FMS — Simulation and Practice

Abstract

Several companies and educational establishments are making substantial investments in new CNC machines, machining centres and industrial robots. These may be linked together to form small machining cells and larger flexible manufacturing systems (FMS). Further integration of design, production and manufacturing software through a common data-base results in the ultimate computer-integrated manufacturing system (CIM). Before making these investments the user must be convinced of the worth of this advanced manufacturing technology (AMT) to his company. One way of doing this is to use a computer model to simulate the processes involved. There are already a number of general-purpose packages available for the simulation of machine/robot interaction and larger manufacturing systems, e.g. GRASP, SIMAN, SEE-WHY. These are very flexible allowing the user to model a variety of different situations: because of this the user must invest some considerable learning time to realise their full potential. In the busy timetable of an engineering course it is difficult to justify their use, except for demonstrations, project and research applications. Special simulation languages have been developed (see Reference 1). There does seem to be a need for a simpler and cheaper educational program to simulate FMS: the author has developed such a program SIMAC.