Particle swarm optimization for minimizing assembly variation in selective assembly

Quality of a product is based on the quality of the mating parts. When the parts are assembled interchangeably, the assembly variation will be the sum of the component tolerances. If the assembly variation is to be less than the sum of the component tolerances, selective assembly is the only solution. In conventional selective assembly, the corresponding selective groups are assembled. In this paper, selective group combinations for assembling the mating parts is obtained using particle swarm optimization (PSO). The combination obtained has resulted in an appreciable reduction in assembly variation. The proposed algorithm has been demonstrated for a linear assembly, which consists of three components having equal dimensional distributions. The assembly variation obtained by interchangeable assembly is 36 μm. By implementing the proposed method, the assembly variations are reduced from 36 to 7.2 μm. However, this algorithm can be extended for assemblies with more number of components and with different dimensional distributions.