A Framework for Automatically Realizing Assembly Sequence Changes in a Virtual Manufacturing Environment

Global market pressures and the rapid evolution of technologies and materials force manufacturers to constantly design, develop and produce new and varied products to maintain a competitive edge. Although virtual design and engineering tools have been key to supporting this fast rate of change, there remains a lack of seamless integration between and within tools across the domains of product, process, and resource design - especially to accommodate change. This research examines how changes to designs within these three domains can be captured and evaluated within a component based engineering tool (vueOne, developed by the Automation Systems Group at the University of Warwick). This paper describes how and where data within these tools can be mapped to quickly evaluate change (where typically a tedious process of data entry is required) decreasing lead times and cost and increasing productivity. The approach is tested on a sub-assembly of a hydrogen fuel cell, where an assembly system is modelled and changes are made to the sequence which is translated through to control logic. Although full implementation has not yet been realized, the concept has the potential to radically change the way changes are made and the approach can be extended to supporting other change types provided the appropriate rules and mapping.