US 5,907,488 A · Method of evaluating easiness of works and processings performed on articles and evaluation apparatus

Abstract

A method of evaluating quantitatively in a design stage degrees of difficulty of works and processings to be performed on an article or parts at various stage of life thereof such as manufacturing, sale, use, maintenance/inspection/repair, recovery, dismantling, disassembling, recycling for resources, nontoxication and scrapping. Part elimination scores E.sub.i representing degrees of difficulty of the works and processings to be performed on the parts are regarded to be a function of indexes indicating the degrees of difficulty of the works and the processings for the parts and expressed by E.sub.i =f(G.sub.i), while an article evaluation score E representing the degrees of difficulty of the work and the processing for the article is regarded to be a function of a mean value of the part evaluation scores E.sub.i or an index G (=.SIGMA.G.sub.i) indicating the degrees of difficulty of the work and the processing for the article and expressed by E=f(G)=f(.SIGMA.G.sub.i). Further, work and processing costs for the article under evaluation or parts are estimated on the basis of work and processing costs required really for an article or parts bearing similarity to the article under evaluation or parts thereof.

A method of evaluating quantitatively whether an article has a structure which facilitates work to be performed thereon with the aid of a computer, comprising:

processing for registration in said computer and processing for evaluating easiness of work to be performed on an article under evaluation, wherein said processor for registration in said computer includes the following steps:
(a) classifying into basic elements plural types of state for parts comprising said article and inputting through an input unit and registering in a basic element storage part of a storage unit at least one value of work cost and required time and indexes thereof as involved in performing the work on a part having said basic elements in a standard state together with corresponding identification symbols of said basic elements,
(b) classifying into supplementary elements plural types of factors other than said basic elements which exert influence to the work cost and the required time for each of said basic elements and the indexes thereof, respectively, and inputting through said input unit, and registering in a supplemental element storage part of said storage unit values of standard work costs and standard required time involved in the work to be performed on said parts in each of said states and indexes thereof, together with corresponding identification symbols of said supplementary elements, respectively,
(c) selecting and registering to be inputted, those basic elements which represent predetermined states to serve as standard elements from said basic elements while inputting supplementary standards representing predetermined states serving as standard for said registered supplementary elements, respectively, both of said standard elements and said supplementary standards being registered in a standard storage part of said storage unit,
(d) determining basic elimination scores indicating degrees of difficulty of the works to be performed for said basic elements on the basis of at least one of the work costs, the required times and the indexes thereof for said basic elements, respectively, with reference to at least one of the work costs, the required times and the indexes thereof for said standard elements, and subsequently registering the basic elimination scores in said basic element storage part,
(e) determining supplementary coefficients representing degrees of difficulty of the works for the states of said supplementary elements on the basis of at least one of the work costs, the required times and the indexes thereof for the states of said supplementary elements with reference to at least one of the work costs, the required times and the indexes thereof for supplementary standards of said supplementary elements, respectively, and subsequently registering the supplementary coefficients in said supplementary element storage part, said processing for evaluating the degree of difficulty of the article under evaluation being executed by the following steps in which:
(f) the identification symbols representing the basic elements and the supplementary elements for each of the parts constituting said article under evaluation are inputted through said input unit,
(g) said basic element storage part and said supplementary element storage part are referenced on the basis of the inputted identification symbols representing the basic elements and the supplementary elements of each of said parts to thereby read out corresponding ones of said basic elimination scores and said supplementary coefficients, and
part elimination scores are determined on the basis of said basic elimination scores and said supplementary coefficients as read out in accordance with a first index function prescribed such that an increasing value is given when at least one of the work cost, the required time and the indexes thereof for each of said parts increases as compared with at least one of work cost, required time and index thereof for a part standard corresponding to said part, and
said part standard having said standard elements, and all of the supplementary elements other than the supplementary element representing size are the supplementary standards and each has a size of a predetermined ratio,
(h) arithmetically determining a part-based work easiness evaluation score indicating the degree of difficulty of work for each of the parts by decreasing or increasing the part elimination score from a predetermined standard value,
(i) determining an article elimination score on the basis of said part-based work easiness evaluation scores in accordance with a second index function which is so prescribed as to give an increasing value when at least one of the work cost, the required time and the indexes thereof for said article under evaluation as determined by summing at least one of the work costs, the required times and the indexes thereof increases as compared with at least one of the work cost, the required time and the indexes thereof for an article standard, said article standard being a standard of the article under evaluation which is assumed to comprise a combination of said part standards,
(j) determining an article-based work easiness evaluation score indicating a degree of difficulty of the work for the article under evaluation by decreasing or increasing the value of the article elimination score from a predetermined standard value, and
(k) outputting said article-based work easiness evaluation score through an output unit.

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Method of evaluating easiness of works and processings performed on articles and evaluation apparatus

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Method of evaluating easiness of works and processings performed on articles and evaluation apparatus

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims7