Working procedure for early proactive geometry assurance considering manual assembly complexity

The purpose of this paper is to explore how a recently developed method for evaluation of the impact of assembly complexity on manual assembly concepts should be used, by whom and how this would fit into an industrial product development process. The explored method incorporates both sensitivity to geometrical variation and assessment of assembly complexity and is integrated into the CAT (Computer Aided Tolerancing) tool RD&T. A baseline of a generic six phase product development procedure is summarized with focus on the part of the process that handles geometry assurance; the geometry assurance process. The result is a proposed working procedure for proactive geometry assurance considering manual assembly complexity as a part of a geometry assurance process. The proposed working procedure supports the development of products that have a high level of geometrical robustness and a low level of manual assembly complexity resulting in higher quality, less costs related to poor quality and less waste. Need for further research is also identified since the current tools for assessing manual assembly complexity do not support all geometry assurance activities needed. One suggestion is to expand the current calculation models to interact with the variation analysis in CAT through assembly tolerances.