MODELLING OF FLEXIBLE MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS

Abstract

World trend in advanced manufacturing technology are dynamic and evalutionary. The rapidly growing sofistication of world manufacturing technology is largly due to advent of computer and its many and varied applications. Flexible Manufacturing System (FMS) is one of the outcome ofad anced I,, technology. FMS is a. manufacturing system based on multioperation machine-tools, incorporating integrated computer control with associated support function of material handling (automatic part handling and storage). The system exhibits a degree of flexibility with respect to the variation in parts (part family) which can be produced. This system optimizes the conflicting requirements of high productivity and flexibility for a particular environment. In order to design, control and understand the operation of FMS, a modelling tool with expressive power and the ability to analyse and represent the static and dynamic nature of system is desired. Four types of process modelling tools can be used They are Queueing Networks, Simulation Languages, Petri Nets and Concurrent Programming La.nguages.Concurrent Programming Language approach is a new approach in modelling of FMS. Flat Concurrent Prolog (FCP), a concurrent language, is used in this thesis to demonstrate a model of simple route FMS. iii In the latter part of thesis the FMS scheduling problem has been discussed. In the FMS environment, flexibility is incorporated to take into consideration of availability of alternative machine tools with other alternative resources i.e. pallets, fixtures, material handling equipments and tools. Due to these constraints and flexibility, this problem becomes too large and complex. Heuristic approach can be used to drastically reduce the combinatorial mushrooming of this type of scheduling problem. A software package for FMS scheduling by using heuristic approach has also been developed . One example is also given to demonstrate the use of package for FMS scheduling.