A new approach to tolerance allocation in design cost analysis

When components are designed for manufacturing using computer aided design (CAD) tools, computing the minimum manufacturing cost while satisfying other manufacturing constraints becomes a very important issue. It is imperative that computer algorithms be integrated into the design tools in order to compute the costs at various stages of the design process. This paper focuses on the tolerance allocations stage. Assuming the manufacturing cost of a component is an exponential function of the design tolerance, an O(nlog2n) algorithm is developed for optimally allocating the total design tolerance among the n constituent components of a product. This algorithm is of most value in CAD and design for manufacturability.