KNOWLEDGE-BASED APPROACH FOR THE FORMATION OF RE-CONFIGURABLE ASSEMBLY CELLS-A USE CASE STUDY

The current market turbulence has forced the companies to increase their productivity in order to remain in business, not only to remain competitive. Companies that make high volume products involving labour-intensive assembly operation normally use automated assembly since it may reduce the company cost and increase productivity. Improving productivity is focused in the assembly area since it contributes a bigger portion of manufacturing cos

PCLIPS

CLIPS is an expert system, created specifically to allow rapid implementation of an expert system. CLIPS is written in C, and thus needs a very small amount of memory to run. Parallel CLIPS (PCLIPS) is an extension to CLIPS which is intended to be used in situations where a group of expert systems are expected to run simultaneously and occasionally communicate with each other on an integrated network. PCLIPS is a coarse-grained data distribution system. Its main goal is to take information in one knowledge base and distribute it to other knowledge bases so that all the executing expert systems are able to use that knowledge to solve their disparate problems

The design and implementation of a flexible manufacturing system for a surface mounting production line

A project report submitted to the Faculty of Engineering, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Engineering.The viability of introducing a Surface Mount production line is chiefly determined by the reliability characteristics of the components being used. Surface Mount Technology (SMT) is entirely new and although related to traditional through-hole processes, requires different components, assembly techniques and design methods. The purpose of the literature survey is primarily to determine whether surface mount components meet today's industrial requirements with respect to their manufacturing reliability and availability. A brief review of the evolution of SMT is also presented. This study finds that the implementation of SMT should be given highest priority by manufacturing companies in order to maintain their share of the marketplace. Surface Mount Technology embodies a totally new automated circuit assembly process, using a new generation of electronic comporents: surface mounted devices (SMDs). Smaller than conventional components, SMDs are placed onto the surface of the substrate. From this, the fundamental difference between SMD assembly and convencional through-hole component assembly arises; SMD component positioning is relative, not absolute. When a through-hole component is inserted into a pcb, either the leads go through the hales or they don't. An SMD, however, is placed onto the substrate surface, it's position only relative to the solder lands, and placement accuracy is therefore influenced by variations in the substrate track pattern, component size, and placement machine accuracy. Other factors influence the layout of SMD substrates. For example, will the board be a mixed-print ( a combination of through-hole components and SMDs) or an all-SMD design? Will SMDs be placed on one side of the substrate or both? And there are process considerations like what type of machine will place the components and how will they be soldered? This project describes in detail the processes involved in setting up an SMT facility. A simulation program was developed to verify the viability of these processes. The simulation program was also applied to an existing SMT facility and together with developed optimization software, attempted to identify and resolve some of the major problems. All this was achieved, and the extent to which simulation could be used as an efficient production tool, was highlighted.AC201

Identification and evaluation of innovation opportunities emerging from technology and business trends

Master's thesis in Offshore Technology : Industrial Asset ManagementNew technology emerges faster than ever before, and the development is increasing exponentially. The speed of development is too rapid for businesses to investigate and identify potential value from them. There is a need for a culture of innovation and technology adoption and must be treated as the backbone of the company’s value chain. This master will explore a systematic approach to investigate and evaluate innovation opportunities emerging from technology and business trends. The goal of the project is to prove that a systematic method may assist the industry in identifying and evaluating opportunities to achieve competitive advantages. The method consisted of three main parts; 1. Selection and screening of industry 2. Screening of technology trends and business trends with potential for disrupting the industry 3. Identification and evaluation of ideas. The selected industry was Norwegian salmon farming and segment was salmon sea farming production. In total, 14 ideas were elaborated in this thesis. 9 ideas were rejected by the first screening. 5 ideas reached the second screening where 3 ideas were rejected at this point. 2 ideas cleared the second screening had potential to be a business opportunity and was evaluated in a business model canvas. The research prove that it is possible to systematically identify and screen innovation opportunity emerging from technology and business trends today. Time and access to information is identified as the two main enablers to increasing quality of the ideas, in addition to selecting an industry with innovation potential

NASA Tech Briefs, February 1994

Topics covered include: Test and Measurement; Electronic Components and Circuits; Electronic Systems; Physical Sciences; Materials; Computer Programs; Mechanics; Machinery; Fabrication Technology; Mathematics and Information Sciences; Life Sciences; Books and Report

Design and development of an automated pinning machine for the surface mount electronics industry

Thesis (M. Eng. in Manufacturing)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2012."September 2012." Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 97-99).This thesis describes the development of a concept for a pinning process and the associated machinery to handle odd-form pins specific to a company in the surface mount electronics industry. The developed pinning machine will reduce manual labor requirements, increase flexibility over current automated systems, and allow for greater part traceability. A brief history of industrial automation is presented to establish a background of the industry, followed by a more detailed look at robotic tooling. The design of the automated pinning machine is described in detail, as well as the design methodology behind the sub-systems and components themselves. Finally, the performance of the machine is documented in a testing chapter, comparing machine performance to the original design specifications. The final pinning machine is capable of processing pins with cycle times of 850ms, and has a mean time to failure of 0.24 hours.by Daniel J. Cook.M.Eng.in Manufacturin

Cloth Napkin Singulation System

Food service establishments serve food to many customers daily reusing a small inventory of silverware pieces. These silverware pieces are washed after each use and sets of pieces (e.g., a spoon, a soup spoon, a fork, and a knife per set) are often wrapped in napkins for using during further food serving. Upscale restaurants generally use cloth napkins, while others use paper napkins. Whether it is a cloth napkin or paper napkin, manual wrapping of silverware pieces in napkins is repetitive, tedious, and labor-intensive. Hence automation of wrapping of silverware pieces is highly desirable. One major component of an automated silverware wrapping system is a napkin singulator to feed the wrapping system with singulated napkins to be used for wrapping. This study investigates the design and construction of a cloth napkin singulation system, capable of singulating cloth napkins from a given stack of napkins without human interaction. The method of this study has been primarily experimental. A reliable cloth napkin singulation system with high accuracy has been designed, developed, constructed and evaluated. The system utilizes an adhesive tape to pick a napkin from a stack of napkins and a mechanism utilizing a linear actuator to remove the picked napkin from the adhesive tape near an upstream conveyor end. Then the removed napkin is passed along the moving conveyor to be fed to a silverware wrapping system, and the cycle is repeated until all napkins in the feed stack have been singulated. Results of evaluation demonstrate development of a cloth napkin singulation system with a high average singulation efficiency of 96%, which is a 14% increase over the earlier version of this mechanism. Also the system developed in this study is completely automated, unlike the earlier one. The average singulation time for each napkin cycle achieved by this system is 1.34 minutes, but this time can easily be decreased by employing higher speed carriage drive motors.Mechanical Engineerin

Integration of 3D Feedback Control Systems for Fabrication of Engineered Assemblies for Industrial Construction Projects

A framework and methods are presented in this thesis to support integration of 3D feedback control systems to improve dimensional conformance during fabrication of engineered assemblies such as process piping, structural steel, vessels, tanks, and associated instrumentation for industrial construction projects. Fabrication includes processes such as cutting, bending, fitting, welding, and connecting. Companies specializing in these processes are known as fabricators, fabrication shops or fab shops. Typically, fab shops do not use 3D feedback control systems in their measurement and quality control processes. Instead, most measurements are done using manual tools such as tape measures, callipers, bubble levels, straight edges, squares, and templates. Inefficiency and errors ensue, costing the industry tens of billions of dollars per year globally. Improvement is impeded by a complex fabrication industry system dependent on deeply embedded existing processes, inflexible supply chains, and siloed information environments. The goal of this thesis is to address these impediments by developing and validating a new implementation framework including several specific methods. To accomplish this goal, several research objectives must be met: 1. Determine if 3D dimensional control methods are possible for fab shops that do not have access to 3D models corresponding to shop drawings, thus serving as a step toward deploying more integrated, sophisticated and higher performing control systems. 2. Discover ways to solve incompatibility between requested information from fabrication workers and the output information delivered by state-of-the-art 3D inspection systems. 3. Conduct a credible cost-benefit analysis to understand the benefits required to justify the implementation costs, such as training, process change management, and capital expenditures for 3D data acquisition units for fab shops. 4. Investigate ways to compare quality and accuracy of dimensional control data sourced from modern point cloud processing methods, conventional surveying methods, and hand tools. Methodologies used in this research include: (1) an initial literature review to understand the knowledge gaps coupled with informal interviews of practitioners from industrial research partners, which was revisited throughout the development of the dissertation, (2) development of a conceptual framework for 3D fabrication control based on 3D imaging, (3) development and validation of algorithms to address key impediments to implementation of the framework, (4) experiments in the fab shop environment to validate elements of the framework, and (5) analysis to develop conclusions, identify weaknesses in the research, understand its contributions, and make recommendations. By developing and testing the preceding framework, it was discovered that three stages of evolution are necessary for implementation. These stages are: 1. Utilization of 3D digital templates to enable simple scan-vs-3D-model workflows for shops without access to 3D design models. 2. Development of a new language and framework for dimensional control through current ways of thinking and communication of quality control information. 3. Redefining quality control processes based on state-of-the-art tools and technologies, including automated dimensional control systems. With respect to the first stage, and to address the lack of access to 3D models, a framework for developing 3D digital template models was developed for inspecting received parts. The framework was used for developing a library of 600 3D models of piping parts. The library was leveraged to deploy a 3D quality control system that was then tested in an industrial-scale case study. The results of the case study were used to develop a discrete event simulation model. The simulation results from the model and subsequent cost-benefit analysis show that investment in integrating the scan-vs-3D-model quality control systems can have significant cost savings and provide a payback period of less than two years. With respect to the second stage and to bridge the gap between what 3D inspection systems can offer and what is expected by the fabrication workers, the concept of Termination Points was further defined and a framework for measuring and classifying them was developed. The framework was used to developed applications and tools based on the provided set of definitions. Those applications and tools were further analyzed, and the results are reported in each chapter. It is concluded that the methods developed based on the framework can have sufficient accuracy and can add significant value for fabrication quality control