operations, which increase the manufacturing cost considerably. Selective assembly is a method of making precision assemblies from wide tolerance components and it reduces secondary operations in turn to minimize the manufacturing cost of the product. In this method, components are measured, and partitioned into groups/bins based on different methods like uniform grouping, equal newlineprobability, uniform tolerance etc. Further, the precision assemblies are made by mating the components randomly selected from the corresponding bins, according to the best bin combinations. A good number of methods has been discussed in literature and they focus generally on reducing surplus parts or minimizing clearance variation in linear or radial assemblies and not in nonlinear assemblies. Moreover, the existing techniques have used component s tolerance for obtaining the best bin combinations rather than using the component s dimension. Since different combinations of bins are possible, this problem is treated as non polynomial hard problem. Selection of process for making components from the given alternative processes also plays a vital role in further reducing manufacturing cost of the product which is also created still more complex in the solution. The present work aims to obtain maximum number of products with closer assembly specification from wider tolerance sub components of a non-linear assembly by mating their component s dimension, based on the best bin combinations. newline newline