A Few Descriptive and Optimization Issues on the Material Flow at a Research-Academic Institution: The Role of Simulation

Lately, significant work in the area of Intelligent Manufacturing has become public and mainly applied within the frame of industrial purposes. Special efforts have been made in the implementation of new technologies, management and control systems, among many others which have all evolved the field. Aware of all this and due to the scope of new projects and the need of turning the existing flexible ideas into more autonomous and intelligent ones, i.e.: Intelligent Manufacturing, the present paper emerges with the main aim of contributing to the design and analysis of the material flow in either systems, cells or work stations under this new “intelligent" denomination. For this, besides offering a conceptual basis in some of the key points to be taken into account and some general principles to consider in the design and analysis of the material flow, also some tips on how to define other possible alternative material flow scenarios and a classification of the states a system, cell or workstation are offered as well. All this is done with the intentions of relating it with the use of simulation tools, for which these have been briefly addressed with a special focus on the Witness simulation package. For a better comprehension, the previous elements are supported by a detailed layout, other figures and a few expressions which could help obtaining necessary data. Such data and others will be used in the future, when simulating the scenarios in the search of the best material flow configurations.

Authors:

• D. R. Delgado Sobrino
• P. Košťál
• J. Oravcová

Keywords:

• Flexible/Intelligent Manufacturing System/Cell (F/IMS/C)
• material flow/design/configuration (MF/D/C)
• workstation.

References:

[1] Gausemeier, J. and Gehnen, G. (1998). Intelligent material flow by
decentralized control networks. Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing.
Volume 9, Number 2, 141-146, DOI: 10.1023/A: 1008815928799
[2] Kosturiak, J. &Gregor, M. (1998). FMS Simulation: Some Experience
and Recommendations, Simulation Practice and Theory, Vol. 6, Issue 5,
July 15, 1998, 423-442.
[3] Mudriková, A., Delgado Sobrino, D. R. and Košťál, P. (2010). Planning
of material flow in flexible production systems. In: Annals of DAAAM
and Proceedings of DAAAM Symposium. 20-23rd October 2010, Zadar,
Croatia - ISSN 1726-9679. - Vol. 21, No 1.
[4] Vel├¡┼íek, K., ┼áebeňov├í, S., Ružarovsk├¢, R. (2010). Transport systems in
flexible manufacturing. In I. Central European Conference on Logistics:
26 November 2010, Miskolc, Hungary. Miskolc: University of Miskolc,
2010, s. 5. ISBN 978-963-661-946-6.
[5] Xu, D. (2001). Hardware-based Parallel Simulation of Flexible
Manufacturing Systems. Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg,
Virginia.
[6] Heilala, J. (1999). Use of simulation in manufacturing and logistics
systems planning. VTT Manufacturing Technology, Finland.
[7] Prasad Senniappan, A. (2001). Simulation in Flexible Manufacturing
System. Department of Industrial and Management Systems
Engineering. West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV-26505.
[8] Verma, R., Gupta, A. and Singh, K. (2009). A critical evaluation and
comparison of four manufacturing simulation softwares. Kathmandu
University Journal of Science, Engineering and Technology: vol. 5, no.
i, January, 2009, pp 104- 120.
[9] Dani┼íov├í, N.; Ružarovsk├¢, R. & Vel├¡┼íek, K. (2012). Robotics System
Design for Assembly and Disassembly Process. In WASET 67 2012
[10] Bozdana, T. (2012). Intelligent Manufacturing Systems. Introduction,
definition and course outlines. Consulted on 30.09.2012. Available at:
http://www1.gantep.edu.tr/~bozdana/ME534_1.pdf