Virtual Assembly Planning System for complex assembly operations. A practical Concurrent Engineering application

Concurrent Engineering has recently been promoted in the automation, computer, electronic and aerospace industries to respond to competitive pressure. The Concurrent Engineering approach attempts to increase the overlap between the activities of product design with the planning and development of the production process. The productivity of assembly systems in a company is determined by the operations planning and scheduling department. In order to raise the flexibility as well as to adapt continuously the assembly working system to changing marginal conditions and other influences in an economical way, it is necessary to supply the planners with innovative planning tools. The paper describes developments carried out in the Fraunhofer-Institut for Industrial Engineering to develop an Assembly Planning system based on the technique of Virtual Reality.