The allocation of design tolerances between the components of a mechanical assembly and manufacturing tolerances can significantly affect the functionality of products and related production costs. This paper introduces Imperialist Competitive Algorithm (ICA) approach to solve the machining tolerance allocation of an overrunning clutch assembly.  The objective is to obtain optimum tolerances of...

To respond to the challenge of agile manufacturing, companies are striving to provide a large variety of products at a low cost. Product modularity allows to produce different products by combining standard components. One of the characteristics of modular products is that they share the same assembly operations for a part of their structure. The special structure of modular products provides c...

This research addresses the mixed-model assembly line (MMAL) by considering various constraints. In MMALs, several types of products which their similarity is so high are made on an assembly line. As a consequence, it is possible to assemble and make several types of products simultaneously without spending any additional time. The proposed multi-objective model considers the balancing and sequ...

In this paper, a Job shop scheduling problem with a parallel assembly stage and Lot Streaming (LS) is considered for the first time in both machining and assembly stages. Lot Streaming technique is a process of splitting jobs into smaller sub-jobs such that successive operations can be overlapped. Hence, to solve job shop scheduling problem with a parallel assembly stage and lot streaming, deci...

in this paper a new problem of three stage disassembly-assembly scheduling is introduced and reviewed. this problem, which was arisen from the aviation industry characteristics, is a generalization of the two stage assembly scheduling problem. products (helicopters) in the aviation industry return to assembler for annual overhaul repair services. in the first stage helicopters are disassembled ...

increasing competitiveness between software companies , that stems from customer needs and new information technologies, obliges the companies to improve their products’ quality according to high speed and low cost. this research seeks to introduce and determine the software production assembly line, one of the software development approaches. a three stage questionnaire was used to collect inf...

Aiming at the special structure of products with enclosed shell, the limitations of the usual methods are analyzed and concepts of axial subassembly and radial subassembly are proposed, the subassemblies are identified base on the adjacent matrix and interference matrix. A new kind of assembly relation matrix with the subassembly information is proposed to express the assembly model, the assemb...

Reconfigurable assembly systems enable a family of products to be assembled in a single system by adjusting and reconfigurabling fixtures according to each product. The sharing of fixtures among different products impacts their robustness to fixture variation and process disturbances due to frequent reconfiguration. This paper proposes a methodology to achieve robustness of the fixture layout d...