Shop Floor Control Systems

Shop floor control and namely the problem of job shop scheduling have been fields of research for a long time. However, until now no comprehensive framework on the various aspects exists. This book will provide a systems perspective towards shop floor control by stressing its sociotechnical and cybernetical nature. It focuses on the behavioral aspects of control activities and sees the shop floor as the center of value-adding manufacturing activities within an enterprise. The book enables the reader to understand the interaction of organization, information technology and human resources. This eventually allows to achieve holistic and agile solutions and facilitates profound organizational change. The book will therefore provide a welcome addition to several standard textbooks on the issue.

In recent years there has been a tremendous upsurge of interest in manufac turing systems design and analysis. Large industrial companies have realized that their manufacturing facilities can be a source of tremendous opportunity if managed well or a huge corporate liability if managed poorly. In particular industrial managers have realized the potential of well designed and installed production planning and control systems. Manufacturing, in an environment of short product life cycles and increasing product diversity, looks to tech niques such as manufacturing resource planning, Just In Time (lIT) and total quality control among others to meet the challenge. Customers are demanding high quality products and very fast turn around on orders. Manufacturing personnel are aware of the lead time from receipt of order to delivery of completed orders at the customer's premises. It is clear that this production lead time is, for the majority of manufacturing firms, greatly in excess of the actual processing or manufacturing time. There are many reasons for this, among them poor coordination between the sales and manufacturing function. Some are within the control of the manufacturing function. Others are not.

Modern manufacturing is more advanced than ever. There are too many moving parts between human errors, equipment breakdowns, delayed shipments, and hurried orders. Errors are inevitable without adequate planning. Preplanning, planning, staffing, directing, monitoring, and controlling actions that improve shop efficiency and analysis are all parts of shop floor management. The process of converting raw resources (inputs) into the intended output (products or services) is referred to as production or operations activity. Production is a collection of consecutive tasks that generate a desirable product that customers will accept and that also satisfies their needs in terms of quantity and intended use. Using effective production planning and control, the goals can be attained. Smart manufacturers are swiftly implementing the most recent business process optimization techniques in response to the changing production environment, and shop floor management is probably the most crucial technique on the list. A shop floor is a place where production or assembly is done. Either the labor would have to do this manually, or sophisticated automated systems would have to do it. Consequently, shop floor management might be characterized as management at the point of action. At this location where value is created, managers and production staff gather every day to thoroughly examine the machinery, inventory, storage, and manufacturing processes in order to spot any disruptions or deviations in the value-added processes and, where appropriate, to start corrective action.

Overviews manufacturing systems from the ground up, following the same concept as in the first edition. Delves into the fundamental building blocks of manufacturing systems: manufacturing processes and equipment. Discusses all topics from the viewpoint of four fundamental manufacturing attributes: cost, rate, flexibility and quality.

This proceedings volume contains selected and refereed contributions that were presented at the conference on "Recent Developments and New Perspectives of Operations Research in the Area of Production Planning and Control" in Hagen/Germany, 25. - 26. June 1992. This conference was organized with the cooperation of the FernuniversiHit Hagen and was jointly hosted by the "Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Operations Research (DGOR)" and the "Manufacturing Special Interest Group of the Operations Research Society of America (ORSA-SIGMA)". For the organization of the conference we received generous financial support from the sponsors listed at the end of this volume. We wish to express our appreciation to all supporters for their contributions. This conference was the successor of the JOInt ORSA/DGOR-conference in Gaithersburg/Maryland, USA, on the 30. and 31. July 1991. Both OR-societies committed themselves in 1989 to host joint conferences on special topics of interest from the field of operations research. This goal has been successfully realized in the area of production management; and it should be an incentive to conduct similar joint conferences on other topics of operations research in the years to come. The 36 contributions in this proceedings volume deal with general and special problems in production planning as well as approaches and algorithms for their solution. They cover a wide range of operations research within product management and will therefore address a wide circle of interested readers among OR-scientists and professionals alike.

On the verge of the global information society, enterprises are competing for markets that are becoming global and driven by customer demand, and where growing specialisation is pushing them to focus on core competencies and look for partnerships to provide products and services. Simultaneously the public demands environmentally sustainable industries and urges manufacturers to mind the whole life span of their products and production resources. Information infrastructure systems are anticipated to offer services enabling and catalyzing the strategies of manufacturing companies responding to these challenges: they support the formation of extended enterprises, the mastering of full product and process life cycles, and the digitalization of the development process. Information infrastructure systems would accommodate access to and transformation of information as required by the various authorized stakeholders involved in the life phases of products or production resources. Services should be available to select and present all relevant information for situations involving any kind of players, during any life phase of a product or artifact, at any moment and at any place.

This two volumes constitute the refereed proceedings of the First International Conference on Intelligent Robotics and Applications, ICIRA 2008, held in Wuhan, China, in October 2008. The 265 revised full papers presented were thoroughly reviewed and selected from 552 submissions; they are devoted but not limited to robot motion planning and manipulation; robot control; cognitive robotics; rehabilitation robotics; health care and artificial limb; robot learning; robot vision; human-machine interaction & coordination; mobile robotics; micro/nano mechanical systems; manufacturing automation; multi-axis surface machining; realworld applications.

Kanban is the name given to the inventory control card used in a pull system. The primary benefit of kanban is to reduce overproduction, the worst of the seven deadly wastes. A true kanban system produces exactly what is ordered, when it is ordered, and in the quantities ordered. It is essentially a dynamic work order that moves with the material. Each kanban identifies the part or subassembly unit and indicates where each one came from and where each is going. Used this way, kanban acts as a system of information that integrates your plant, connects all processes one to another, and connects the entire value stream to customer demand. Kanban for the Shopfloor provides a working manual for those seeking to implement this method of production control in any operation. It defines the various terms and methods employed in kanbans, and illustrates how when adhered to, kanban is an element of continuous improvement that ultimately leads to the ideal of one-piece flow." In addition to reducing the waste of overproduction, kanban will help your company increase flexibility to respond to customer demand, coordinate production of small lots and wide product variety, and simplify the procurement process. About the Shopfloor Series: Put proven improvement tools in the hands of your entire workforce! Progressive shopfloor improvement techniques are imperative for manufacturers who want to stay competitive and to achieve world class excellence. And it's the comprehensive education of all shopfloor workers that ensures full participation and success when implementing new programs. The Shopfloor Series books make practical information accessible to everyone by presenting major concepts and tools in simple, clear language and at a reading level that has been adjusted for operators by skilled instructional designers. One main idea is presented every two to four pages so that the book can be picked up and put down easily. Each chapter begins with an overview and ends with a summary section. Helpful illustrations are used throughout. Other topics in the Shopfloor Series: Kanban, 5S, Quick Changeover, Mistake-Proofing, Just-in-Time, TPM, Cellular Manufacturing