NSF Award
9414984
9414984 DeFazio This project is exploratory research into a design-specific approach to Design For Assembly (DFA) in the Concurrent Engineering environment. The research addresses DFA for dense and complicated mechanical assemblies. Objectives of the research are to explore this realm in a systematic way, and to develop more rational bases for collaboration of product design engineers concerned with function, and production engineers concerned with assembly--in the realm of concurrent engineering of dense, complicated, or tightly specified and constrained mechanical assemblies. The research uses the logic of Assembly Sequence Analysis (ASA) as structure, tool, and a basis for measure of results. ASA is a design-specific logical means of relating product design geometry to assembly choices. Both design geometry and assembly choices offer new metrics and support conventional ones: parts- count, assembly-line topology, count of non-productive assembly tasks, for example. ASA has been used in one direction; from product design to assembly choice. Part of the work is to explore possibilities of using ASA in the other direction; to flag awkward assembly constraints, and to suggest areas for design reconsideration.
