Computer Integrated Manufacturing Research Articles

Industrial Ecology and Environmental Lean Management: Lights and Shadows

Current industrial production is driven by increasing globalization, which has led to a steady increase in production volumes and complexity of products aimed at the pursuit of meeting the needs of customers. In this context, one of the main tools in the management of customer value is Lean Manufacturing or Production, though it is considered primarily as a set of tools to reduce the total cost of the resources needed to achieve such needs. This philosophy has recently been enriched in the literature with case studies that link Lean Management (LM) with the improvement of environmental sustainability. The consequence is an expansion of the Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM); indeed, CIM, currently, combining and integrating the key business functions (e.g., business, engineering, manufacturing, and information management) with a view of the life cycle, does not highlight the strategic role of the environmental aspects. In order to deal with the increasingly rapid environmental degradation that is reflected in society, in terms of both economy and quality of life, Industrial Ecology (IE) introduced a new paradigm of principles and instruments of analysis and decision support (e.g., Life Cycle Assessment—LCA, Social Life Cycle Assessment -SLCA, Material Flow Account—MFA, etc.) that can be considered as the main basis for integrating the environmental aspects in each strategy, design, production, final product, and end of life management, through the re-engineering of processes and activities towards the development of an eco-industrial system. This paper presents the preliminary observations based on a analysis of both theories (LM-IE) and provides a possible assessment of the key factors relevant to their integration in a “lean environmental management”, highlighting both positives (lights) and possible barriers (shadows).

CIM: a challenge to technology management

It is suggested that computer–integrated manufacturing (CIM) – or 'flexible automation' – is a revolutionary response to the 'complexity–reliability variety' barrier. In brief, products are becoming more complex, quality control is becoming more difficult and customers are less satisfied with standardization. Managers of manufacturing firms face several critical questions and some strategic choices. Among them are the following: How must the firm change internally to compete successfully in the future? What technologies must be mastered and adopted 'in house', and what can safely be contracted out? Is there an important distinction to be made between 'human–centred' and 'machine–centred' approaches? If so, which offers the best long–term prospects? Can CIM be implemented 'bottom–up', or must it be implemented 'top down'? A number of other management implications of CIM are discussed. The paper reports some major results of a four–year study recently completed at IIASA under the author's co–leadership.

PRESENT STATUS AND FUTURE OF COMPUTER-AIDED TECHNOLOGIES FROM VEHICLE DESIGN TO MANUFACTURING

Computer–aided technologies are being actively developed and introduced in the car industry, and are expected to have an increasingly wide range of applications. Among the technologies, this paper focuses on CAD/CAM, CAE, CAT and FA, describing their current status and discussing the direction the technologies will take in response to the progress of the technologies relating to database, network, artificial intelligence and computers. In this paper, computer–integrated manufacturing (CIM) is depicted as a future image of computer–aided technologies. To make CIM a reality, reorganisation of work processes will take on increased importance in addition to improvements in computer systems.

Extraction of Process Parameters from a Sheet Metal Part Model

Process planning in a computer integrated manufacturing (CIM) requires integrated system for design and manufacturing activities. For sheet metal part, feature recognition and feature reasoning of a product model for process planning is an essential component of CIM environment. Research work for feature recognition and reasoning has been addressed in literature, which is limited to the geometric and topological information but actual process parameters requited for manufacturing operation is still an open issue. Our research is for extraction of process parameters from a sheet metal part model which is in STEP Format. These process parameters can be used in sheet metal manufacturing to control the operations. This paper presents extraction of process parameters for a sheet metal feature from a sheet metal part model (STEP Format). This work then formulates the feature processes in terms of extracted process parameters, material properties, sheet metal dimension and feature dimension. The actual operation in real manufacturing environment is identified as extension of the proposed work. The extraction of process parameters for sheet metal operation is demonstrated with case studies.

Review of Computer-Aided Process Planning Systems for Machining Operation – Future Development of a Computer-Aided Process Planning System –

The need to integrate the design and machining stages has become an important issue since the introduction of the Computer-Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) concept. The development of the Computer-Aided Process Planning (CAPP) system has been recognized to have made a significant contribution toward fulfilling the requirement for an integrated planning system. This paper reviews the development of the CAPP system, particularly for the metal removal process. Previous reviews on CAPP are gathered and discussed to show the evolution stage of CAPP in general. Main research topics that contribute to the CAPP system development are shown. Six elements of the CAPP system are identified as the most important tasks in generating a process plan. These elements consist of: (1) model convention, (2) manufacturing operation selection, (3) manufacturing resource selection, (4) cutting condition selection, (5) tool path selection, and (6) setup selection. Six elements for the development of CAPP that contribute to process planning for metal removal process are discussed. The evolution stages of each element easily show the involvement of several tools in order to support the corresponding element. For further guidance, the methods of comprehending the involvement of manufacturing information in CAPP are discussed. Knowledge structuring and logic reasoning are the main organizational steps that can be used to describe the CAPP data architecture of manufacturing information. Further, the examples of full-scale CAPP in actualizing machining process planning are presented. Finally, key technologies for future development of CAPP are discussed.

Industrial Automation and Manufacturing Systems: Concepts and Applications

Manufacturing comprises an effective and efficient integration of automation tools and advanced technologies for the industrial production. Automation is an advanced technique used in the manufacturing industry for integrating the machine tools to automatically perform different tasks. This paper presents the study about industrial automation and manufacturing system. The research and development in the area of automation includes programmable logic control (PLC), robotics, distributed control system (DCS), computerized numerical control machine (CNC), radio frequency identification (RFID). The intelligent systems for scheduling and manufacturing the product such as flexible manufacturing systems (FMS), computer aided manufacturing (CAM), computer integrated manufacturing (CIM), lean manufacturing and green manufacturing.

An improved ant colony optimization approach for optimization of process planning.

Computer-aided process planning (CAPP) is an important interface between computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) in computer-integrated manufacturing environments (CIMs). In this paper, process planning problem is described based on a weighted graph, and an ant colony optimization (ACO) approach is improved to deal with it effectively. The weighted graph consists of nodes, directed arcs, and undirected arcs, which denote operations, precedence constraints among operation, and the possible visited path among operations, respectively. Ant colony goes through the necessary nodes on the graph to achieve the optimal solution with the objective of minimizing total production costs (TPCs). A pheromone updating strategy proposed in this paper is incorporated in the standard ACO, which includes Global Update Rule and Local Update Rule. A simple method by controlling the repeated number of the same process plans is designed to avoid the local convergence. A case has been carried out to study the influence of various parameters of ACO on the system performance. Extensive comparative experiments have been carried out to validate the feasibility and efficiency of the proposed approach.

Integration of process planning and job shop scheduling with stochastic processing time

In a conventional approach, process planning and scheduling are two separate tasks and perform sequentially. This is while without the integration of process planning and scheduling, a true computer-integrated manufacturing system may not be effectively realized. Although there are several scientific manuscripts which address some approaches for integration of process planning and scheduling in the recent years, the focus of these researches was on deterministic constraints of jobs. In this paper, we consider stochastic parameters and present a new approach to adjust to the real-world industry situations. In this way, the CAPP system generates all the possible process plans at first, and then four near-optimal process plans are selected via Dijkstra algorithm, and ten scenarios are generated with Monte Carlo sampling method. A mathematical model was solved within reasonable time with a hybrid algorithm consisting of Simulated Annealing and Tabu Search. To evaluate the proposed algorithm, four problems were generated and solved with the proposed algorithm in the deterministic and stochastic manners, which indicates that stochastic results are more robust than those of deterministic in different situations. Then, the same experiments were solved taking advantage of Lingo to evaluate the running time, which shows that the hybrid algorithm exhibits high performance in large-scale problems, whereas the running time of Lingo was increased exponentially. As a result, the proposed algorithm generates solutions in more acceptable time than Lingo, especially for large-scale problems.

Automatic recognition of hull transverse sections and rapid finite element modelling for cargo hold longitudinal structures

For rapid modelling of ship structure and sharing of product data for a computer-integrated manufacturing system in shipbuilding, this research proposes a data exchange method between two-dimensional drawings and three-dimensional finite element models. The report of the research is followed by appropriately planning the structure of the extracted data based on the Standard for the Exchange of Product Model Data. A set of rules for two-dimensional feature recognition is established, and then the method for the extraction of graphic and non-graphic design information from two-dimensional drawings of transverse sections is presented. An algorithm for rapid modelling of the longitudinal hull structure is proposed, based on data extracted from the transverse sections. This algorithm bypasses the geometric modelling stage required in traditional manual modelling, exclusively making use of the extracted information. The proposal also enriches data exchange, greatly reduces human error in modelling and consequently improves the accuracy of the finite element modelling for the shipbuilding industry.

Research on Machinery Manufacturing Industry's Future Development Strategy Based on CIMS

This paper describes a strategy to fulfill the needs of the 21st century machinery manufacturing industry, especially for the industry that produces the low repetitive and high productmix components using machining centres. The approach of development strategy is emphasized in developing of computer integrated manufacturing system (CIMS). The system comprises of computer aided design (CAD) and computer aided manufacturing (CAM) modules, which is supported by common and working databases. Focuses on computer-integrated manufacturing's macro aspects and its future development strategy implications. Defines CIMS at the macro and micro level and the various factors that strongly call for the implementation of CIMS. After going into the advantages, concludes with development strategy implications for the future.

Computer-Integrated Manufacturing for Chinese Herbal Medicine Drinks Products

Chinese herbal medicine has a long history, based on the Statistical Yearbook of the World Health Organization; half of people on earth have ever taken herbal remedies as an alternative health treatment. Except China, there are 123 countries that have established Chinese herbal medicine research related institutions. People didnt like taking medicine directly due to taste, therefore, Chinese herbal medicine drinks (CHMD) are moving toward a rising trend of quantity, partly replacing Western style medicine. This research tries to integrate CHMD products with customer preferences in Taiwan, aiming at customer CHMD preference analyzing and modeling. Each different CHMD has its own attribute and efficacy trend. Two distribution data sets of customer behavior were introduced to design computer integrated manufacturing parameters within a dynamic selection model software. Results also found that immunity adjust and anti-fatigue were the main reasons when customers purchased these CHMD. The reason may be from the tension life style caused.

Computer Integrated Construction and Facility Management

The construction industry is the next frontier as a new, computer-integrated technologies, just as it did 25 years ago of the manufacturing industry. Recently, earlier is the unlikely birth of Internet intranet technologies for design and created a new cooperation mechanism. The advances that have occurred in the manufacturing industry in the areas of collaborative design, intelligent process planning and computer-integrated manufacturing provide significant insights for formulating analogous paradigms for computer-integrated construction. However, in many ways, enabling technologies to achieve development in the construction sector this shift rather than repackaging existing technologies and tools, has been as subtle as manufacturing. In this paper, we draw attention to some of the significant research opportunities and challenges that exist in these areas of collaborative design and computer-integrated construction.

A decision support to assign mould due date at customer enquiry stage in computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM) environments

Achieving better delivery reliability performance is crucial for mould industry. Due date (DD) assignment at customer enquiry stage has a large influence on the kind of performance. This paper focuses on estimating the feasible production lead times of the new arriving mould orders that could be used as a decisional support during DD quoting, given the total workload already in the system at a decision time. An uncertain parameter model firstly addresses the uncertainties in the underlying problem using a discrete time Markov chain, which can obtain the initial probability distribute of the completion date of each new order. Such a model has not been addressed previously in related literature. Then, a mould progress evolution approach with limited capacity checks each realising track contained in the initial probability distribute to meet various capacity limitations. The expectation value of the checked distribute is the estimation value of the completion time of the examining order. The application examples illustrate possible applications of the approach. Further, the simulation experiments-based comparison of the proposed approach with two benchmarks adopted commonly in the real-world mould production is provided, and the results are promising as compared to benchmark decision rules.

Robust localisation of automated guided vehicles for computer-integrated manufacturing environments

As industry moves toward an era of complete automation and ‘mass customisation’, automated guided vehicles (AGVs) are used as material handling systems. However, the current techniques that provide navigation, control, and manoeuvrability of automated guided vehicles threaten to create bottlenecks and inefficiencies in manufacturing environments that strive towards the optimisation of part production. This paper proposes a decentralised localisation technique for an automated guided vehicle without any non-holonomic constraints. Incorporation of these vehicles into the material handling system of a computer-integrated manufacturing environment would increase the characteristics of robustness, efficiency, flexibility, and advanced manoeuvrability. OPSOMMING

A Brief Review of Die Sinking Electrical Discharging Machining Process towards Automation

Electrical Discharge Machine (EDM) is especially used for the manufacturing of 3-D complex geometry and hard material parts that are extremely difficult-to-machine by conventional machining processes. In this paper authors have reviewed the research work carried out in the development of die-sinking EDM within the past decades for the improvement of machining characteristics such as Material Removal Rate (MRR), Surface Roughness (SR) and Tool Wear Ratio (TWR). In this review various techniques reported by EDM researchers for improving the machining characteristics have been categorized as process parameters optimization, multi spark technique, powder mixed EDM, servo control system and pulse discriminating. At the end, flexible machine controller is suggested for Die Sinking EDM to enhance the machining characteristics and to achieve high-level automation. Thus, die sinking EDM can be integrated with Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) environment as a need of agile manufacturing systems.

An approach for integration of process planning and scheduling

Process planning and scheduling are the two most important tasks in manufacturing. Traditionally, these tasks are performed separately and sequentially through process planning and scheduling departments. As functional integration is essential to realise the benefits of computer-integrated manufacturing, an approach for integration of process planning and scheduling has been introduced in this paper. The proposed approach can quickly integrate these two functions and be implemented in a company with existing process planning and scheduling departments. It consists of four main modules introduced in detail in this paper. They are process plan selection module, scheduling module, schedule analysis module and process plan modification module. The performance of the proposed integration methodology is accessed from mean tardiness and makespan viewpoints as well as compared with the hierarchical approach through case studies. It reveals that proposed integration approach performs better than hierarchical approach.

Augmented Reality - An Improvement for Computer Integrated Manufacturing

In order to be competitive companies evolved towards a Computer-Integrated Manufacturing system. We present in this paper an overview of potential applications of Augmented Reality that can provide positive results to the CIM approach. Also the paper comprises the results regarding how Augmented Reality is successfully tested and implemented on a FESTO assembly line.

An integrated evolutionary approach for modelling and optimisation of CNC end milling process

In this research, a novel integrated evolutionary based approach is presented for the modelling and multi-objective optimisation of a machining process. Computer numerical control end milling process has been considered in the present work as it finds significant applications in diversified engineering industries. Firstly, genetic programming (GP) has been proposed for explicit formulation of non-linear relations between the machining parameters (spindle speed, feed and depth of cut) and the performance measures of interest (material removal rate and tool wear) using experimental data. Genetic programming approach optimises the complexity and size of the model during the evolutionary process itself and hence this technique has the potential to identify the true models avoiding the problems of conventional methods. Central composite second-order rotatable design had been utilised to plan the experiments and the effect of machining parameters on the performance measures is also reported. In the second part, as the chosen responses are conflicting in nature, a multi-objective optimisation problem has been formulated. A non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm-II (NSGA-II) has been used to simultaneously optimise the objective functions. The Pareto-optimal set generated is useful for process planning which is a critical link in computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM).

Computer-integrated manufacturing system for tube bending

This paper presents a distributed and integrated manufacturing system for tube bending. It can support a Client/Server based local network and serial communications. It can also integrate tube design, process planning, virtual and physical manufacturing around the core of engineering databases with different formats. This system solves three problems in integrated tube design and bending: (1) automatic process planning, (2) estimation of the feasibility of bending and (3) the impact of springback and extension. The industrial applications of this system show that it can decrease the cost of bending and increase the bending efficiency.

Computer-integrated manufacturing system for tube bending

This paper presents a distributed and integrated manufacturing system for tube bending. It can support a Client/Server based local network and serial communications. It can also integrate tube desi...