Virtual design and manufacturing has become a key technology in reducing both design errors and manufacturing cost. In order to have a realistic evaluation, the cost of assembling, disassembling, and manufacturing a product has to be realized. A product's design and its manufacturability will give an overall manufacturing efficiency and production cost. To eliminate future production failure and control the cost, management has to be able to foresee and evaluate the whole process from design to production, easily and wisely. In recognizing the importance of this capability, a CAE/CAD/CAM Product (C3P) management tool based on a structured product coding system (SPCS) is developed for the process of virtual design and manufacturing.

An automatic method for generating assembly instructions using CAD files is presented. Algorithms for extracting geometrical information of objects stored in a non-proprietary format, ISO-10303, STEP-CAD data file are explained. The developed algorithms form an important link between design and manufacturing. In our previous work, (Mok et al., 2000, 1999, Wu and Kim, 1994, and Kim and Wu, 1990) we designed a hierarchical assembly model that allows designers to evaluate products for manufacturing cost using a structured assembly coding system (SACS). Each SACS code represents a sequence of assembling/disassembling operations for mating two parts. The developed algorithms in this paper generate the required SACS codes based on the geometrical and topological information extracted from the STEP files of a product in a CAD environment. Based on the generated SACS codes, the proper assembly operations can then be derived for assembling the designed product. An example of assembly with simple parts is presented to verify the method.

A system for evaluating products in their design phase has been developed for virtual manufacturing. It is integrated into a CAD/CAM environment to calculate the cost for assembling and disassembling parts. In our earlier work, a generic assembly and disassembly model was developed to represent operations required for product manufacturing and de-manufacturing. To be useful, the model requires a method for translating high-level instructions from product designers into low-level assembly and disassembly instructions. This paper presents a set of rules for accomplishing this task. The developed rules are used for manipulating strings representing parts and handlers in binary assembly and disassembly operations. A telephone assembly and disassembly simulation is used to illustrate the developed system.

A system for evaluating products in their design phase has been developed. It is integrated into a CAD/CAM environment to calculate cost for assembling and disassembling parts. In previous work, a generic assembly and disassembly model was developed to represent operations required for product manufacturing and demanufacturing. To be useful, the model requires a method for translating high-level instructions from product designers into low-level assembly and disassembly instructions. This paper presents a set of rules for accomplishing this task. The developed rules are used for manipulating strings representing parts and handlers in binary assembly and disassembly operations. A telephone assembly and disassembly simulation is used to illustrate the developed system.