Assembly and Disassembly: An Overview and Framework for Cooperation Requirement Planning with Conflict Resolution

Assembly, one of the oldest forms of industrial production, and its twin area, disassembly, have enjoyed tremendous modernization in the era of the information revolution. New enabling technologies, including prominent examples such as virtual CAD, Design for Assembly and Disassembly (DFAD), robotic and intelligent assembly, and Flexible Assembly (FA), are now becoming commonplace. This article reviews some of the newer solutions, and an extended framework for Cooperation Requirement Planning (ECRP) in robotic assembly/disassembly is developed. Recent research under the PRISM program at Purdue University to enable ECRP and other relevant projects is presented. The challenges to researchers in this field, in adapting these solutions to the emerging environment of global and local supply networks are also discussed.