The main objective of the authors is to deliver specifications and underlying concepts for future computer-aided tools for the design and the control of flexible manufacturing systems for mechanical and electro-mechanical assemblies. This book presents an integrated computer-aided method which supports a concurrent engineering approach for assembled products. This integrated method is divided in several modules which analyse the ease of assembly of a design, the assembly order, the design of an assembly workshop, and the simulation of the workshop taking into account scheduling and flow control. Automatic, semi-automatic and manual utilisations are presented for each module. Communication between design and manufacturing has been emphasised. The environment in this book is a real concurrent engineering one and for the first time the concurrent engineering steps are integrated in a CAD system. The method has been implemented in one of the world's most used CAD systems: CATIA.
