A Computer-based Intelligent System for Design for Assembly.pdf

~ = ￠ r n l m ~ m a . i ~ 1 Iwq Ih ~ i r~ l I PERGAMON Computers Industrial Engineering 37 (1999) 111-115 A Computer-based Intelligent System for Design for Assembly A. M. Daabub, BSc., and H. S. Abdalla, BEng., MSc., Phi) Dept. of Mechanical Manufacturing Engineering De Monffort University, The Gateway, Leicester LE1 9BH, UK ABSTRACT A computer-based intelligent system for Design for Assembly (DFA) within a concurrent engineemag environment is presented in this article. The main objective of the cunent research work is to develop an expert system that supports new techniques for design for assembly and to give users the possibility to assess and reduce the total production cost at an early stage during the design process. The system enables designers to minimise the numb~ of components of a product and select the most economic assembly technique for that specific product. ? 1999 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. KEYWORDS Concurrent Engineering, Computer-aided Design, Expert System, Design for Assembly, Design for Manufacture, Object-oriented Programming. INTRODUCTION In todays competitive product market the reduction of product manufacturing costs is of a great significanL As products become more complex and highly integrated, designers or design teams find it increasingly necessary to have a system with a common language and independent of traditional engineering disciplines. The objective of the present research is to construct an expert system using KAPPA-PC to develop and support the new approach of design for assembly which gives its users the possibility to asses and reduce the total production cost at early stage of the design process. Design for assembly (DFA) is now an accepted technique and used widely throughout many large industries including Lucas, GEC, Mercedes Benz, NISSAN Motors, etc. Experiences have shown that DFA analysis provides much greater benefits than simply a reduction in assembly cos