Abstract

In recent world, there are many small mechanical parts and products are used for mobile phones, medical devices, home appliances, and so on. However, manufacturing systems for those devices are large and complex. Manufacturing systems are not goals. So, manufacturing systems should be small as possible within satisfying requirements in the production. In addition, every activity in manufacturing industry is required to be environmentally benign, these days. Being environmental consciousness a big trend in manufacturing technology, space occupied and energy used by conventional manufacturing systems became considered as big wastes. Among all the energy usage of a manufacturing system, just a small portion is used for cutting and the rest for moving heavy structures of machines or generating heat. So, a large machine represents considerable waste. As a countermeasure for the situation, AIST (National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology) proposed a concept of a microfactory that consists of tiny machine tools and robots. However, for the first decade, the concept had been only a figure indicating a future application after micro-machine technology has been developed. Miniaturization of machine tools to size compatible to the target products without compromising the machining tolerances leads to enormous savings in energy, space, and resources. It also makes it easy to change the production layout of the factory. In 1996, AIST developed the first prototype of the miniaturized machine tool; a micro-lathe [1], with considerable metal cut capability and substantial energy saving effects. The machining capability of the lathe was far better than we expected in advance. This success of the micro lathe was the driving force to prototype a whole factory that performs a series of fabrication and assembly on a desktop. In 1999, AIST designed and established a machining microfactory, which consisted of afore-mentioned micro-lathe, other small size machine tools and manipulators for parts handling and assembly. Ttest results showed that a downsized manufacturing system could be a feasible option for micro mechanical fabrication. Some other miniature manufacturing systems [4-6] have been proposed since then and the concept has now become quite common. 24

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