| In recent years the environment surrounding automotive industry has been drastically changing. Due to this rapidly changing environment and strong competition, automobile manufacturers are frequently forced to make major changes in vehicle design, to accommodate customers' preferences and meet market demands. In order to satisfy these demands, it is critical to develop a new automotive production system to reduce the lead-time between model changes.; This thesis presents a methodology for design and analysis of reconfigurable/reusable automotive assembly systems. A process oriented similarity index is developed for part family identification. Then focusing on a given part family, fixture workspace synthesis is applied to identify the fixture layout for reconfigurable/hybrid assembly systems. The integration of fixture visibility analysis with workspace synthesis provides an analytical tool for rapid fixture deployment. Finally, an assembly system synthesis using generalized key characteristics is developed to classify products/processes based on various considerations.; The developed process-oriented similarity index enables assessment of design reusability for assembly fixtures. In this way, the knowledge can be incorporated in the design of the production lines earlier and more effectively, allowing reusability practices to proliferate. This similarity analysis can also be used as an analytical tool for part family identification.; Once part families are identified, the fixture workspace synthesis can be conducted to allocate the best superposition of locating layouts for multiple parts to be produced on a single reconfigurable/hybrid fixture. By taking into account various assembly approaches, an optimum combination of dedicated, flexible and reconfigurable tooling elements in an assembly fixture can be identified, by which both requirements of convertibility and cost-effectiveness are satisfied.; After fixture layout of an assembly system is determined, in order to realize rapid fixture deployment, the integration of fixture visibility analysis with fixture workspace synthesis is provided. This allows for the optimization of fixture visibility to minimize number of setups and reconfigurable fixture capability to produce a family of parts. A screen space transformation based visibility analysis is presented that allows minimizing the number of setups for calibration of assembly fixture. The screen space transformation is applied to transform the visibility problem from 3D to 2D space, thus efficiently solving the visibility problem.; Finally a method for assembly system synthesis using generalized key characteristics is developed by which the past and current product/process can be efficiently captured, represented, classified and retrieved. This provides computational representation for part families with respect to design reuse. With respect to all the aforementioned research topics, corresponding case studies are provided to demonstrate the presented methodologies. On the basis of the work that has been done in the dissertation, the potential for future research is also outlined. |
