Integrating Assembly Process Design and VR-based Evaluation using the Unreal Engine

To compete in industrial production and assembly design, companies must implement fast and efficient workflows for the design of assembly processes. To date, these workflows comprise multiple stages that typically cover a heterogeneous set of designer competences, used tools and data. We present a concept for an integrated assembly process design workflow with VR-based evaluation and training methods leveraging the flexibility and functionality of a modern game engine. Our approach maps the required tools onto off-the-shelf features of these engines. This ensures an easy integration of our workflow into existing industry processes and allows quick results, which support fast prototyping. Furthermore, Virtual Reality based previews and evaluations significantly reduce the need for physical workstation prototypes, allowing for quicker feedback and evaluation and early customer integration. We apply and evaluate our concept on an industrial assembly use case for automotive traction batteries and give detailed insights into its adoption in practice and the advantages over proprietary implementations.