Fixtures are crucial to new manufacturing techniques and largely dictate
the level of flexibility a manufacturing system can achieve. Advanced
Fixture Design for FMS provides a systematic basis for the selection
and design of fixturing systems. It gives a review of the current state
of the art of flexible and reconfigurable fixturing systems. Recent
developments in design methodology using CAD are analysed in depth.
Fixture design is seen as an inseparable part of process planning. The
primary objective of a fixture system is to ensure that the part being
manufactured can be made consistently within the tolerance specified in
the design. A new method of tolerance analysis is used to check the
suitability of location surfaces and the sequence of operations and is
explained in detail.