Influence of the Response Delay on the Assembling Technique Based on the Statistical Feed-forward Control Model

Abstract In contrast to classical assembling techniques for high variation processes, the novel approach presented here, based on the Statistical Feed-Forward Control Model (SFFCM), takes into account the dynamic evolution of the variation over time. It is, then, interesting to discover how the presence of response delays affects its effectiveness. By means of simulating the production of assemblies made of two components having high dimensional variation and whose resulting length is the variable to control, sets of experiments were designed to discover the influence of response delays in combination with different side factors. Simulation results revealed that depending on the delays’ magnitude the average mean shift of the resulting assemblies’ length increased between 5% and 64% whereas the average standard deviation increased between 3% and 33%. This fluctuation, independently from the side factors, is arguably attributable to the presence of response delays which, in practice, represent an obstacle for SFFCM.