Product Assembly Information to Improve Virtual Product Development

Integrating product engineering and process planning (e. g. assembly process planning) is a relevant research theme of the last years. Primary objective is the reduction of costs and time-to-market in modern product engineering processes. In this paper the concept of Product Assembly Information is presented to support the assembly-oriented product engineering and to reinforce the integration of product development and assembly process planning. Product Assembly Information contains assembly time-relevant product criteria and is an essential part of continuous data exchange between product development and process planning.