Flexible conveyance control system for agile manufacturing

Abstract

The control of conveyance between processes still relies on the engineer's experience. It is difficult to correspond to the change in the conveyance layout due to the expansion and reduction of production and the breakdown of conveyance devices. In this paper, we propose a conveyance control system that can adapt to changes in the conveyance layout and we aim at the improvement of the amount of total conveyance. First of all, the system is divided into the part where the conveyance layout is made a data base and the part where the conveyance control that uses the congestion index is done. Therefore, it is possible to deal flexibly by changing the data base part without changing the conveyance control part when it is necessary to change the conveyance layout suddenly. In all the combinations of the conveyance layout and the turning on pattern used as a result of the simulation, the proposed conveyance control method became a great result by the amount of total conveyance. © 2008 The Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan.