Structured Product Coding System: Modeling Product Assembly and Disassembly Operations

The impact of products’ design on manufacturing cost is significant. A product that is difficult to assemble will increase its production cost while one that is difficult to disassemble will increase its recycling cost. In order to develop highly manufacturable and recyclable products, an accurate process for identifying problematic parts, before they are released for manufacturing, must be used. In recognizing the importance of this capability, a CAD/CAM/CAE product data management tool based on a structured product coding system is developed. It is an integrated design-to-manufacturing system for analyzing and calculating products’ manufacturing cost in a virtual assembly and disassembly environment. It analyses a product by importing information from its ISO-10303 (STEP) CAD data. It models assembly and disassembly operations of both parts and tools used in manufacturing the product to accurately model its production process. By using the system, a product designer is able to calculate the impact of every part used for building a product based on it parts and tool cost, cycle time, and other important parameters associated with manufacturing and recycling.