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Abstract

The ability to produce already assembled parts is a remarkable advantage of additive manufacturing

technology over traditional manufacturing. We define an assembly as a collection of parts that are

physically linked and share a common functional goal. Traceability of produced assemblies/parts is a must

for some key manufacturing verticals such as automotive, aerospace and medical. Meaning that all parts

must have proper and reliable identification system, thus enabling production and quality management

systems. Traceability of assemblies using part labels is challenging due to several factors. For instance,

some assembly part labels may not be visually accessible, thus blocking automated/manual quality

inspection or categorizations in later stages of the manufacturing line. Here, we propose an inspection

mechanism composed of virtual vision system to validate that an assembly labelling had been correctly

located prior production. Additionally, once the inspection on the virtual model finished, produced

information about the label and the labelling location can be communicated to automated quality inspection

machine vision systems, located at the end of the 3DP digital manufacturing workflow, to check that

physical assembly is consistent with the digital one. The method proposes alternatives in case identified

labels does not satisfy traceability criteria and notifies users accordingly. Since the mechanism is

implemented in the build preparation stage allows customers to save time and resources by avoiding the

production of non-operative produced parts.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 License.

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