INTERLEAVING ASSEMBLY PLANNING AND DESIGN

The main objective of assembly planning is to determine a sequence of assembling a product with respect to its geometric and resource constr aints, Recent strides toward concurrent engineering have called for a tighter integration of assembly planning with design, because often du ring assembly planning, one realizes that a significant amount of asse mbly cost can be cut by redesigning the product itself. Instead of ''r etroactively'' redesigning a product upon assembly planning, a concurr ent engineering platform must allow its users to evaluate designs (e.g ,, with regards to assembly sequencing), and ''proactively'' explore d ifferent alternatives at various levels of abstractions so that one ca n zoom in on ''promising'' design paths and design right within the fi rst few design cycles. This paper presents such an integrated system i n which assembly planning becomes an essential part of the design expl oration process. An algorithm for assembly planning during design for such an environment is developed, Designing for assembly is more effec tive and correct because, for a particular sequence of assembly, diffe rent design alternatives can be created and evaluated.