Statistical Tolerance Analysis has been evolving over the past
several decades. The available technology at Kodak has always been
at the leading edge of Statistical Tolerance Analysis.
In the late 1960s a Monte Carlo based software program named MTAP
(Mechanical Tolerance Analysis Program) was developed. Input to
this software was done via IBM cards and a reader which was
linked to a mainframe computer.
In the mid 1980s MTAP was revised ported to a VAX and a user
manual was developed.
In 1990 Applied Computer Solutions (makers of VSA) approached
Kodak with proposals for their product integrated with CAD
software another proposal for software integrated with Valisys.
In 1991, Kodak participated in a technology partnership for an
integrated VSA/Valisys product - which was never commercial.
VSA has recently announced that their product is integrated with
Unigraphics. Kodak (Office Imaging) has 3 licenses as a result
of our original technology partnership. the VSA software still
has some drawbacks (primarily it uses discrete points, instead of
features, and limited ways to constrain assemblies) it has one
added feature which could save designers/engineers much time.
This feature is a front end GD&T checker. It will check the GD&T
syntax, verify that a feature of size has a material modifier,
verify the existence of any datum referenced, and verify that
refinements of other GD&T call outs have appropriate tolerances.
VSA also has plans to enhance their software and to continue to
integrate their software more fully into Unigraphics.
Another Computer Aided Tolerancing (CAT) software has also become
available in recent years, TiTol3. This software is based on the
work at BYU and is integrated with several CAD packages (not
Unigraphics). This software creates closed loop vector
equations. One potential benefit of this software is that
because it is equation driven, it could be integrated with
optimization software.
1998 and Beyond
Better understanding of modeling GD&T
Modeling of mechanisms
Integration with FEM
