• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.19 no.39
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• pp.63-73
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• 1996

With the success of flexible manufacturing systems (FMSs), flexible assembly systems (FASs) have been developed to automate factories further. As in a cellular FMS, a cellular FAS is considered as the most flexible and feasible assembly system configuration Because of the differences between manufacturing and assembly operation, the logic of cell formation and cell layout between a FMS and a FAS is not the same. Since the time for assembly operation is usually relatively short, the transfer time is thus very crucial for the performance of assembly systems. Therefore in assembly systems it is important to reduce the transfer time by sequencing operations efficiently and arranging machines like the sequences. The network-type layout is not only feasible for the machine arrangement based on operation sequences, but it has also layout flexibility. Therefore it is a reasonable layout configuration for cellular FASs. This paper presents a method for the cell layout based on the network-type layout in a cellular FAS design.

• Management Science and Financial Engineering
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.67-90
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• 1995

In planning an assembly system, choosing the proper assembly sequence is one of the most important decisions because it significantly affects the costs associated with the assembly process. This paper deals with the selection of assembly sequences in flexible assembly systems. The selection criterion is the minimization of makespan to complete all assembly products. This problem is formulated as a "modified FAS scheduling problem" (MFASSP) and its scheduling procedure is described. The experimental results show that the procedure is very efficient for both quality of solution and computation time.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.5 no.7
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• pp.841-847
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• 1999

For successful assembly of flexible parts, informations about their deformation as well as possible misalignments between the holes and their mating parts are essential. Such informations can be acquired from visual sensors. For robotic assembly, the corrective assembly motion to compensate for such misalignments has to be determined from the measured informations. However, this may not be simply derived from the measured misalignment alone because the part deformation progressively occurs during misalignment compensation. Based on the analysis of flexible parts assembly process, this paper presents a neural net-based inference system that can infer the complex relationship between the corrective motion and the measured information of parts deformation and misalignments. And it verifies the performance of the implemented inference system. The results show that the proposed neural net-based misalignment compensation algorithm Is effective in compensating for the lateral misalignment, and that it can be extended to the assembly tasks under more general conditions.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.19 no.40
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• pp.253-261
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• 1996

In optimizing the layout design of a multi-product assembly environment, tile analysis of the material flow is a vital ingredient. In flexible assembly systems, assembly time is usually very short thus the transfer time is relatively more important Therefore operations sequence must be so determined, that have no backtracking operations as possible as, It is important to form cells, so that they have no intercell movement in curring much processing delay, and to arrange machines as possible as densly. This study presents a independent cell formation method considering operation sequences and machine capacity in flexible assembly systems.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 1992.10a
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• pp.703-707
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• 1992

In the field of assembly processes, non-rigid parts such as wires, tubes, gaskets and 0-rings cannot be assembled automatically. And although many researches have been made for rigid part mating, there are not substantial studies in flexible parts assembly field. In this paper, assembly stages of flexible parts are classified and some analysis are made. FEM was used to estimate the relationship between deformation and reactive forces. An assembly algorithm adopting reciprocal twisting motion was proposed and the assembly tool design methodology was discussed.

• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.63-73
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• 1998

With the success of flexible manufacturing systems(FMSs), flexible assembly systems(FASs) have been developed to automatic factories further. As in a cellular FMS, a celluar FAS is considered as the most flexible and feasible assembly systems configuration. This paper presents a method for the integrated layout design in cellular FASs. Unlike the traditional paper, this paper deals with the formation of cells and the layout of cells for jobs with operation times on different machines. The procedure in this paper consists of two distinct phases. The first phase presents machine arrangement in a double rows flowline. cell formation not to allow intercellular movements, and integrated layout design in cellular FASs considering the characteristics of FAS, layout, and production factors This phase uses older optimal algorithm. The second phase proposes to balance the system with an objective of reducing the degree of workload deviation in the cells. Simulated annealing method is used to balance the system. This phase also shows the integrated layout design in cellular FASs with the cost less than total cost of the first phase.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 1997.10a
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• pp.1395-1398
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• 1997

Flexible parts comparing with rigid parts can be deformed by contact force during assembly. for successful assembly, information about their deformation as well as possible misalignment between mating parts is essential. Howecer, because of the complex relationship between parts deformation and reaction forces, it is difficult to acquire all required information from the reaction forces alone. In this paper, we measure parts deformation and misalignments by using the visual sensing system presented for flexible parts assembly. Experimental results show that the system can be effectively used for detecting parts deformation and misalignments between mating parts.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 1996.10b
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• pp.632-635
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• 1996

Flexible parts can be deformed by the contact forces during assembly on the con to rigid parts and thus their successful assembly requires informations about their deformation as well as a misalignment between mating parts. However, because of the nonlinear and complex relationship between parts deformation and assembly reaction forces, it is difficult to acquire all required informations from only the reaction forces during assembly. In this paper, we propose a sensing system consisting of a camera and multiple mirrors for flexible parts assembly. Simulation results show that the system can be effectively used for detecting parts deformation and a misalignment between mating parts.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 1993.10a
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• pp.1089-1094
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• 1993

A pilot system for flexible automatic assembly has been built at ASRI in Seoul National University. The system is designed for being capable of assembling different variants and products. The system consists of three industrial robots, four free-flow conveyors, automatic tool changers, RCC and fixtures. This paper describes the concept and the technical solutions of the developed flexible assembly cell. Results of performance evaluation using colored petri net are also presented and discuss.

• IE interfaces
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.208-217
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• 2004

This paper deals with a process planning problem in the flexible assembly system (FAS). The problem is to assign assembly tasks to stations with limited working space and to determine assembly routing with the objective of minimizing transfer time of the products among stations, while satisfying precedence relations among the tasks and upper-bound workload constraints for each station. In the process planning of FAS, the optimality of assembly routing depends on tasks loading. The integration of tasks loading and assembly routing is therefore important for an efficient utilization of FAS. To solve the integrated problem at the same time, in this paper we propose a new method using an artificial intelligent search technique, named 2-leveled symbiotic evolutionary algorithm. Through computational experiments, the performance of the proposed algorithm is compared with those of a traditional evolutionary algorithm and a symbiotic evolutionary algorithm. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms the algorithms compared.