Dimensional Analysis of the Generated Design Solutions for Reconfigurable Manufacturing System

Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems (RMS) is the recent addition in the series of different of types manufacturing systems. Various approaches deal with generation of design solutions for such systems. In this paper two and three dimensional tolerance analysis of the generated design solutions using algorithmic approach for reconfigurable manufacturing systems is carried out. In this analysis quality is considered as the key performance indicator. Among the existing techniques and methods used for tolerance evaluation, the approach of representing the tolerances as Small Displacement Torsors (SDT) is used. The modified method of graphs is selected for representing the machining process plans among the existing methods. Heuristics for the said graphs are defined. For each geometric variation the torsors are written. 2D or 3D dimensional simulation is performed and solutions are classified according to their tolerance values. The proposed methodology has wide application in the generative approach of process plan generation for reconfigurable manufacturing systems.