Conceptual level design for assembly analysis using state transitional approach

Traditionally, design for assembly is done during the detailed design phase. A designer first maps a set of design requirements into a set of components or subassemblies that can satisfy the given set of requirements. The components and subassemblies are then examined individually to determine whether they conform to the principles of design for assembly. Usually, local changes are performed so that the resultant components/subassemblies are better for assembly. In this paper, we propose to bring the design for assembly analysis into an even earlier phase-that of the conceptual design phase. We argue that by incorporating the design for assembly analysis at the conceptual design phase, we can achieve a more substantial savings as compared to the savings obtained when the design for assembly analysis is only performed as late as the detailed design phase. The basic idea is to select a combination of design concepts (previously stored in a library) such that together they can achieve the stated functional requirements (in the form of state transitional graph) at the minimum cost for assembly. This problem of selecting the right combination of design concepts is reduced to the well-known set covering problem. With this reduction, many existing graph algorithms can be applied to aid in the design for assembly analysis.