OPTIMIZING CYCLE TIME OF A FLEXIBLE MANUFACTURING CELL USING SIMULATION SOFTWARE

摘要

A flexible manufacturing cell (FMC) is defined as a highly automated manufacturing system. The design of these kinds of systems is characterized by massive alternatives of components positions and paths. While in practice there is always the attempt to minimize the cycle time, dealing with a lot of alternatives - in respect to components positioning and paths planning - is necessary. There are a lot of constraints and boundary limits of such systems too. For that reason, it is a very difficult task - sometimes it is impossible - to achieve an optimal configuration of FMC components positions and paths without using simulation and 3D CAD-software. This paper introduces two different solutions for cycle time optimization based on a flexible manufacturing cell for handling cover parts. The simulation was made on the simulation software Arena 7.0 for two different scenarios. The components positions and paths as well as collision detections are verified on the ABB 3D simulation software RobotStudio 3.0.