A robotic workstation -- part of the CAISR agile manufacturing workcell
Different groups have different ideas of what agile manufacturing is. For our purposes, we have adopted the following definition: Agile manufacturing is the ability to accomplish rapid changeover between the manufacture of different assemblies. Rapid changeover is further defined as the ability to move from the assembly of one product to the assembly of a similar product with a minimum of change in tooling and software. Rapid changeover enables the production of small lot sizes, allowing for `just-in-time' production.
A testbed implementation of an agile manufacturing workcell has been developed at CAISR. This includes mechanical manipulators, flexible parts feeders, a vision system (cameras, frame grabber, and a library of image processing routines), as well as a limited number of dedicated sensors and actuators needed to complete a given assembly. The central feature of such a workcell is a controller capable of controlling each of the aforementioned components. Agility is also accomplished through the use of robust, reusable control software and graphical simulations.
Several companies have implemented what may be considered "agile" manufacturing. Motorola has developed an automated factory with the ability to produce physically different pagers on the same production line. At Panasonic, a combination of flexible manufacturing and just-in-time processing is being used to manufucture bicycles from combinations of a group of core parts. Against the backdrop of such work, the CWRU workcell is innovative in several ways. The use of vision-guided, flexible parts feeders is one example. Another is the object oriented design of the software. The over-arching design philosophy of quick-changeover, however, is what makes this workcell particularly novel. The CWRU workcell has been designed to be a versatile production facility, amenable to a wide range of applications.
Last update: 27 June 1996
E-mail: rdq@po.cwru.edu