Potentials of Large Language Models for Generating Assembly Instructions

With the increasing complexity in manual assembly and a demographic decline in skilled workforce, the importance of well-documented processes through assembly instructions has grown. Creating these instructions is a time-consuming and knowledge-intensive task that typically relies on experienced employees. Although various automation solutions have been proposed to assist in generating assembly instructions, they often fall short in providing detailed textual guidance. With the rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI), new potentials arise in this domain. Therefore, this paper explores these potentials by employing various large language models (LLMs), prompting techniques and input data in an experimental setup for generating detailed assembly instructions, including the planning of assembly sequences as well as textual guidance on tools, assembly activities, and quality assurance measures. The findings reveal promising opportunities in leveraging LLMs but also substantial challenges, particularly in assembly sequence planning. To improve the reliability of generating assembly instructions, we propose a multi-agent concept that decomposes the complex task into simpler subtasks, each managed by specialized agents.