Flexible assembly

Robot working envelope must be securely guarded. 

Automated or mechanized systems must be chosen in certain situations, particularly where operator safety is paramount, for example, hazardous or toxic environments, heavy component parts or a high repeatability requirement causing operator fatigue. 

It can use dedicated systems for sterile or clean environment assembly of products. 

Repeatable accuracy of component alignment is high, typically 0.1 mm. 

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Evans and Kennedy later combined the regioselective rhodium-catalyzed allylic alkylation, using a-substituted malonates, with ring-closing metathesis for the construction of five-, six-, and seven-membered carbocycles (Scheme 10.2) [13]. The combination of these methodologies allowed for the rapid and flexible assembly of carbocycles possessing vicinal ternary-quaternary or quaternary-quaternary stereogenic centers. 

Flexible assembly systems with industrial robots... 

Flexible assembly systems with industrial robots can be divided into three principal basic types with specific system structures ... 

The largest number of industrial assembly robots is used in flexible assembly lines (see Figure 5). Flexible assembly lines are more or less comparable to flexible, modular assembly systems with regard to construction, features, and application. The cycle times for flexible assembly lines generally vary between 15 and 30 sec. The main area of application for these systems is the automated assembly of products with annual units of between 300,000 and 1 million. 

The application of flexible assembly lines is economically viable especially for assembling products with several variants and/or short product lives because the flexibility of assembly robots can... 

Assembly robots can also execute several assembly processes within an assembly cycle. This allows a high level of utilization for the assembly system, in particular for smaller amounts of workpieces, which is important for economic reasons. Depending on the cycle time range, an assembly robot can be allocated with a maximum of five to six assembly procedures in a flexible assembly line. 

A large number of the industrial applications of flexible assembly cells are conducted as island solutions, that is, without being linked to other assembly stations. Flexible assembly cells as assembly islands are used for the automated assembly of subassembly components or simple products with usually less than 20 different parts. This system works best technically and economically with cycle times from 25-120 sec. This allows it to be applied in situations requiring an annual number of units to be assembled of between 50,000 and 500,000, depending on the scope of the assembly tasks and the number of shifts with which the system will be run. 

The application of flexible assembly cells is not possible when the product or component consists of more than 20 parts. Industrial assembly very often concerns products or components composed... 

There are two typologies of linking flexible assembly systems permanent and flex-link sequences. Linking with a permanent linking sequence means that each assembly system is linked in a set sequence to each other, such as with longitudinal transfer systems (see Figure 7). The permanent linking sequence allows these assembly systems to execute only a smaller number of assembly tasks with different assembly sequences. They are therefore suitable for the automated assembly of variants and types with comparable assembly sequences and several similar products or components with comparable assembly sequences. 

The assembly systems introduced by Henry Ford were effective for high-volume production of a single product type with dedicated machines and material handling systems. To respond to the changing market and increasing variety desired by the consumers, more flexible assembly systems have been introduced. Such flexible systems use all purpose machines or robots to handle a variety of tasks in a station associated with the multiple product t3 pes. In addition, the assembly systems have also taken on more complex, non-serial configurations (Hu et al. 2011). 

Kruger J, Bernhardt R, Surdilovic D, Seliger G (2006) Intelligent assist systems for flexible assembly. CIRP Annals 55(l) 29-33... 

Guo, Z.X., Wong, W.K., Leung, S.Y.S., Fan, J.T. and Chan, S.F., 2008. A genetic-algorithm-based optimization model for scheduling flexible assembly lines. International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, 36(1-2), 156-168. 

The only manual process in this system is adjustment of the reflow profile based on the results of soldering an assembly. The last step in the process would be to test the finished prototype board. This system could also be used for very small volume production runs, and aU components as described are available. With a change from milled boards to etched boards, the system can be used as a flexible assembly system. 

In general, diode lasers are hermetically packaged for telecommunications use, and even for applications with less stringent reliability requirements. However, the ability to incorporate a diode laser into a non-her-metic package or module would result in significant cost advantages, including more flexible assembly techniques that are compatible with mass production. 

Misc. Complexity Flexibility (assembly/orientation) Safety Joint accessibility Quality Other important issues not considered by the above groups. 

Extremely flexible assembly system (many product variants) and therefore most common. 

Flexible assembly systems use programmable, robotic devices to compose previously manufactured components and/or sub-assemblies into a complete product of unit of a product. A number of transfer mechanisms, feeding devices, robot types and end effectors can be utlilized in order to achieve a general assembly system (see 6.2F). 

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