A 2-STAGE ASSEMBLY PROCESS PLANNING TOOL FOR ROBOT-BASED FLEXIBLE ASSEMBLY SYSTEMS

Market forces are increasingly forcing manufacturing companies to reduce both the time to market and the design cycle time for new products. These forces have given rise to a new engineering philosophy in which product design and manufacture take place in parallel. Successful implementation of this philosophy depends on the availability of tools which support CAD CAM integration in a creative way. This paper proposes the use of computer aided process planning (CAPP) as a two-stage procedure: product process analysis followed by process planning proper. Product process analysis involves the application of design for manufacturing and assembly techniques via an effective CAD database interface. A prototype two stage computer-based process planning system for robot-based assembly applications is described.