Design for Automation: The Rapid Fixture Approach

As product varieties rise and lifecycles shorten, development approaches need to be adapted. Current trends aiming to solve the dissonance of reduced time to market and increased product variety include agile methods. In this context not only product design processes need to be adapted but also development of production processes and manufacturing equipment. At the example of fixture design, this paper presents an approach which allows an agile provision as well as a reconfiguration of equipment. The solution presented consists of a fixture design concept consisting of design rules which allow implementation into a tool for automated fixture design.