Potentials for Error Detection and Process Visualization in Assembly Lines Using a Parallel Coordinates Plot

Assembly lines consist of chained or unchained stations, yet usually only single stations are regarded individually for process and quality analytics. Since the quality of the final product depends on interactions of process parameters along the assembly flow, it is insufficient to analyze process parameters of each station separately. Therefore, data of every single assembly station along the assembly line has to be collected and stored. To explore such a big amount of multidimensional data and their correlations, different techniques are established. In this paper, assembly flows and their respective data are visualized using a parallel coordinates plot (PCP). Here, this technique visualizes process parameter combinations along the whole assembly chain. The contribution of this paper is to prove that the presented approach enables a fast detection of stations with malicious impacts on the product quality, when it comes to complex assembly lines. The goal is to help users to detect global problems in those lines, not only single station problems. Furthermore, the relevance of various processes to the quality (good or defective) of the final good shall be revealed.