Manufacturing Commons^™

Adaptive Scheduling And Control Using Artificial Neural Networks And Expert Systems For A Hierarchical/Distributed Fms Architecture, Luis Carlos Rabelo, Sema E. Alptekin

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

An adaptive expert scheduler was developed that learns by itself and adapts to the dynamic FMS environment. This hybrid system uses a symbiotic architecture composed of expert systems (ESs) and artificial neural networks (ANNs) and provides a learning scheme guided by past experience. The artificial neural networks recognize patterns in the tasks to be solved in order to select the best scheduling rule according to different criteria. The expert systems, on the other hand, drive the inference strategy and interpret the constraints and restrictions imposed by the upper levels of the control hierarchy of the flexible manufacturing system. The level …

Integrating Scheduling And Control Functions In Computer Integrated Manufacturing Using Artificial Intelligence, Luis Carlos Rabelo, Sema E. Alptekin

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Proper integration of scheduling and control in Flexible Manufacturing Systems will make available the required level of decision-making capacity to provide a flexibly-automated, efficient, and quality manufacturing process. To achieve this level of integration, the developments in computer technology and sophisticated techniques of artificial intelligence (AI) should be applied to such FMS functions as scheduling. In this paper, we present an Intelligent Scheduling System for FMS under development that makes use of the integration of two AI technologies. These two AI technologies — Neural Networks and Expert Systems — provide the intelligence that the scheduling function requires in order to …

Group Set-Up For Printed Circuit Board Assembly, Tali F. Carmon, Oded Z. Maimon, Ezey M. Dar-El

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

The current practice in the assembly of electronic components on printed circuit boards (PCBs) is serial production. a process characterized by very long set-up times. However, with the advent of efficient on-line process information .. new production control methods are now possible. This paper proposes a different production method, called the group set-up (GSU) method, which can significantly reduce set-up times. The traditional and the GSU production methods are compared, and it is shown that the GSU always performs better than the traditional method in terms of total production flow (throughput) and labour time However, the traditional method performs better …

A Systematic Transition To Flexible Manufacturing, Sema E. Alptekin, Daniel L. Webber

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

The transition from basic automation to flexible manufacturing is an expensive and tedious procedure. It requires meticulous planning and almost clairvoyant forecasting to insure that the initial flexibility obtained is sufficient to allow growth and expansion in the future. This paper will suggest a systematic and methodological approach to achieve optimal flexibility and describe the present results of its application to an ongoing system transformation. Conclusions based on existing levels of completion are presented along with identification of critical and non critical flexibility requirements. The considerations and steps taken are summarized in a procedural format which may then be applied …

Proposed Scheduling Methods For Printed Circuit Board Assembly, Tali Freed, Ezey M. Dar-El, Oded Z. Maimon

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

The current practice in the assembly of electronic components on printed circuit boards (PCB's) is serial production, a process characterized by very long set-up times.

However. with the advent of efficient on-line process information, new production control methods are now possible. This paper proposes two new production methods - the Grouped Set-up (GSU) method and the Sequence-Dependent Scheduling (SDS) method, which can significantly reduce set-up times.

It is shown that the GSU always performs better than the SDS method in terms of total production flow (throughput). while the SDS performs better than the GSU method in terms of work-in-process (WIP) …