Case study: the impact of assembly reorientations on assembly time

Many prior-assembly planners have considered the number of assembly direction reorientations as an assembly sequence evaluation and selection criterion for assembly sequence planning. However, little study has been conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the selected assembly sequences. This paper studies the impact of assembly direction reorientations on assembly time. Results of the case study show that, for both robot and human operator assembly processes, the number of reorientations in an assembly sequence has a significant impact on assembly time. The results support the study research hypothesis that using an assembly sequence which requires more assembly direction reorientations results in longer assembly time. The study conducted in this paper helps verify and quantify the importance and effectiveness of reducing the number of assembly direction reorientations in assembly sequence planning.