Simulation Environment to Minimize Lead-time of Manufacturing Cell Implementation Process Using Real Equipment Interaction

摘要

At present, as there are many limitations of simulation applications for many evaluation activities in the manufacturing engineering processes, it is necessary to extend range of simulation applications through the manufacturing engineering processes. Especially, industries need simulation technology advances in the manufacturing system implementations phase. In our research, a manufacturing engineering environment (MEE) is proposed as one of the frontloading methods in the manufacturing engineering process. In this paper, roles of MEE are summarized based on our analysis for the typical manufacturing engineering processes. MEE consists of a manufacturing cell simulation environment (MCSE) and a distributed simulation environment (DSE). MCSE, which is used to create and evaluate facility control programs while mixing and synchronizing real equipment, virtual factory models, and production management applications before manufacturing systems are implemented, is proposed in detail. MCSE consists of our developed manufacturing cell emulator, our developed soft-wiring system, and the industrial network middleware which is one of the semi-standard middlewares. The validation of our proposed environment was carried out through a case study.