Extended Assemblability Evaluation Method (AEM)* (Extended Quantitative Assembly Producibility Evaluation for Assembled Parts and Products) Toshijiro OHASHI**, Minoru IWATA**, Shoji ARIMOTO** and Seii MIYAKAWA** The Assemblability Evaluation Method (AEM) is an effective tool developed by Hitachi, Ltd, to improve design quality for better assembly producibility, The AEM has been widely used by the Hitachi Group as well as by more than 20 other well Known companies around the world. Using this method, in the early design stage, product design quality is analyzed quantitatively and weaknesses in the design's assembly producibility are highlighted. In addition, the effects of design improvements are confirmed with respect to assembly cost. ‘Through these activities, design improve: ‘ment is realized. In order to improve the functionality and the accuracy of the method to allow a wide variety of use, the extended AEM has been developed. Based on a constructed product and process model, a new evaluation system has been developed and part-based cost estimation has been realized. In this paper, the concept, theory, evaluation procedure, and accuracy of the extended method are described. Key Words: Assembly, Design, Modeling, Production Engineering, Design Engineer- 567 ing, CAE, Simulation, Assembly Producibility, Concurrent Engineering 1. Introduetion Designing products so that they are easy to pro- duce is referred to as “producibility design”. Producibility design is an effective way to reduce manufacturing cost. In order to systematically improve product design for better producibility, exact recognition of the product's design quality level and ‘weaknesses is essential. Previously, the authors devel: ‘oped a design evaluation method called the Assem- blabitity Evaluation Method (hereafter, referred to as AEM) as a simple method for evaluating assem blability (assembly produeibility) and as an aid to the generation of design drawings of products and their composing parts having good assemblability ‘Through the use of the AFM, the authors have learned that the method should be improved for higher capa: bility. Thus, the Extended Assemblability Evaluation Method was developed. In this paper, we give an * Received 12th January, 2001 ** 3Production Engineering Research Laboratory, Hitachi, Ltd, 292 Yoshida-cho, Totsuka-ku, Yok hhama 244-0817, Japan. E-mail : ohashi @perLhitachi. coip JSME International Journal overview of the Extended AEM, concentrating on its theoretical base and evaluation structure. 2 Conventional Work and Areas of Improvement, 2.1 Conventional work Technology that assesses the quality or charae- teristics of product design from the assembly producibility viewpoint is referred to as an “assem- blability evaluation method” or “Design for Assem- bly”. Various methods have been reported and widely used” and the majority of these have been devel- oped and performed at private manufacturing com- panies. The theoretical background of the caleulation formulas used in these methods are regarded as tech: nological know-how, and, with only a few exceptions, the theoretical details and performance of the methods including their accuracy have not been dis closed. Based on the disclosed papers, the basic process of these methods can be categorized into two groups, One is configuration-based input, and the other is process based input. Several of the disclosed ‘methods have reported that the detail of the formulas were determined based on experience alone. In this paper, the authors intend to report the theoretical Series G, Vol. 45, No.2, 2002568 contents and considerations of their method, 2.2 Outline of conventional AEM ‘The conventional AEM (hereafter, referred to AEM-1 was constructed and used as follows®™ (1) ‘The evaluation system structure (a) All assembly operations are categorized into approximately 20 elemental operations and are refer red to as basic evaluation elements, Each element is assigned a symbol mark (referred to as an AEM symbol) which clearly indicates the content of the operation. (>) Among these operations, the easiest one, the downward attachment operation, is chosen as the standard basic element, (e) A penalty score is attached to each of these basic elements. The penalty score is proportional to the increment of the element's average operation time from that of the standard basic element. The penalty score for the standard basic element is 0. (2). ‘The evaluation calculation process (a) Express assembly operations for the parts that compose the product using a combination of elemental operations (b) Sum up the penalty scores of the elemental ‘operations for the part and modify the sum to account for the complexity of the overall assembly operation, ice, the total number of required elemental operations, ‘The part AEM Score, the assemblability quality calculated by subtracting it from 100, the full (ce) The product AEM Score is calculated as the average value of the part AEM Scores of all the parts in the product. (d) Using the produet’s AEM Score and the num ber of parts, the assembly time and cost are estimated. 2.3 Key points for improving the AEM-I As the first practical assembly-producibility eval uation method®~, the AEM-I has been widely used and has achieved great cost reductions. However, through practical use, the authors have found that the following areas require improvement. (a) Cost estimation capability is not sufficient and the part attachment cost cannot be estimated with practical accuracy. (b) The AEM Score should be more closely related to the estimated part attachment operation cost. In order to satisfy the requirements mentioned above, the following goals were set for improvement. Goal 1. Accurate part attachment cost estimation capability is necessary to allow the AEM to be applied for, more widely, such as, more efficient part design improvement, production line planning, production time estimation, etc. ‘This part level cost estimation Series C, Vol. 45, No.2, 2002 function will require a more precise evaluation scheme that reflects more factors besides the basic elements, Goal 2. To generate an AEM Score that is more closely related to the estimated part attachment oper: ation cost. In the AEM-I, the part AEM score was defined based on the basic element coefficient that reflects the average difficulty of the individual ele- ment. In order to improve the accuracy, a more precise cost model must be used. 3. Structure of the Extended AEM 3.1 Construction of the evaluation system ‘The goal of this work is to develop an assembly producibility evaluation function that visualizes one characteristic of a product and its composing parts, the degree of assembly operation efficiency required for the product and the parts, and that provides infor- mation useful for design improvement activities. In order to construct the evaluation scheme, the assem: bly characteristics and the assembly operation model were considered. ‘The assemblability evaluation uses the most appropriate information related to the behavior or characteristics of the assembled product or part and the related assembly operation in order to ‘output information that indicates the efficiency of the assembly process, ‘To develop the evaluation system, the following, three items must be considered. (1) What the output should be, (2) What the input information should be, and (3) How can the input information be converted to output information. Figure 1 shows the operation model of an assem. bly station. Here, the output information should be deter- mined by taking how it is used into account, and the input information should be chosen by takings avail: ability into account. Figure 2 shows how the related information is processed through the designing, evalu- ation and production phases. In this regard, the output information should be determined first, by taking how it will be used into account, At the same Conwa inn Aamcingpan of som Rocaving pan —>| ASSOMBIY| Asset, \_ ae) Production information Fig. 1 Assembly process and evaluation information JSME Insernasional Journaltime, the input information should be chosen by taking its availability, that is, whether the information can be properly obtained or not, into account. Once the input and output information have been determined, it is necessary to determine the mechanism needed to convert the input information into the output informa- tion, 3.2. Definition of “ease of assembling” In order to determine the target output of the evaluation system, the concept of ease of assembling must be defined. There are many ways of expressing how easily a product is assembled and the authors have considered these with respect to the assembled product and processes shown in Fig. 1. For instance, the following, can all be used to express ease of assembling: simplicity of operation, how easy it is to automate part feeding and the attaching operation, and whether special tools are required. However, the following definition was adopted in order to defining the concept of ease of assembling, quantitatively. A part is said to be “easy to assemble” when its assembling expense is small. Reflecting this concept, AEM evaluation indices, in particular its unique \dex, AEM Score, is defined as shown in Table 1. Together with this concept, other information such as assembly operation cost index is also used as the output of the evaluation system. 3.3 Input information ‘With respect to the information items described in Figs. 1 and 2, the information suitable to be used as input information for evaluation purposes is consid: ered in the following manner : ‘Table 1 ‘The relationship between AEM Score, assem. blability, and assembly cost [Sa | tel hapa ASTER | cunea | com) ABs | ake | Law Production Ifxmation Evshiton ncaaton Fey Fig. 2 Production information and evaluation infortnation processing JSME International Journal 569 (a) The input information should be chosen so that designers, the principal users of the method, can easily generate input information utilizing available knowledge and data (b) The input information should be the items that are directly controlled by design changes for improvement. AEM-I adopted process information for basic analysis elements. In the Extended AEM (hereafter, referred to AEM-II), this concept has been adopted again together with geometrical information for supplementary elements, Since the output of the evaluation is tightly related to the assembly process parameter, i. operation cost or time as defined in the previous section, the above combination is good for obtaining an accurate evaluation result with a simple and easy evaluation process. In other words, produc- tion or process features are used as basic elements, and design features as supplementary elements. More concretely, the input information is deter- mined as follows : (a) Define basic elements and the standard basic element EMCI adopts approximately 20 elemental oper- ations as the basic evaluation elements, and each of them is assigned an AEM symbol. They are kinds of manufacturing “features", a kind of attribute for a part. Among these operations, the easiest one; the downward attachment operation, is chosen as the standard basic element. This scheme is the same as that used in AEM-I. ‘The number of these basic elements was determined by considering both simpli city and evaluation accuracy. If the number of basic elements is many, the evaluation accuracy will be better but inconvenient to use. Therefore, approxi- mately 20 is a trade-off of between accuracy and simplicity. The kinds of elements are the same as those of AEM-L (b) Define supplementary elements Besides the basic elements, define supplementary elements that significantly influence assembly opera- tion time. It is necessary that the number of supple: ‘mentary elements is as few as possible, while preserv- ing the evaluation accuracy, in order to allow easier evaluation. Actually, the supplementary elements are part size, dimensional accuracy, configurational and orientational accuracy, and repetition. (c) A specific coefficient is provided to each of the basic and supplementary elements ‘The theory how to determine the coefficients is going to be discussed in section 25. 3.4 Basie process of evaluation index calculation ‘The basic information processing scheme of the evaluation system shown in Fig. 2 means the follows: (a) Attaching operation time for a part is Series C, Vol. 5, No. 2, 2002570 ‘expressed as a function of basic and supplementary element coefficients. (>) Using the estimated part attachment time value, the part AEM score is calculated. ‘The product AEM score is calculated as the average value of the part AEM scores, ‘The more detail calculation steps are as shown in Fig. 3. 8.5 Calculation formulas for the evaluation 3.5.1. Calculation of part attachment cost and time For a part “i, the attachment time 27: and attachment cost Cr are expressed by the following ‘equations. Te=DeTu aM Cent @) where 4: shop rate of the assembly shop where part “i” is attached Ty: attaching time of part “i. (A part is attached by multiple operations sometimes such as “movement joining”. Subscripted prefix“. denotes “assembly”. As assembly operation cost can be expressed using operation time through Eq.(2) and vice versa, shop operation time is used for the reminder of the explana- tion. ‘The attachment time for the jth operation of part i" can also be expressed as follows : aTs=fi (design factor, production environment factor) a) where “design factor” is a factor that influences at: taching operation time, and is determined by design information alone using the basic elements and supple ‘mentary elements, and “production environment fac tor” isa factor that determines the operation speed of the shop, and is influenced by conditions such as the capability of workers, performance of facilities, etc, Equation (3) is extended as follows assuming that the influences of the product's design factor and the shop conditions on the attachment operation time are independent of each other. See, | team) | RR Fig. 3 Information processing in AEM evaluation Series C, Vol. 5, No.2, 2002 Tu=Je (basic coefficient, supplementary coefficient, production environment factor) (a) =f (structure coefficient) *2To=aDy* «To . (3) where Tor: shop basic assembly time, a constant that reflects the average operation speed of the shop. Dy: structural coefficient that indicates the assembly operation complexity for the jth operation of part “i”, and is determined by structural information alone. It reflects the assembly processing time of the operation and is expressed in terms of the standard basic element (1) for which Di=1. «To is defined as the time required for assembly of a part with standard basic (1) and supplemental cle- ments in the shop where part “i” is to be assembled. ‘An efficient shop with high speed operation has a small value. This value is determined by using the formula (6) that is derived from formula (5). The structural coefficient of a product or parts obtained from AEM evaluation and the actual assembly opera- tion time data for that product or parts are inputted and the «To: for the shop that produced the product is processed is calculated. aTo=DaTe] DD (6) where ZaTy: sum of the assembly operation time of the product ZeDe: sum of the structural coefficient of the prod uct Although this value actually differs from station to station, an average value is considered because the purpose of the evaluation is to evaluate design quality. If the operation of a particular part has very different characteristics from the rest of the shop, it is possible to assign that operation a specific shop basic time, 3.5.2 Determination of design factors and hasie elements The estimated attachment time «Ts for the jth operation of part “2” and «7; for part “i” are defined as follows: aT y= Tot flaBuy ou, abi, oBin a0) @ T= 2Tott BfAeBe, whey abt, al as) (8) ‘where aBis: basic coefficient for the jth operation of the part “i. For (4), 1 is given, wy: size coefficient for the jth operation of the part “i". For the standard size, 1 is given. ajuy: dimensional accuracy coefficient for the jth operation of part “/". For the standard accuracy, 1 is given. 63: configurational and orientational accuracy JSME International Journalcoefficient for the jth operation of part “i”. For the standard accuracy condition, 1 is given, avy? repetition coefficient for the jth operation of part “i", For the standard condition, 1 is siven. In order to determine the basic element coefficient Bu, the following equation is used : Bu eTalaTo, (9) ‘where Tz: the attachment operation time for a part that is attached by only one element “x”. All other evaluation elements are the same as that of the part to be evaluated. «Ts: the attachment operation time for a part that is attached by only one basic element * &". ‘All other evaluation elements are the same as that of the part to be evaluated. Assembly operation time data for Ts and «Ts were collected for various products from a number of fac: tories. Using this data, the values of «4 of all the basic elements were determined. Examples of elemental operations and coeffi are shown in Table 2. 3.5.3 Determination of supplementary coefli- cients Each of the supplementary coefficients «Au, tts, a8, and ays in Eq.( 7) are also defined in Ea.(9), and their values were determined in a similar manner to «Su. Examples of supplementary coefficients are shown in Fig, 4 3.5.4 Calculation of AEM score The part AEM Score ef; is defined so that it decreases when the attaching difficulty of a part, ie., assembly opera- 1 cost oC, of operation time «7; increases, as described in Table 1. More concretely, ‘part AEM. Score 2B." for the part "i" is defined by the following nts 571 formula: aEv=f: (estimated assembly operation cost) fe (design factor) Jo (elemental coefficient, supplementary. coefficient) 100-~ (part elimination score) 100~a2[(eTifa To) 1] a0) where at: constant value that determines the sensitivity, of the AEM score to the attaching time incre- ment. the part attachment operation time of a part the size of which is equivalent to that of part “i". All the other factors are the same as for standard conditions. 3.5.5 Product AEM score Product AEM Score is defined as the average of the AEM scores of all parts in the product. Product AEM Score = (3 Part AEM Score) /(Number of parts in the product) (1) oT or Evaluation Example and Accuracy of ‘the Method 4.1 Evaluation example ‘The example structures shown in Table 3 satisfy a design requirement that block B is attached to base A in a certain orientation, Attaching operations required for each part are expressed using the AEM symbols. (1D. The AEM evaluation process for structure 1 is as follows. (a) Bring down base A on the assembly table. (b) Bring down block B onto base A, and hold it, (c) . Bring down bolt C while rotating, and fasten. By representing the individval part operations using the basic and supplementary elements, and by Table 2 Basle element examples entering them into a PC software program, various evaluation indices including part/product AEM scores Gagan | Basic eenentexnple [AEM ombol Coeicert Movement Somers “SG | a9 ‘Table 3 AEM evaluation examples ya! [ih acoepese nce | Pate eemreer, aE [toes oineg | Stdeng Se s | 22 | eg Saeem toe (= Ey E=: na | 18 | 10] © ~ [srmsenene | 50 earn) Lawes Ton (Wag alpnisonta) 1 sag opt te ote Sis coetcen Cotiestnal cota 2 4 Examples of supplementary elements and their coefficient Geeta JSME Incernational Journal Ey «fr | opoe| 3 Fane 8 | By, eamse | 09 | 100 Series C, Vol. 45, No. 2, 20025722 and the AEM cost index are calculated. ‘The calculated product AEM score of 76 for structure 1 means that the assembly dificulty of this structure is equivalent to a structure composed of three patt with a part AEM score of 76. ‘The lowest scoring part, bolt C, is the first part to be reviewed for improvernent to be improved. (2) In structure 2, the lowest scoring part in structure I has been eliminated and the attaching operation for block B is changed to being press-ftted to base A. The product AEM score has been im: proved to 88. The product AEM cost index «50% means that structure 2 will be assembled at 50% of the assembly cost of structure 1 under the same shop ‘conditions. In this manner, the AEM cost index represents the effect of design improvement alone, (3) Structure 3 is the ultimate improvement result. As a result of reducing the number of parts, block B is joined to the base and the assembly opera tion is no longer necessary. In this manner, the AEM evaluates the assembly structure, and facilitates design improvements for assembly cost reduction. 4.2. Accuracy of the Extended AEM Assemblability is an abstract concept and thus dificult to measure directly. For this reason, we have been using the assembly cost as an indicator of the AEM's accuracy. ‘The estimated assembly cost index eK and the actual index oC/aCz are compared. Here, «Cz the assembly cost of a standard product. If the deviation of «K from aC«Cs is small for many prod: ucts, then it is reasonable to conclude that the approach and the assumed conditions are acceptable Figure 5(a) shows the results of cost index calcula tions for products evaluated using the AEM-II. ‘The deviation of the o values from the «C/«Cs values for various products is within =5%. Figure 5(b) shows the result of individual part evaluation. The evalua: tion error is within +159. ‘These results imply that (1) The AEM can be used for a wide variety of produets with an accuracy sufficient for practical purposes, (2) The AENCII can estimate assembly opera. tion cost on an individual part level. ‘The result shows that user's subjected influence con the result was small. The result also means that if the assembly operation cost of a standard product (before improvement) is known together with the o values of a new product, the assembly cost of the new product prior to actual production can be calculated within this error range. 5. PC-based Calculation System ‘The AEM has been developed into a personal Series C, Vol. 45, No. 2, 2002 £4 £ Weaeraee 5 vans ace 5 “Vacium cleaner i vom F *) natynatee 3 “Polen nt g 3 oduct | on a4 ~ g 1 &, i |Z a ost 452 ‘Actual product ase'y cost index (C/C" 2K aS a OO = ST tar (a) Product evaluation accuracy of AEM [Siatng rostre Dba och acing aire tan son — [@:vacwm case tutor owch vacuum case! has swe Bo} Bog} 3 £ L 5 G os04oe0s 152 3 4 ‘Actual part attachment cost index (C/C;} Aon EDR neg 0/5 URES (b) Part evaluation accuracy of AEM Fig. 5 Accuracy of the new AB} computer based software program and can be com: bined with other design evaluation tools such as the Assembly Reliability Evaluation Method and the Recyclability/Disassemblability Evaluation Method as shown in Fig.6. The input data file of one of these evaluation methods can be used for other the methods, In addition, the product data in a BOM, Bill Of Materials table, or PDM, Product Data Management system can be easily converted and used for evalua tion by using a simple conversion program. Figure 7 shows an example input screen. A user- friendly Explorer®-tike tree representation helps facil itate editing of part and subassembly order and combi: nations. Pop-up menus help easy input of basic ele- ment symbols and supplementary elements, Figure 8 shows an example output screen. The evaluation result for the entire product is shown at the top of the screen. Then, the evaluation results for JSME Insernational Journalindividual parts are displayed in assembling order. ‘The evaluation results for the parts listed in descend: ing AEM Score order are also available, 6. Conclusion In order to improve assembly productivity extended Assemblability Evaluation Method has been developed. It is constructed based on the modeling of assembly process, and has the features described as follows: (a) Accurate and useful AEM indices that reflect the ease of product and part assembling. AEM cost index error within +5-10% for Supplementary element can be selected fom the part characteristic menus 573 redociy Evalatin ae ‘Metel” (PEMD sin [escinge (REM) ‘producdily || Assemblability ‘Disasernblaiity | Rate | uateton etd |fo4 | eee DEM) ‘semua mean “ana aay a cmaprcvrc waa *3D-CADIBOM data are effectively used integrated CAB) ‘on Production Engineering + Maliple methods share the same input data Fig. 6 Assemblability Evaluation Method (AEM) and related methods art attributes input ‘window, ie. operation symbols, ete Basic element symbol selection window Fig. 7 Example of input screen ‘Ouiput format | seleetion menu Output format ‘convenient for identifying parts to be improved “Evaluation result for product Fig. § Example of output screen JSME Invernational Journal Series C, Vol 45, No.2, 2002Sm product, and +15% for part, respectively. =100 point maximum AEM Score: expressing the ease of assembly. It is closely related to the estimated attachment operation cost. (b) Part attachment cost estimation function based on the assembly process and the utilization of assembly operation time of existing product, (c) Simple theory and system: makes it easy to acquire and use. ‘The accuracy of the method was tested and proven to be effective through many various applica- tions. The system has been widely used within and outside of Hitachi group companies. 7. Acknowledgements The authors are grateful to the late Mr. Manabu Tkeda who was a co-developer of the method, Mr. Osamu Taniguchi at the Production Engineering Department of Hitachi, Ltd. for his effective advice, and to the many engineers at Hitachi, Ltd. who contributed to effective discussion through out the development and who provided valuable data. References (1) Boothroyd, G., Design for Producibility, Assembly Engineering, March (1982), pp. 42-45. Series C, Vel. 45, No.2, 2002 @ a) a 6) a (a) oo ‘Wameck, HJ. and Bassler, R., Design for Assem- bly Part of the Design Process, Ann. CIRP, Vol 37, No.1 (1988), p. 1. Yamagiwa, Y, An Assembly Ease Evaluation Method for Product Design: DAC, Technological pn, (in Japanese), (1989), pp. 21-12 Takahashi, K., Produciblity Evaluation Method ‘That Was Realized by Combining Design Evalua- tion and Design Improvement Procedure, Sek- kei & Seizu, (in Japanese), Vol.26, No. 1 (1990), pp. 18-22 Miyakawa, S. and Ohashi, T, The Hitachi Assem- biability Evaluation Mrthod (AEM), Proceedings of Ist Int. Conf. on Product Design for Assembly (1986) Hock, G, After Five Years, What GE Has Learned, Proceedings of Ist Int. Conf. on Product Design For Assembly, (1988) Miyakawa, S. and Ohasi, T., The Hitachi Assem: biability Evaluation Method (AEM) and Its Applications, Journees de Microtechnique 88 (1988), pp. 99-114 Miyakawa, S, and Ohashi, T., New Ascem- blability Bvaluation Method, 1990 Trans. NAMRI/SME, (1990), pp. 352-259 Ohashi, T., Arimoto, S, Iwata, M. and Miyakawa, S, Producibility Evaluation Method (PEM), Trans. Jpn. Soc. Mech. Eng., (in Japanese), Vol. 67, No. 685, C (2001), pp. 660-666. JSME International Journal