Development of adaptive production system (APS) to market uncertainty -application to automotive starter assembly line-

摘要

It has been difficult with an automated production system to achieve compatibility between productivity and adaptability in the area where production volume and period are uncertain. Recently we have developed a new automated production system,APS (Adaptive Production System), by studying how a manual-operation system responds to uncertainties, and applied it to an automotive starter assembly line. The number of machines in the system can easily be increased or decreased according to theproduction volume fluctuation. The highlighted topic is integration of human-social functions such as autonomy, cooperation, and succession into a conventional automated line. As a result, we have realized an epoch-making automated production system which can change its production capacity between 4 700 and 61 000 units/month through a rapid transformation of system structure, while the automation ratio of this system is equivalent to that of the conventional transfer line whose production volume andperiod are certain.