A sub-assembly division method based on community detection algorithm

ABSTRACT

Assembly sequence planning is always a great challenge in complex product assembly. Subassembly division is a way that can validly decrease the complexity of assembly sequence planning problem. Above all, assemblies comprising parts with different connection relationships can be modelled as the weighted graph in which the weighted adjacent list is used to accomplish calculation of the subassembly division. A weighted adjacency list generation method is presented for generating the list quickly. Furthermore, according to the requirements of subassembly division and the connection relationships of actual parts, an optimized community detection algorithm based on Fast Newman algorithm is proposed. The weight assignment of different connection relationships and deviation parameters are introduced to improve the subassembly division results. Finally, the optimized algorithm is applied in the subassembly division process of a practical pumping unit, with the influence of the weight assignment and deviation parameters being analyzed in detail. The results show that the proposed algorithm has a good performance in terms of balance, stability and independence.

KEYWORDS:

• Subassembly division
• community detection algorithm
• assembly adjacency list
• community agglomerative algorithm

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [No.52075338], and Shanghai Key lab of Advanced Manufacturing Environment.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [52075338].