Title: Data integration from product design to assembly planning in a collaborative environment

Authors: Xiumei Kang, Qingjin Peng

Addresses: Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB R3T 5V6, Canada. ' Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB R3T 5V6, Canada

Abstract: Virtual Manufacturing (VM) evaluates products in Virtual Environments (VEs) before actual production. A key issue in VM systems is the integration of design information into different product development stages. A product design model has to be accessible and reusable by downstream applications, such as product process planning and assembly planning. However, existing product modelling systems cannot fully support the downstream applications. This paper presents a method of extracting product design information from its CAD models for assembly planning and tool accessibility analysis. A web-based interface is developed for the system implementation and the process simulation. [Received 1 December 2008; Revised 21 July 2009; Accepted 31 July 2009]

Keywords: assembly planning; data extraction; data format; VRML; virtual reality modelling language; 3D visualisation; virtual manufacturing; data integration; product design; product development; CAD; tool accessibility; web inerfaces.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMR.2010.029667

International Journal of Manufacturing Research, 2010 Vol.5 No.1, pp.120 - 137

Published online: 30 Nov 2009 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article