A new philosophy for the design of a product and its assembly line

摘要

The main objective of the research presented in this paper is to develop a new philosophy for product and assembly line design (ALD). Most methodologies usually do not consider the interaction between the two design processes in presence. Moreove,; most Concurrent Engineering approaches do not deal with multi-variant products. A research project was initiated to tackle this problem. The computer tool under development, called CISAL, will be applicable to multi-variant products, leading to a unique assembly line for all variants. It is subdivided into three main modules, with possible feedbacks between them: product analysis, operating modes and assembly techniques, and line layout. We here present the framework of this project and the underlying methodology.