Concurrent Design of Product Families and Assembly Systems

In order to gain competitive advantage, manufacturers require cost effective methods for developing a variety of products within short time periods. Product families, reconfigurable assembly systems and concurrent engineering are frequently used to achieve this desired cost effective and rapid supply of product variety. The independent development of methodologies for product family design and assembly system design has led to a sequential approach to the design of product families and assembly systems. However, the designs of product families and assembly systems are interdependent and efficiencies can be gained through their concurrent design. There are no quantitative concurrent engineering techniques that address the problem of the concurrent design of product families and assembly systems. In this paper, a non-linear integer programming formulation for the concurrent design of a product family and assembly system is introduced. The problem is solved with a genetic algorithm. An example is used to demonstrate the advantage of the concurrent approach to product family and assembly system design over the existing sequential methodology.

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Concurrent Design of Product Families and Reconfigurable Assembly Systems

Journal of Mechanical Design ◽

10.1115/1.4023920 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 135 (5) ◽

Cited By ~ 17

Author(s):

April Bryan ◽

Hui Wang ◽

Jeffrey Abell

Keyword(s):

Mathematical Model ◽

Concurrent Engineering ◽

Manufacturing Systems ◽

Market Competition ◽

Product Family ◽

Product Variety ◽

Concurrent Design ◽

Sequential Approach ◽

Product Families ◽

Reconfigurable Assembly

To cope with the challenges of market competition and the greater purchasing power of consumers, manufacturers have increased the variety of products they offer. Product families and reconfigurable manufacturing systems (RMS) are used to produce product variety cost-effectively. However, there is a lack of concurrent engineering methods for the joint design of a product family and an RMS, since existing concurrent engineering methods were developed for a single product and its associated manufacturing system. The presence of product variety brings challenges to the concurrent engineering of a product family and its reconfigurable assembly system (RAS), as the decision space is broader. This paper introduces a mathematical model for the concurrent design of a product family and a RAS. In addition, a mathematical model for the sequential approach to product family and RAS design is introduced to compare with the results of the concurrent methodology. A genetic algorithm has been developed to solve the models introduced for both the concurrent and sequential approaches. Examples are used to demonstrate the implementation of the concurrent approach to product family and RAS design and the benefits that could be achieved by using this approach. The solutions indicate that the concurrent design of product families and RASs leads to profits that are the same as or higher than the profits obtained with the sequential design approach. Therefore, the concurrent design of product families and RAS methodology is a more cost-effective approach to designing families of products and their associated manufacturing systems.

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Assembly system design and operations for product variety

CIRP Annals ◽

10.1016/j.cirp.2011.05.004 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 60 (2) ◽

pp. 715-733 ◽

Cited By ~ 295

Author(s):

S.J. Hu ◽

J. Ko ◽

L. Weyand ◽

H.A. ElMaraghy ◽

T.K. Lien ◽

...

Keyword(s):

System Design ◽

Product Variety ◽

Assembly System ◽

Assembly System Design

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Methodology for Solving the Assembly System Reconfiguration Planning Problem

ASME 2011 International Manufacturing Science and Engineering Conference, Volume 2 ◽

10.1115/msec2011-50089 ◽

2011 ◽

Author(s):

A. Bryan ◽

S. J. Hu ◽

Y. Koren

Keyword(s):

Product Family ◽

Assembly System ◽

Assembly Systems ◽

Planning Problem ◽

Systems Methodology ◽

Product Families ◽

System Reconfiguration ◽

Reconfiguration Planning ◽

Successive Generations ◽

The Cost

The need to cost effectively introduce new generations of product families within ever decreasing time frames have led manufacturers to seek product development strategies with a multigenerational outlook. Co-evolution of product families and assembly systems is a methodology that leads to the simultaneous design of several generations of product families and reconfigurable assembly systems that optimize life cycle costs. Two strategies that are necessary for the implementation of the co-evolution of product families and assembly systems methodology are: (1) The concurrent design of product families and assembly systems and (2) Assembly system reconfiguration planning (ASRP). ASRP is used for the determination of the assembly system reconfiguration plans that minimize the cost of producing several generations of product families. More specifically, the objective of ASRP is to minimize the net present cost of producing successive generations of products. This paper introduces a method for finding optimum solutions to the ASRP problem. The solution methodology involves the generation of a staged network of assembly system plans for all the generations that the product family is expected to be produced. Each stage in the network represents a generation that the product family is produced, while each state within a stage represents a potential assembly system configuration. A novel algorithm for generating the states (i.e. assembly system configurations) within each generation is also introduced. A dynamic program is used to find the cost minimizing path through the network. An example is used to demonstrate the implementation of the ASRP methodology.

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An integrated approach for product family and assembly system design

IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation ◽

10.1109/tra.2003.808853 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 19 (2) ◽

pp. 324-334 ◽

Cited By ~ 26

Author(s):

P. De Lit ◽

A. Delchambre ◽

J. Henrioud

Keyword(s):

System Design ◽

Product Family ◽

Integrated Approach ◽

Assembly System ◽

Assembly System Design

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Functional entities: A concept to support product family and assembly system design

Proceedings of the 2001 IEEE International Symposium on Assembly and Task Planning (ISATP2001). Assembly and Disassembly in the Twenty-first Century. (Cat. No.01TH8560) ◽

10.1109/isatp.2001.928983 ◽

2002 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

P. De Lit ◽

T. L'Eglise ◽

A. Delchambre

Keyword(s):

System Design ◽

Product Family ◽

Assembly System ◽

Assembly System Design

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Assembly System Reconfiguration Planning Using Genetic Algorithm

Volume 1: Advanced Energy Systems; Advanced and Digital Manufacturing; Advanced Materials; Aerospace ◽

10.1115/esda2008-59066 ◽

2008 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

A. Bryan ◽

S. J. Hu ◽

Y. Koren

Keyword(s):

Genetic Algorithm ◽

Manufacturing Systems ◽

Cost Effective ◽

New Product ◽

Assembly System ◽

Assembly Systems ◽

Reconfigurable Manufacturing ◽

Product Families ◽

System Reconfiguration ◽

Reconfiguration Planning

Due to increased competition, the rate at which manufacturers introduce new product families to the market is increasing. However, the cost of changing manufacturing facilities to produce new product families can outweigh the benefits obtained from increased revenue. Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems (RMSs) have been proposed as a cost effective strategy for manufacturing product families. Although methods for measuring RMS scalability and convertibility exist, there is a lack of methods for obtaining reconfiguration plans for assembly systems. This paper introduces assembly system reconfiguration planning (ASRP) as method to obtain reconfiguration plans for assembly systems. A genetic algorithm is developed for solving the ASRP problem.

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