Application of Module Drivers Creating Modular Manufacturing Equipment Enabling Changeability

AbstractThe changeability of manufacturing systems can be of great importance for manufacturing companies to react rapidly and cost-effectively to market and product changes. Creating the basis for increasing the reuse and reusability of the manufacturing system then becomes critical since such capabilities would minimize the cost and/or investments that traditionally follows NPI projects and/or generally handling product variety. To accomplish the changeability of a manufacturing system one important enabler is modularity, which facilitates reusability. The basic concepts of modularity and platform architectures applied in product development can often be directly transferred to a production context though it does not necessarily imply that methods introduced as generic product modularization methods can be adopted directly with the purpose of developing modularized manufacturing systems. However, this paper adopts a method from product development literature to identify the optimal modular structure. Thus, this paper provides a methodology to apply module drivers in the design of modular manufacturing equipment, demonstrated on an industrial example

Reconfigurable Manufacturing Potential in Small and Medium Enterprises with Low Volume and High Variety:Pre-design Evaluation of RMS

AbstractGlobal competition forces companies to respond to fast changing market conditions by introducing new and innovative products rapidly and more often at competitive prices. Meeting these challenges sets strict requirements in order to cope with the variety of products during both ramp-up and production. The Reconfigurable Manufacturing System meets these challenges of high variety by adapting to the capacity and functionality needed when needed. Thus, implementing reconfigurable manufacturing affects the performance during both ramp-up and production. Still, the evaluation of the reconfigurable manufacturing potential has only received limited attention even though it is highly related to justifying its investment. One practical case based example of investigating the potential in reconfigurable manufacturing has though been carried out in high volume manufacturing. However, quantifying and investigating the potential in reconfigurable manufacturing for low volume manufacturing has to our knowledge not been carried out. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to measure the potential of reconfigurable manufacturing in low volume industry, carried out by use of a case-study in Danish industry. Thus, this paper presents an approach for decision support that can be applied by low volume manufacturing companies

A Changeable Jig-Less Welding Cell for Subassembly of Construction Machinery

Part 5: Smart Production for Mass CustomizationInternational audienceThe cost and technological development of industrial robots suggests a substitution of labor-intensive processes. Jig-less welding is an example of an emerging concept that is derived from this development, providing high flexibility without compensating on efficiency. This paper presents a conceptual solution of a jig-less welding cell for a particular environment with the purpose of investigating potential, expected challenges to overcome before implementation. To investigate the expected, potential challenges the concept is applied to a case study that takes its outset in a low volume, high variety welding facility. A full-scale test on the setup have yet to be conducted