An Integrated Design-Aid Tool for Flexible Assembly Systems

摘要

Flexible assembly systems (FASs) are being adopted as alternatives to traditional labor-driven systems, and the number is growing. Design aids for such capital-intensive, automated systems, however, have not been investigated in sufficient depth. We present an integrated design-aid tool (IDaT) for FASs which employs three phases of analyses: rough-cut analysis, detailed analysis, and investment plan analysis. The proposed system encompasses various techniques systematically, including queueing networks, optimization methods, discrete-event computer simulation, and engineering economy. In this paper, we overview our third year generalizations that aims towards enhancing the earlier prototype towards real application.