A study on introducing supplier process capacity database into tolerance design

Abstract

Tolerance design plays an important role in product development, which guarantees that the product appearance and function meet the product design specification. However, the existing tolerance analysis overlooks the process capacity of part suppliers, which results in variance of tolerance analysis between the designed product and the manufactured one. This study builds the supplier process capacity database with the production part approval process (PAPP), which is then introduced into the design phase for tolerance analysis. The results show the difference of tolerance analysis between conventional law of experience and supplier process capability database, and actual part dimensions are, respectively: (1) X axis: 601, 654, 640 DPPM; (2) Y axis: 964, 8290, 8535 DPPM; (3) Z axis: 29, 4798, 4557 DPPM. Further the study gives a detailed introduction to the construction method of the supplier process capacity database, which can provide reference for the product designers to improve the product design quality.