Parameter-driven rapid virtual prototyping of flexible manufacturing system

Abstract

Most enterprises are struggling to change their existing business processes into agile, product- and customer-oriented structures to survive in the competitive and global business environment. In order to sustain competitiveness, manufacturing organizations should provide the sufficient flexibility to produce a variety of products on the same system. FMS (Flexible manufacturing System) is regarded as one of the most efficient methods in reducing or eliminating today's problems in manufacturing industries. In order to cope with current dynamic changes of manufacturing system, it is quintessential to design and verify the layout of FMS rapidly and easily during the design stage. And it is needed that supervisory control patterns for material flow should be categorized for later reuse in control programs. It is also necessary that the existing 3D layout components for simulation-based verification should be reused for other FMS layout verification tasks to shorten the design time of FMS. The purpose of this paper is to propose the tool of rapid parametric layout determination and construction of 3D discrete event simulation model, and the categorization of control patterns of material flow within FMS. To be a parameter-driven solution, FMS is modularized by 'station' concept and resources within FMS are standardized in this paper. This approach can serve as a rapid prototyping tool of layout configuration and control program preparation for FMS design engineers as well as a communication tool for managers and other personnel involved.