Automated configuration of parametric feeding tools for mass customization

Mass customization is a dominant new trend in modern manufacturing, where by industries are required to produce umpteen variations of products at costs approaching those achievable in mass production. Among the methods to tackle this demand is development of flexible tooling which operates at high throughput rates. A suite of such tools called MPATS (a Modular, Parametric, Assembly Tool Set) is developed for this. The paper introduces MPATS, and also describes a computer-aided planning system to automatically configure MPATS.