Knowledge-based application to define aircraft final assembly lines at the industrialisation conceptual design phase

Abstract

The design of an aircraft Final Assembly Line (FAL) is part of the product industrialisation process. The FAL conceptual design phase is characterised by being time-consuming and depending heavily on personnel knowledge and experience. The need to develop methods and tools to enhance the design of aircraft assembly lines is acknowledged by academia and industry. This work proposes a knowledge-based prototype application to assist and guide designers in the definition and evaluation of conceptual FAL alternatives. A digital FAL is part of the industrial digital mock-up (iDMU) and comprises three structures: product, processes and resources (PPR). The implementation of the proposed application was carried out in a commercial software system supporting the PPR structures and the iDMU. The executed case studies show the feasibility of the proposed approach, which can be considered as a starting point contribution to the field.

Keywords:

• aircraft final assembly line conceptual design
• aircraft assembly line modelling
• knowledge-based application development
• iDMU

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank the AIRBUS Group colleagues for their support and contribution during the development of this work.