Model your assembly process

Assembly Process Validation

Perform virtual assembly validation on large 3D models. Start validating the assembly process as soon as preliminary designs are released — no need to wait for prototypes. Find and fix issues early to improve quality, reduce costs and shorten time-to-market.

Common Challenges

• Assembly planning and validation often starts after the design is complete, delaying the discovery of assembly issues.
• Assembly validation often requires physical prototypes that are slow and expensive to produce.
• Digital assembly validation solutions often cannot handle large models due to hardware and software limitations.
• Design changes usually require slow and costly revalidation of previous results.

Assembly Process Validation Overview

Traditional assembly process validation starts with the design release. Then physical prototypes are often used to develop and check the assembly processes. When an assembly issue is discovered, fixing it may require updating the assembly process or even the product design. The longer it takes to find an issue, the higher the cost to fix it. Issues that are discovered after production starts have the highest cost — not only do they stop production, but the fix may require updating the design and the production process and reworking or scrapping the existing production.

Lattice Technology’s assembly process validation solution avoids these problems. It starts by converting your heavy 3D CAD data into lightweight XVL. Then you can use Lattice Technology tools to easily define the assembly processes. The data is so lightweight that you can easily visualize and validate the entire assembly process on the full 3D model. In this way, you can perform digital assembly validation in XVL without waiting for the completion of design and without prototypes.

Key Benefits of the Lattice Technology Solution

Start Assembly Validation Early in the Process

With Lattice Technology you can build and validate the entire assembly process as soon as you have an initial release of the product model. There is no need to wait for final release, or even for a complete model, before starting assembly planning and validation. This enables you to find and fix assembly issues early — often before the design is complete.

Reduce or Eliminate the Need for Physical Prototypes

With Lattice Technology, you can validate the entire assembly process using only design data — no physical prototypes are required. Find and fix assembly issues before the design is compete. Then when the design is released, the assembly process will have already been validated. You can still check the assembly process with physical prototypes, but expect to need far fewer than before. Eventually, you may not need physical prototypes at all.

Use the Entire 3D Model to Validate the Complete Assembly Process

Lattice Technology solutions can handle very large 3D models such as full vehicles. This makes it possible to validate the entire 3D model without having to split it into subassemblies. That makes the validation process more efficient, requiring one validation check instead of multiple independent checks. Also, validating against all parts at once eliminates the possibility of missing issues with that were left out of the initial check.

When the Design Updates, Easily Verify the Fixes

Lattice Technology can carry forward validation results from previous models into new versions. When the design updates, you can easily check the assembly issues in the new model and verify that they are resolved. This makes the validation process faster and more efficient.

Additional Benefits of the Lattice Technology Solution

Quick and Easy Assembly Planning

Lattice Technology enables you to quickly and easily plan assembly processes. Easily build an mBOM by dragging and dropping from the eBOM or the 3D model. Then build your process list by dragging and dropping from the mBOM or the 3D view. Quickly add comments, times and other metadata to the process steps. Easily animate the steps or draw illustrations.

More Validation Tools

In addition to assembly process validation, Lattice Technology has solutions to check other aspects of the processes. Use human mannequins to check safety and workability. Add tools and fixtures to check the feasibility of the operations. These features and more are available in the Lattice Technology solutions.

Visualize Processes in VR

With Lattice Technology you can visualize your processes in VR. Performing verification with full-scale 3D models in virtual reality puts you in the drivers seat and enables you to find problems that may not be apparent with standard digital verification.

Generate Issue Reports Directly from 3D Models

Lattice Technology offers the ability to record any 3D scene, add annotations and markup, and create issue reports. This documentation can be generated with or without embedded 3D data. Providing clear, easy-to-understand reports in 2D and 3D enhances collaboration between manufacturing and design and gives the designers the information they need to quickly understand and resolve assembly issues.

Solution Videos

Here is a short overview video that describes some Lattice Technology assembly validation techniques.

Lattice Products Used in this Solution

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