Analysis and Evaluation for Step-based Electro-mechanical Assembilies: an Integrated Fuzzy Ahp Approach

Assemblability analysis and evaluation play a key role in assembly design, assembly operation analysis and assembly planning. This paper proposes an integrated approach to assemblability analysis and evaluation for STEP-based (STandard for the Exchange of Product model data, officially ISO 10303) electro-mechanical products. In the paper, two assembly representation models are first brought up and elaborated: the EXPRESS/XML schema-based model and the NIST object-oriented UML-based Open Assembly Model (OAM). These two models are then integrated together; the OAM incorporates the EXPRESS/XML schema-based assembly model to completely capture the detailed geometric information. Based on STEP, the proposed assembly evaluation approach uses the EXPRESS/XML schema-based model as the information source, and the evaluation structure covers not only the assembly parts’ geometric and physical characteristics but also takes into account the assembly operation data necessary to assemble the parts. The feature of this approach is the linkage of the STEP product definition to the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (AHP) for assembly evaluation. The proposed approach has the flexibility to be used in various assembly methods and different environments. The case study shows that the proposed approach is feasible.