Geometrical Coupling Analysis to Reduce Complete Assembly Line Complexity

Paper in proceeding, 2012

Modern assembly lines for mass production need to fulfill several important criteria. One of them is to produce products with high geometrical quality (small geometric variation). For sheet metal assemblies, focused on in this paper, it is a very complex process to achieve good geometrical quality due to the large number of assembly steps and the geometrical variation (tolerances) of the incoming parts. One “golden rule” for sheet metal assembly lines is to always reuse fixturing points (locators) throughout the whole assembly line to minimize the geometrical variation and also the complexity of root cause analysis. A new method to measure the complexity in an assembly line has been developed and also implemented in a commercial software for Computer Aided Tolerancing. This new tool not only demonstrates the “golden rule” but could also be used to ensure minimum geometrical complexity in assembly lines to ensure controlled production and high quality products.