Activity-Based Tolerance Allocation (ABTA) – driving tolerance synthesis by evaluating its global cost

This paper deals with tolerance allocation driven by an activity-based approach. Its main objective is to rationally give a good indicator of the relevance of tolerance values fixed by designers. Taking into consideration the impacts of tolerance allocation on the manufacturing process and so the production cost, several examples are given to illustrate this concept. Moreover this paper deals with how the geometrical analysis can be carried out in this activity framework, illustrated by several industrial cases. In addition, this paper explains how, coupled with an optimisation algorithm, this method can generate the best compromise between cost and high performance. To illustrate the efficiency of this approach and its realisation, models and user interfaces based on an industrial case are given.