Agile Manufacturing: Festo's modular iFactory to boost University of Windsor's flexible manufacturing research

摘要

For Dr. Hoda ElMaraghy, professor of Industrial & Manufacturing Systems at the University of Windsor and the Canada Research Chair in Manufacturing Systems, modern production lines are too static. Over the course of her 20 years of engineering research, she's become an internationally recognized expert in manufacturing systems with particular focus on the concept of flexible or reconfigurable production systems. Under this concept, manufacturing lines are assembled from a series modular machine cells and material handing units. As need arises, the modules that can be added, removed or repurposed to accommodate different fabrication and assembly operations in a matter of hours.