Design of fixture systems in automotive manufacturing and assembly

Fixture systems have a great importance in modern manufacturing and assembly because of the high number of scenarios in which they are used. Fixture design is a complex task since the system effectiveness depends both on position and type of locators. Several authors deal with the problem of determine the most suitable design for fixture systems but their investigation is commonly limited to the evaluation of the effects due to the locators’ position. In the present work a design method is proposed to evaluate the fixture systems considering also the locators’ type. Since it is possible to model the fixtures as multi-performance systems, the comparison is performed by introducing appropriate sensitivity indexes. The effectiveness of the design method is proved through the application to an automotive case study.