Extracting Assembly Mating Graphs for Assembly Variant Design

Assembly variant design in agile manufacturing involves modifying components or mixing and matching existing components from valid assemblies to proliferate new variant products. Wang (2001, Assembly Modeling for Complex Assembly Variant Design, Tenth Industrial Engineering Research Conference, Dallas TX; 2005, Complex Assembly Variant Design in Agile Manufacturing. Part I: System Architecture and Assembly Modeling Methodology, IIE Transactions on Design and Manufacturing, 37(1), pp. 1-15; 2005, Complex Assembly Variant Design in Agile Manufacturing. Part II: Assembly Variant Design Methodology, IIE Transactions on Design and Manufacturing, 37(1), pp. 17-33) developed an assembly variant design methodology based on a component relationship model that captures assembly mating relationships at the feature level referred as assembly mating graph. This paper is devoted to formulation of assembly mating graphs from legacy computer-aided design models. Mating relationships are classified as direct, indirect, and interference relationships. Direct mating relationships are identified using geometric methods while a ray-firing algorithm is used to identify indirect and interference type mating relationships. The effectiveness of the developed methodology is demonstrated using illustrative examples.