Status and Prospects of Skin Model Shapes for Geometric Variations Management

Geometric part deviations, which are inevitably observed on every manufactured workpiece, have distinct effects on the assemblability as well as on the function and quality of physical artefacts. As a consequence, geometric variations management is an important issue for manufacturing companies. However, assessing the effects of form deviations already in virtual product realization remains an important challenge. This paper illustrates and summarizes the current status and development trends of the Skin Model Shape paradigm, which provides an operationalization and a digital representation of the Skin Model concept for modelling product shape variability and hence may serve as a comprehensive model for computer-aided variations management.