Product-oriented description of manufacturing resource skills

Abstract

Due to global trends, manufacturing companies are facing a production environment with increasing dynamics. Here, companies have to cope with frequent changes of production requirements and conditions. In order to handle these changes, manufacturing machines have been designed to be more flexible. However, these types of machines require a generic description of their skills which allows a fast feasibility check of new product requirements. Such a description can also support the production planning process and is a crucial element to cope with a dynamic production environment. In this contribution, a product-oriented approach for the description of manufacturing resource skills is presented. The approach aims at facilitating the feasibility check during the quotation phase, as well as reducing the production planning time. The applicability of the concept is illustrated by an example of a gripper and a discussion regarding the benefits and drawbacks of the proposed concept is given.