Design and evaluation of an augmented vision system for self-optimizing assembly cells

Abstract

In high-wage countries many manufacturing systems are highly automated. The main aim of automation is usually to increase productivity and reduce personnel expenditures. However, it is well known that highly automated systems are very investment-intensive and often generate a non-negligible organizational overhead that is mandatory for production scheduling, numerical control programming or system maintenance, but does not directly add value to the product to be manufactured. Highly automated manufacturing systems therefore tend to be neither efficient enough for small lot production (ideally one piece) nor flexible enough to handle products to be manufactured in a large number of variants. In order to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage for manufacturing companies in high-wage countries with their highly skilled workers, it is therefore not promising to further increase the planning orientation of the manufacturing systems and simultaneously improve the economies of scale. The primary goal should be to wholly resolve the so-called polylemma of production, which is analyzed in detail in the contribution of KLOCKE (2009) to this Festschrift. © 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.