[...]... reduction in assembly costs and, for medium production volumes, robot assembly would give a 61% reduction However, with the most efficient design consisting of only two parts, design for assembly (DFA) gives a 92% reduction in manual assembly costs and, for this design, the further benefits obtained through automation are negligible 14 Assembly Automation and Product Design 48 mm 1 Annual production volumes:... Analysis of an Assembly .271 General Rules for Product Design for Automation 272 Design of Parts for Feeding and Orienting 276 Summary of Design Rules for High-Speed Automatic Assembly 280 8.10.1 Rules for Product Design 280 8.10.2 Rules for the Design of Parts 280 8.11 Product Design for Robot Assembly 281 8.11.1 Summary of Design Rules for Robot Assembly 287... effects of product design, it can be stated that improvements in product design leading to greater economy in the manufacture of parts and the assembly of products will always result in improvements in both labor and total productivity To design a product for ease of assembly requires no expenditure on capital equipment, and yet the significant reductions in assembly times have a marked effect on productivity... productivity In fact, the design of products for ease of assembly has much greater potential for reducing costs and improving productivity than assembly automation [10] This is illustrated by the example shown in Figure 1.3 This graph shows clearly that automation becomes less attractive as the product design is improved For the original design manufactured in large volumes, high-speed assembly automation would... product In some situations, assembly by manual workers would be hazardous because of high temperatures and the presence of toxic or even explosive substances Under these circumstances, productivity and cost considerations become less important 10 Assembly Automation and Product Design 1.3 SOCIAL EFFECTS OF AUTOMATION Much has been said and written regarding the impact of automation and robots in industry... the insertion of nonstandard (odd-form) electronic components that cannot be handled by the available automatic-insertion machines 6 Assembly Automation and Product Design For many years, manufacturers of electrical and electronic products have spent more on assembly technology than on any other industry [3] 1.2 CHOICE OF ASSEMBLY METHOD When considering the manufacture of a product, a company must... choice of assembly method For a new product, the following considerations are generally important: 1 2 3 4 Suitability of the product design Production rate required Availability of labor Market life of the product If the product has not been designed with automatic assembly in mind, manual assembly is probably the only possibility Similarly, automation will not be practical unless the anticipated production... Equation .216 References 217 Chapter 7 7.1 7.2 7.3 Design for Manual Assembly 219 Introduction 219 Where Design for Assembly Fits in the Design Process .219 General Design Guidelines for Manual Assembly 221 7.3.1 Design Guidelines for Part Handling 221 7.3.2 Design Guidelines for Insertion and Fastening 222 7.4 Development of a Systematic DFA Analysis Method... 0.9 Assembly cost ($) 0.8 M an ua l 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 24 Rob ot Autom atic 8 4 2 Number of parts FIGURE 1.3 Example of the effect of automation and design for assembly (From Boothroyd, G., Design for assembly — the key to design for manufacture, International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, Vol 2, No 3, 1987.) This example reveals a kind of paradox created when designing a product. .. of assembly machines are presented, and the overall performance of assembly systems is discussed Finally, detailed analyses of the suitability of parts and products for both manual and automatic assembly are presented REFERENCES 1 Schwartz, W.H., An Assembly Hall of Fame, Assembly Engineering, January 1988 2 Nof, S.Y (Ed.), Handbook of Industrial Robots, 2nd ed., John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1999 3 Assembly . alt="" Assembly Automation and Product Design Second Edition MANUFACTURING ENGINEERING AND MATERIALS PROCESSING A Series of Reference Books and Textbooks SERIES EDITOR Geoffrey Boothroyd Boothroyd. Product Design: Second Edition, Geoffrey Boothroyd Geoffrey Boothroyd Boothroyd Dewhurst, Inc. Wakefield, Rhode Island Assembly Automation and Product Design Second Edition Boca Raton London New. Rod and Bar Rolling: Theory and Applications, Youngseog Lee 65. Metallurgical Design of Flat Rolled Steels, Vladimir B. Ginzburg 66. Assembly Automation and Product Design: Second Edition, Geoffrey