Rudiments and intricacies of cost-based tolerancing

Tolerancing is a lynchpin for the success of all optical hardware projects. In its broadest sense, tolerancing includes assessing robustness, guiding decision-making throughout the product development life-cycle, and assigning error bounds to construction parameters. Overall, the primary goal of tolerancing is twofold: ensure the system(s) will function properly (or have sufficient yield) and minimize cost. Traditional methods of tolerancing have quantitatively dealt with the former, with treatment of cost being qualitative or implicitly incorporated. Consequently, quantitative cost analysis is the de facto “holy grail” of optical tolerancing.

In this presentation requisite parts of “cost-based tolerancing” will be discussed, running the gamut from fundamental pieces through advanced methodologies. Different facets and phases will be highlighted from design for manufacturing to drive robust design through methods of tolerance assignment and analysis. The context will be with respect to traditional lens design, although the methodology has broad application for general electro-optical systems in addition to diverse non-optical fields. Attendees should garner the state of this subfield in optical design, as well as gain an appreciation for the rudiments and intricacies that aid in taking cost more explicitly into account. They may even find that tolerancing can be fun, but the presenter does not want to overstate any promises!

TBD