int. j. prod. res., 1999, vol. 37, no.

17, 3995 4006

S tatistical tolerance synthesis using distribution function zones

CHUCK ZHANG{ *, JUN LUO{ and BEN WANG{
Tolerance is one of the most important parameters in design and manufacturing. Tolerance synthesis has a signi cant impact on manufacturing cost and product quality. In the international standards community two approaches for statistical tolerancing of mechanical parts are being discussed: process capability indices and distribution function zone. The distribution function zone (DFZone) approach de nes the acceptability of a population of parts by requiring that the distribution function of relevant values of the parts be bounded by a pair of speci ed distribution functions. In order to apply this approach to statistical tolerancing, one needs a method to decompose the assembly level tolerance speci cation to obtain tolerance parameters for each component in conjunction with a corresponding tolerance-cost model. This paper introduces an optimization-based statistical tolerance synthesis model based on the DFZone tolerance speci cations. A new tolerance-cost model is proposed and the model is illustrated with an assembly example.

1.

Introduction

Tolerance is one of the most important parameters in production and process design. It is de ned as the maximum deviation from a nominal speci cation within which the part is acceptable for its intended purpose. Tolerance is usually expressed as lower and upper deviations from a nominal value. Two types of tolerance are often used: design tolerance and manufacturing tolerance. Design tolerances are related to the functional requirements of an assembly or of a component. Manufacturing tolerances are mainly devised as a process plan for fabricating a part. Manufacturing tolerance must ensure the realization of design tolerance. Design tolerance has an impact on the manufacturing cycle time, quality and cost of a product (Zhang and Wang 1993a). Tolerance analysis involves the identi cation of related tolerances in an assembly or a mechanism and the calculation of the total stack-up of these related tolerances. In tolerance analysis, basically, the process of tolerance accumulation is modeled and the resultant tolerance is veri ed and checked against design speci cation. If design requirements are not met, tolerances are adjusted and the stack-up is recalculated. Tolerance synthesis is a process of allocating tolerance values associated with design requirements in terms of functionality or assemblability among identi ed design or manufacturing tolerances. Well-allocated tolerances can ensure that a product is produced with high quality at low cost.
Revision received January 1999. { Department of Industrial Engineering, Florida A&M University-Florida State University, College of Engineering, 2525 Pottsdamer Street, Tallahassee, FL 32310-6046, USA. * To whom correspondence should be addressed. e-mail: chzhang@eng.fsu.edu
International Journal of Production Research ISSN 0020 7543 print/ISSN 1366 588X online # 1999 Taylor & Francis Ltd http://www.tandf.co.uk/JNLS/prs.htm http://www.taylorandfrancis.com/J NLS/prs.htm

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A tolerancing problem can be solved with a conventional worst-case approach or a statistical approach. In case of mass production, product characteristics are more often statistically distributed than in a continuous manner, and the parameters of statistical distribution (e.g. mean, standard deviation) are the true quality indicators. Therefore, for mass production, it is more appropriate for a designer to use statistical tolerance for each part dimension rather than a conventional worst-case tolerance. Statistical tolerances characterize the statistical distributions of part characteristics in order to determine distributions of the assembly characteristic (Bjorke 1989). In the tolerancing literature, a considerable amount of research has been conducted for a wide range of tolerance analysis and synthesis problems using various approaches (Zhang and Wang 1993b, Vasseur et al. 1997, Chase and Greenwood 1988, Turner and Guilford 1992, Zhang and Wang 1992, Zhang 1996, Feng and Kusiak 1997). An important aspect of tolerancing, statistical tolerancing, has also received much attention. Statistical tolerance analysis was rst proposed by Mansoor (1963) . His method is based on the assumption that the component dimensions follow normal distribution and their resultant assembly tolerance can be obtained by using the root sum of square (RSS) method. Parkinson later generalized this technique as Z q 2 2 2 n r 1 2 3 If the tolerance range i ; i 1; 2; . . . ; n was assigned to be equal to 3 times the standard deviation of the normal distribution (i.e. Z 3), 99.73% of the resultant dimensions would fall in the range m r r = 2, where m r is the mean of the resultant dimension. Bjorke (1989) developed a method similar to the above model based on beta distribution. However, he assumed that the resultant dimension would follow a normal distribution. This assumption can cause inaccuracies if the number of components in the assembly is small. Chase and Greenwood (1988) introduced a uni ed tolerance analysis method based on the estimated mean shift. This was accomplished by selecting a shift factor f i for each component between 0.0 and 1.0. The resulting tolerance had the form s n n X X 2 r 1 f i i2 fi i
i 1 i 1

This method is e ective in dealing with mean-shift, if the shift factor can be estimated accurately. However, if the component dimensions are not normally distributed, this method will give inaccurate results. Turner and Guilford (1992) proposed a vector space approach for tolerance speci cation and implemented the scheme within a system called GEOTOL. This scheme can represent a few of the geometric tolerances such as location and orientation. However, analysis based on this scheme is computationally intensive and not readily adaptable for statistical tolerance analysis. Varghese et al. (1996) proposed a statistical tolerance analysis approach using the nite range probability density function and numerical convolution. Using this method, statistical analysis can be conducted with less computations and better accuracy. OConnor and Srinivasan (1997) proposed a new statistical tolerancing scheme, based on the speci cations of tolerancing, using the distributed function zone (DFZone). This scheme provides a promising solution to statistical tolerancing. The new approach has been applied to a case of statistical tolerance analysis

Statistical tolerance synthesis

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(OConnor and Srinivasan 1997, Srinivasan 1997). However, the statistical tolerance synthesis using DFZone speci cation has not been reported. In this study, an optimization based statistical tolerance synthesis model is proposed based on the DFZone tolerance speci cation. This model is demonstrated with an assembly example. The following sections provide details of the model and the example.
2. M ethodology

2.1.

Distribution function zone ( DFZone) In 1974 the West German Standards Organization made the rst serious attempt in the direction of codifying the statistical tolerancing by modifying the speci cation of a worst-case tolerance interval. The designer could specify a central subinterval of the worst-case interval and a percentage. It was interpreted as requiring a population of parts such that the values of all of the parts would lie in the worst-case interval. The percentage of values in the central subinterval would be at least the speci ed percentage, and the percentage of values in either of the remaining subintervals would be no more than half the remaining percentage. This means that in any acceptable population of parts, at least 86% of the 0:03 diameters shall be within 10:14 0:03, at most 7% shall be within 10:14 0:05 , and 0:05 at most 7% shall be within 10:14 0:03 . In addition, these parts shall be produced under a state of statistical control. To begin the development of the DFZone-based tolerancing model, several de nitions should be recalled (OConnor and Srinivasan 1997). A distribution function, denoted DF, is a non-decreasing, right-continuous function F mapping F : X 2 < ! F x 2 0; 1 with limx! 1 F x 0 and limx! 1 F x 1. Distribution functions are of interest in probability theory, because for any real random variable X, the function de ned for all X 2 < by Fx x Prf x Xg is a DF, which contains all probabilistic information about x. Conversely, any DF is the DF of some random variables. If L and U are two DFs with L X U X for all X, then we write L U. If F is a collection of DFs, then we denote by Z L ; U; F the collection of DFs bounded by L and U, that is

We refer to Z L ; U; F as the DFZone in F bounded by L and U. The choice of F restricts attention to a relevant family of distributions. When F is the collection of DFs, we simplify the notation to Z L ; U , and refer to Z L ; U as the DFZone bounded by L and U. The tolerance speci cations considered above are readily described in these terms. If the worst-case tolerance interval is t1 ; t2 , the central subinterval is s1 ; s2 , and the percentage is p, then let 8 8 0 f or X < s2 0 f or X < t1 > > > > < < p 1 1 p L X and U X f or s2 X t2 f or t1 X s1 > > > > : 2 : 2 1 f or t2 X 1 f or s1 X

Z L ; U; F

ff 2 F: L

Ug

Now if x is the random variable of values of the part and Fx is its DF, then the tolerance speci cation is that Fx 2 Z L ; U . This can also be expressed graphically by saying that the curve of Fx lies between the graphs of L and U. Figure 2

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F 10.14 0.05 ST 0.03 P86%

Figure 1.
Pr{x < X}
1 0.93

DFZone syntax.

0.07 10.09 10.11 10.17 10.19

Figure 2.

DFZone semantics.

depicts the tolerance speci cation for the example in Figure 1. In principle, the DFZone model allows the unilateral tolerance speci cations. However, the bilateral speci cations with equal bounds are preferred for the simplicity of speci cation and modeling. In the cases of unilateral tolerance speci cations, a conversion may be applied to transform them into the bilateral speci cations. The actual value of a diameter is denoted as x. Any population of diameters whose distribution function falls within the shaded zone is acceptable. This DFZone-based statistical tolerance speci cation is under consideration by the International Organization of Standards (ISO) to become an international standard. Detailed descriptions of the DFZone are available in OConnor and Srinivasan (1997). As stated earlier, tolerance synthesis is a process of allocating tolerance values associated with design requirements among identi ed design or manufacturing tolerances. The proposed DFZone standard mainly focuses on part level considerations. In manufacturing practice, a designer usually starts with an assembly level design budget. The tolerancing problem is then tackled by several iterations of tolerance analysis, where part variations are composed to determine the assembly variation. In general, this can be extremely di cult, even in the case of traditional worst-case tolerance synthesis, if the parts are linked in geometrically complex ways. However, if the parts are linked in a one-dimensional way, leading to the common stack up analysis/synthesis and a linear gap function, the analysis is much simpler. Often this is the case, and when it is not, it is often still possible to obtain useful results by linearizing the problem. In statistical tolerance analysis and synthesis an added complexity arises if the parts are statistically dependent. Again it is customary to assume away the problem, and in fact it is often reasonable to do so by assuming statistical independence (OConnor and Srinivasan 1997).

Statistical tolerance synthesis 2.2.

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Cost-tolerance model It is known that in manufacturing a higher precision level part (with tighter tolerance) usually requires a higher manufacturing cost. There is a simple monotonic decreasing relationship between manufacturing cost and tolerance in a certain range. Several models were reported to describe this cost tolerance relationship, such as the Sutherland function, reciprocal function, reciprocal square function and exponential function. Among them, the exponential function is found to be relatively simple and accurate (Wu et al. 1988, Dong and Soom 1990). Its mathematical representation is g

Ae

B 0

g0

a < < b

In this model A, d0 and g0 determine the position of the cost-tolerance curve, whereas B controls the curvature of it (see Figure 3). These parameters can be derived using a curve- tting approach based on experimental data. a and b de ne a region in which the tolerance is economically feasible (Zhang and Wang 1993). Based on the above understanding of the cost-tolerance relationship, a comprehensive cost versus statistical tolerance model is developed for statistical tolerance synthesis that relates manufacturing cost to yield, mean and process speci cation ranges. The new cost-tolerance model is de ned as Cost K1 K2 P
2 1
2

where K1 is the coe cient of xed cost; K2 is the coe cient of cost related to tolerance parameters; is the nominal dimension; B is the worst-case interval dimension; D is the central sub-interval dimension; P is the percentage of D. As in the traditional cost-tolerance models, the parameters/constants in the new cost-tolerance model can be obtained with curve- tting/regression from the empirical or production data. In this model the manufacturing cost of each component in the assembly is made of two parts. One is the xed cost and the other is the tolerance
Cost (g( d ))

A+g0

g0

Tolerance ( d )

Figure 3.

A cost tolerance model.

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Cost
90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 0.1 0.6

C. Zhang et al.
80-90 70-80 60-70 50-60 40-50 30-40 20-30 2 1.7 1.4 0.9 1.3 1.6 1.1 10-20 0-10

D
Figure 4. Cost tolerance relation (P is xed).

Cost
100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 0.65 0.55 2 0.75 0.95 0.85 90-100 80-90 70-80 60-70 50-60 40-50 30-40 20-30 10-20 0-10

B
Figure 5. Cost tolerance relation (D is xed).

cost. The xed cost is related to machine set up, machine operation and other factors that are not determined by design parameters. The tolerance cost is mainly a ected by the tolerance parameters. According to the monotonic decreasing relationship between manufacturing cost and tolerance, if the two tolerance limits in DFZone speci cation become larger, the total manufacturing cost decreases. It is also obvious that if a higher quality of product is required ( P is larger), the manufacturing cost would increase. This model is then veri ed by examining the relationship among cost and two of the three DFZone statistical tolerance parameters when the third is xed. Figure 4 shows how the cost varies with the two tolerance limits when the probability P of central sub-interval tolerance D is xed. The monotonic decreasing cost-tolerance relationship is obvious. In gure 5 the central-limit tolerance D is xed. This 3D mesh shows that cost and the worst-case tolerance B still keep the monotonic decreasing relationship. Cost will increase faster when a higher P is chosen. A similar cost-tolerance relationship mesh exists when the worst-case tolerance B is xed and the other two tolerance parameters vary (see gure 6). The higher the probability, the higher the cost and the larger the tolerance limit, the lower the cost. By combining the cost-tolerance relationship and DFZone statistical tolerance speci cation, the tolerance synthesis problem can be stated as follows: for an assembly design requirement given in the DFZone format, allocate the assembly

Statistical tolerance synthesis

Cost
100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 0.1 0.4 0.6 0.7 0.9 1.1 0.55 1.3 1.5 1.6 1.8 0.65 0.75 0.95 0.85 90-100 80-90 70-80 60-70 50-60 40-50 30-40 20-30 10-20 0-10

4001

Figure 6.

Cost tolerance relation (B is xed).

`budget tolerance to all the components of this assembly statistically and optimally, that is, the tolerance synthesis should result in a minimum manufacturing cost. 2.3. Optimization model As stated above, the tolerance synthesis problem using the DFZone speci cation represents a well-de ned optimization problem. A general problem formation is given in section 2.3.1. In section 2.3.2 a mathematical representation of the optimization model is presented. A grinder head assembly example is used to illustrate the e ectiveness of the method. Discussions and conclusions are given in sections 3 and 4. 2.3.1. Problem formation The tolerance synthesis problem using the DFZone speci cation can be formulated as follows. Given: nominal dimension i of all the parts in an assembly worst-case interval Bt of the critical characteristic in an assembly central sub-interval Dt of the critical characteristic in an assembly percentage Pt of DI machine processing capability I design limit i worst-case interval dimension Bi for component i central sub-interval dimension Di for component i percentage Pi of Di for component i

Find:

2.3.2. Optimization model The tolerance synthesis problem under the DFZone speci cation represents a well-de ned optimization problem. Critical assembly tolerance design requirements and machining capacities form the constraints of the problem. The tolerance parameters of each component in the assembly are the design variables to be optimized so that the total manufacturing cost of the whole assembly is optimal. A mathematical representation of the optimization model is as follows:

4002 Min Cost

n X i 1

C. Zhang et al. 2 6 K1i K2i 4 pi Bi Pi

i ;
n X i 1 n X i 1

Pi
2 i 1 i

Bi

Di

3 7 5

1; 2; . . . ; n

subject to:

1;

Di

Bi
i

Di i Di Bi Dt Bt

0: 5 1 Pi

0:5 1 Pt

In this model Pi , Di and Bi are the design variables to be optimized. pi is the percentage design limit of each component. i is the machine capability. i is the dimension design limit set by designers for each component. The rst group of constraints are derived from a part level DFZone. The relationship i < Di < Bi < i must be ensured. The second group of constraints re ects DFZone relationships within an assembly-level DFZone. It has been proved that, for an assembly described by a linear gap function of statistically independent values of certain dimensions on the constituent parts of the assembly, the composition of the DFZone of each component can be achieved under convolution of these DFs (O Connor and Srinivasan 1997). The property of the resulted DFZone bounded by the constituent DFZones is preserved. For two such DFs, the convolution can be expressed as follows: F G X

F; Y G; Z
2

Z 2 J G

J F

in which F and G are DFZones. F; Y and G; Z denote the values of the jump of F at Y and G at Z, respectively. J is the resulting DFZone that is also a step function with nite jumps. In decomposing a desired DFZone, a reverse derivation procedure is followed to obtain the constraints in the optimization model. For a DFZone de ned by Dt , Bt and Pt , the properties of DFZones of its components can be preserved if the following conditions hold true:
n X i 1

Di Bi

Dt Bt 0: 5 1 Pt

0:5 1 Pi

n X i 1

Statistical tolerance synthesis

3. Example and results

4003

The proposed model is illustrated with a tolerance synthesis problem of a grinder head assembly. The technical drawings of the assembly and its components are shown in gure 7. There are 19 components in the grinder head assembly. One of the crucial dimensions in the assembly is the gap between the cap (right) and the head body as it determines the proper sealing of the assembly. If it were too small, there would not be su cient space for the seal installation. If it were too large, there could be a leak even after the seal is installed. Therefore the gap needs to be controlled in a certain range. A dimension chain is formed according to its technical drawing (see

( a)

(a)

gap

( b) Figure 7. Example assembly: ( a) component drawing; ( b) assembly drawing.

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X6 X4 X3 X2 X5 X1

X7

Figure 8. Dimension chain of the grinder head assembly. Components X1 X2 X3 X4 X5 X6 X7 Gap design requirements
m l

K1 5 8 5 7 12 5 18 Pt 0.80

K2 4.00 3.50 4.00 3.50 3.00 4.00 3.00 Dt 0.34

pl 0.85 0.80 0.85 0.85 0.75 0.85 0.75 Bt 0.44

8 23 5 18 60 5 118

8.20 23.30 5.10 18.20 60.30 5.10 118.50 Tol. Spec. 1 0.44 ST

0.01 0.03 0.01 0.03 0.05 0.01 0.10 0.34 P80%

Table 1. Input parameters of the optimization model.

gure 8). The gap is speci ed in the DFZone-based statistical tolerance format. An optimizations procedure is then carried out to nd the DFZone statistical tolerance of each component. To simplify the problem, symmetric tolerance zones are used. The input parameters of each component and tolerance design requirement of the gap are listed in table 1. The example problem was solved using the Solver Tools provided in Microsoft Excel. The tolerance allocation results are shown in table 2. Four tolerance allocation results are listed. The rst three are randomly generated, non-optimum tolerance allocation results which satisfy all the constraints. The last one is the optimum tolerance allocation result. It can be seen from the table that 13% of the manufacturing cost reduction can be achieved when the optimum tolerance allocation is applied instead of a non-optimum tolerance allocation (Tolerance Design #2). In the optimum tolerance allocation result, the dimension of each component is speci ed in a DFZone-based statistical tolerance format. For example, part 1 is speci ed as 8 0: 056 ST 0:043 P95:95%. According to the syntax of the DFZone speci cation, it indicates that a batch of part 1 is acceptable, if at least : 043 95.95% of the dimensions are within 8 0:043, at most 2.025% within 8 0 0: 056 and at 0:056 most 2.025% within 8 0:043 . The optimum statistical tolerance allocation results can be used to assist in process/machine selection to produce components for an assembly. They will lead to the most economic manufacturing for component production.

4.

Conclusions

Statistical tolerancing has been a centre of extensive research for many years, due to its importance in design and manufacturing. This paper has presented an

Statistical tolerance synthesis

Design value Design gap
8 Component 1 > > > > Component 2 > > > < Component 3

4005

Nominal dim. Sub-interval Worst-case interval Percentage m D-m B-m P 1 8 23 5 18 60 5 118 8 23 5 18 60 5 118 8 23 5 18 60 5 118 8 23 5 18 60 5 118 0.340 0.040 0.043 0.040 0.039 0.047 0.040 0.040 85.04 unit value 0.034 0.035 0.051 0.042 0.037 0.041 0.030 88.96 unit value 0.040 0.032 0.041 0.044 0.044 0.042 0.080 81.74 unit value 0.043 0.044 0.042 0.044 0.044 0.042 0.080 77.46 unit value DFZone optimal design tolerances. 0.056 0.058 0.054 0.058 0.061 0.054 0.100 95.95% 99.12% 92.61% 98.61% 100.00% 92.61% 83.57% 0.056 0.048 0.054 0.056 0.051 0.050 0.120 94.25% 98.34% 93.00% 98.61% 99.00% 90.54% 87.60% 0.050 0.049 0.058 0.053 0.047 0.055 0.070 94.30% 99.00% 92.80% 98.61% 85.35% 90.41% 93.76% 0.440 0.050 0.052 0.050 0.050 0.057 0.050 0.080 80.00% 97.35% 94.84% 93.60% 96.61% 92.36% 89.57% 87.60%

Total manufacturing cost:

Tolerance Component design 1 > > Component > > > > > : Component Component

4 5 6 7

Total manufacturing cost:

Tolerance Component design 2 > > Component > > > > > : Component Component

8 Component 1 > > > Component 2 > > > > < Component 3

4 5 6 7

Total manufacturing cost:

Tolerance Component design 3 > > > > Component > > > : Component Component

8 Component 1 > > > > Component 2 > > > < Component 3

4 5 6 7

Total manufacturing cost: Table 2.

Optimal Component design > > Component > > > > > : Component Component

8 Component 1 > > > > Component 2 > > > < Component 3

4 5 6 7

approach and an optimization model to solve the statistical tolerance synthesis problems based on the DFZone tolerance speci cation. A cost-tolerance model was introduced based on the new tolerance speci cation. The constraints in the optimization model were derived from the relationship between the assembly-level DFZone and the part-level DFZone. This toleancing approach and optimization model were illustrated with a grinder head assembly example. Excel solver was employed as the optimization tool for the test problem. A comparison between the optimum and a non-optimum tolerance allocations has revealed the e ectiveness of the proposed statistical tolerance allocation approach and the model. As the DFZone-based statistical tolerance speci cation is being considered by the International Organization of Standards (ISO) to become an international standard, more research work can be

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expected in this area. The authors plan to conduct the following future research work: application of the proposed statistical tolerancing approach to the nonlinear assembly; and re nement and validation of the cost-tolerance model based on DFZone tolerance speci cations.
References

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