  Assembly, the process of integrating parts and components into usable
products, is a key industrial process to achieve finished goods. Driven by
market demographics and technological advancements, industrial assembly has
evolved through several phases i.e. craftmanship, bench assembly, assembly
lines and flexible assembly cells. Due to the complexity and variety of
assembly tasks, besides significant advancement of automation technologies in
other manufacturing activities, humans are still considered vital for assembly
operations. The rationalization of manufacturing automation has considerably
remained away from assembly systems. The advancement in assembly has only been
in terms of better scheduling of work tasks and avoiding of wastes. With smart
manufacturing technologies such as collaborative robots, additive
manufacturing, and digital twins, the opportunities have arisen for the next
reshaping of assembly systems. The new paradigm promises a higher degree of
automation yet remaining flexible. This may result into a new manufacturing
paradigm driven by the advancement of new technologies, new customer
expectations and by establishing new kinds of manufacturing systems. This study
explores the future collaborative assembly cells, presents a generic framework
to develop them and the basic building blocks.
