Automatic generation of assembly system configuration with equipment selection for automotive battery manufacturing

High power and high capacity lithium-ion batteries are being adopted for electrical and hybrid electrical vehicles (EV/HEV) applications. An automotive Li-ion battery pack usually has a hierarchical composition of components assembled in some repetitive patterns. Such a product assembly hierarchy may facilitate automatic configuration of assembly systems including assembly task grouping, sequence planning, and equipment selection. This paper utilizes such a hierarchical composition in generating system configurations with equipment selection for optimal assembly system design. A recursive algorithm is developed to generate feasible assembly sequences and the initial configurations including hybrid configurations. The generated configurations are embedded in an optimal assembly system design problem for simultaneous equipment selection and task assignment by minimizing equipment investment cost. The complexity of the computational algorithm is also discussed.