Assembly, part of the production system

Subdivision of the whole production system of an operation into various subsystems shows that the assembly system is connected to other subsystems, such as materials procurement and marketing, via the flow of material and information. The assembly system consists, as does the total production system, of different subsystems, such as assembly machines systems, basic construction units, interlinking systems, which are also joined via a flow of material information. The purpose of this chapter is to describe the general subject of assembly with emphasis on selection and design of the appropriate assembly approach, design for assembly and assembly techniques. The following topics are included: classification of assembly type and choice of assembly method, design for assembly (DFA) and assemblability evaluation, design of manual assembly systems, design of automatic and robotic assembly systems, performance evaluation and economic justification in selecting the assembly system, relevant tec hnologies associated with assembly operations, and computer-aided assembly. Various examples of assembly cases are illustrated.