Showing papers on "Production engineering published in 1998"

Scenario Management: An Interdisciplinary Approach

Abstract: Scenario management (SM) means different things to different people, even though everyone seems to admit its current importance and its further potential. In this paper, we seek to provide an interdisciplinary framework for SM from three major disciplines that use scenarios – strategic management, human–computer interaction, and software and systems engineering – to deal with description of current and future realities. In particular, we attempt to answer the following questions: How are scenarios developed and used in each of the three disciplines? Why are they becoming important? What are current research contributions in scenario management? What are the research and practical issues related to the creation and use of scenarios, in particular in the area of requirements engineering? Based on brainstorming techniques, this paper proposes an interdisciplinary definition of scenarios, frameworks for scenario development, use and evaluation, and directions for future research.

Stability measures for rolling schedules with applications to capacity expansion planning, master production scheduling, and lot sizing

Abstract: This contribution discusses the measurement of (in-)stability of finite horizon production planning when done on a rolling horizon basis As examples, we review strategic capacity expansion planning, tactical master production scheduling, and operational capacitated lot sizing An iterative method to dampen the nervousness is presented

Optimizing Production Manufacturing Using Reinforcement Learning

Abstract: Many industrial processes involve making parts with an assembly of machines, where each machine carries out an operation on a part, and the finished product requires a whole series of operations A well-studied example of such a factory structure is the transfer line, which involves a sequence of machines Optimizing transfer lines has been a subject of much study in the industrial engineering and operations research fields A desirable goal of a lean manufacturing system is to maximize demand, while keeping inventory levels of unfinished product as low as possible This problem is intractable since the number of states is usually very large, and the underlying models are stochastic In this paper we present an artificial intelligence approach to optimization based on a simulation-based dynamic programming method called reinforcement learning We describe a reinforcement learning algorithm called SMART, and compare its performance on optimizing manufacturing systems with that of standard heuristics used in industry

A structured methodology for implementing engineering data management

Abstract: One of the most significant positive effects on product and process development in recent years has been the application of data management techniques. Engineering data management or product data management is the most promising one. The implementation of engineering data management is heavily dependent on the engineering process and involves the technologies of management, engineering, and information. However, as there is no commonly acceptable approach and methodologies for implementing engineering data management, it’s implementation becomes a bottleneck. This paper presents a structured methodology for the implementation of engineering data management. The approach consists of a series of steps, from business and engineering process analysis, modeling and reengineering, through system design and modeling, to system realization. This research will facilitate engineering process improvement and the planning, design and implementation of engineering data management. Consequently, it will help increase product development capability and quality, reduce development cycle time and cost, and hence increase product marketability.

Results of an Industry Survey on Manufacturing Engineering and Manufacturing Engineering Education

Abstract: A survey of 47 manufacturing companies in the Pacific Northwest was taken during the development of a new manufacturing engineering curriculum at Seattle University. The survey asked companies to comment on current and future manufacturing practices and on curriculum recommendations for a new manufacturing engineering program. The survey results indicate that manufacturing engineers need training in a broad range of topics including manufacturing processes, economics, resource management and computer networking.

Teaching design for assembly using product disassembly

Abstract: This paper describes an effective pedagogical approach to teaching design for assembly (DFA). DFA is a well-established technique for reducing the difficulty of assembling a product through identifying design changes. DFA has significant direct and indirect benefits to reducing the manufacturing cost of a product, improving its reliability and ease of service and simplifying the entire manufacturing system. The pedagogical approach described emphasizes hands-on learning. The hands-on activities arise through exposing students to the concepts of DFA through disassembling industrial products. The approach includes lectures, a laboratory and an examination. The educational material is appropriate for mechanical, industrial, manufacturing or interdisciplinary engineering education.

An integrated intelligent process planning system (IIPPS) for machining

Abstract: A key component of computer integrated manufacturing (CIM) is computer aided process planning (CAPP). Process planning in machining involves the determination of the cutting operations and sequences, the selection of machine tools and cutting tools, the calculation of machining parameters, and the generation of CNC part programs. Industrial structures in Norway are defined as small and medium-sized companies. The important fact is how well these companies use high technologies and resources in order to improve their production efficiency, product quality, and company competition in international markets. The concept of an integrated intelligent system (IIS) is created for this purpose. A prototype system, the integrated intelligent process planning system (IIPPS), is described for machining; it was developed on the basis of an IIS and constructed using three levels of effort: (1) AutoCAD, (2) dBASE III and (3) KnowledgePro. The system may be utilized not only by a process plann ing engineer in a company, but also by students of mechanical or industrial engineering.

An expert classification system for production system

Abstract: The proposed system shows a knowledge base system integrating a geometric modeler, a database, and a knowledge base system, which generates group technology codes to retrieve existing similar design models in database, initiate a model, generate a process plan, and store the new model in the database automatically. We also demonstrate the knowledge based system which is one of the powerful tools applied to integration of design and manufacturing, and the system can be integrated with databases and CAD/CAM systems to implement concurrent production engineering system environment.

Process flow design for repetitive assembly

Abstract: • A submitted manuscript is the version of the article upon submission and before peer-review. There can be important differences between the submitted version and the official published version of record. People interested in the research are advised to contact the author for the final version of the publication, or visit the DOI to the publisher's website. • The final author version and the galley proof are versions of the publication after peer review. • The final published version features the final layout of the paper including the volume, issue and page numbers.

Using The World Wide Web To Support Teaching In Manufacturing Engineering Technology

Abstract: The Internet is a modern wonder of the computer age. The number of people using the Internet is doubling every few months. The growth is remarkable, unlike anything seen before in the computer age. It has tremendous power to provide students with a wealth of information and communications opportunities. The question for engineering educators seems to be one of how to harness the power of the Internet, not whether it should be used or not. This paper presents the story of how the Internet has been used to support a series of courses in the Computer Integrated Manufacturing Technology program at Purdue University. It is a story of the implementation of the basics. The work involved is not complicated and does not involve an extraordinary commitment of faculty time. The use of the Internet and the World Wide Web can become somewhat obsessive. It is an exciting and fun technology that has unlimited possibilities where actions on one page can easily lead to the creation or revision of several others. This paper presents a simple "no frills" approach to using the Internet to enhance teaching. Emphasis is placed on the use of electronic mail and the use of course pages on the World Wide Web. The students in the School of Technology have a fairly high level of computer literacy. Most of the students have access to a computer where they live as well as during class and lab time on campus. Computers in most of the campus computer labs allow students to make a direct connection to the Internet. Students in the residence hall system at Purdue have the ability to make a direct connection to the campus backbone of the Purdue University Computing Center. The majority of students in the CIMT program are users of e-mail and the World Wide Web. Within the first 14 days of the start of the fall semester nearly 75 % of the students in an introductory course on CIM Technology had e-mail addresses. 90% of the students in an upper division undergraduate course reported that they use e-mail regularly. The use of electronic mail as a tool in CIMT classes is increasing. The primary uses of e-mail in CIMT classes include the following: • "One-on-one" communication between the instructor and a student. • Sending information and assignments to an entire class through an instructor maintained distribution list. • Submission of completed assignments to the instructor's account. P ge 321.1 • Use of e-mail "listserv" utilities created for students, faculty and graduates of the CIMT program. • Subscriptions to other "listservs" related to manufacturing (such as MFG-INFO from Michigan State University). Student response to the growing use of e-mail has been very positive. 97% of the students I work with in undergraduate and graduate courses reported that they liked sending and receiving messages with the instructor. E-mail communication saves the students and faculty time. Problems related to inconvenient office hours and "telephone tag" have been greatly reduced. The use of instructor developed "course pages" on the available on the World Wide Web has been a new development during the fall semester of 1997. The growing list of new web based course documents includes: • A syllabus "home page" for each course. • A posting of the latest version of the daily course plan. • Creation of a "links to other sites" serving several courses with information about the companies that support the CIMT program and laboratories. • Linking to files containing weekly editions of course handouts, assignments and lecture notes. • Posting of the current grade spreadsheet. • Posting of additional information, papers and pictures that supplement the content of the lectures and labs. The procedures used to create "no frills" web pages and links to other files are not difficult to copy. My first pages were in fact copies of another instructor's source code in hypertext markup language (.html) for a page with titles, pictures, text and links to other sites. A sample of the .html code and the simple page it produces can be found in figures 1 and 2 at the end of this paper. New web pages can be developed quickly by using the source code from an existing page as a template. New text and links can be added as needed to build the new page. The template code provides the "program" base and format for the page. The instructor provides the course specific information to plug into the template. Much of the actual materials may already exist in other documents and files. The template approach makes web page creation easy. Text from an existing course documents can be quickly copied into a web page template. A course specific web page can be created with just a few minor changes to call out different pictures and adjust the links to desired pages. Page development can be completed and tested off-line at the instructor's workstation. The new page is then ready to post to the web server. During a two-day period at the start of the semester I was able to complete my annual syllabus revision and the generation of web page programs for three classes and three other page projects. The pages created are not fancy, but they have proven throughout the semester to be very functional. Additional links have been added which allow visitors to the site to open documents prepared for class and lab sessions using Microsoft Windows or Excel. Linking weekly course notes and assignments to a course page can be done in less than five minutes. The maintenance of the course page programs takes less than 30 minutes per week. Page 321.2 Saving the .html and other related files is not as easy as it could be! The School of Technology made a commitment to upgrade software throughout the school to Microsoft’s Office97 during the fall of 1997. This powerful suite of programs for office applications provides many great new features. The new features that make it easier to work with the World Wide Web. Older versions of Word can not, however, open documents saved using the latest Office97 version. Keeping track of the files and making sure all "saves" are done in an older version is not hard, but it does require attention! It is easy to forget to make the save to an older version, and post files that people with software versions older than the Office97 software can not open. This software version problem may never really go away, and must be managed. The actual programming work with the "html" tags is minimal. The basic tag commands in "html" to create paragraphs, underline text, create bold type and create lists for my links to other sites can be learned easily. My network administrator helped me get the authorization needed to place web page documents in the public directory of the server used by my department. I can do all the needed file transfers to add and maintain web pages on the server from the computer in my office. Changes, updates, enhancements and additions to existing pages can be made quickly and easily. The new generation of software in the Microsoft Office97 suite of programs provides for the saving of files as .html as a menu option. The "save as html" option automatically generates the codes it needs to produce a file with the .html ending. I have not found that the .html program always produced output in the form that I wanted, but it often provides a good starting point for customization. It is fairly easy to add a few html tags to generated source code to make the output right. Web page creation can become an obsession. The html code and new web page creation tools provide many program features that can be use to improve the look of the completed page. Look around on the web and you will see many examples of page styles, formats, backgrounds and features that can "jazz up" your site. I encourage new web users to start out with something simple, then make additions that will make it fancy. The content of the page is really much more important than all the flashy graphics. The following URL will take you to my current "Course Page": http://www.tech.purdue.edu/cimt/facstaff/hwkraebber/personal/courses.htm During the fall semester I surveyed the students in two classes with new web pages to try to assess the value they found in them. The student response to the use of the web and e-mail as teaching tools in my classes was very positive! The results are summarized in Table 1 on the following page. The Internet proved to be a valuable asset to the students and the instructor. E-mail helped open communications between the students and the instructor. Connections to the World Wide Web, such as the ones found at the URL listed above, provided students access to a number of great sites that provided current information on products and systems supporting CIM. The combination of e-mail and the Internet allowed the class to “see” more and do more. Many industrial and technological leaders provide outstanding information and resources on their corporate web pages. Students had fun using the technology as a tool of this class. It saved P ge 321.3 students time. It gave the instructor additional contact opportunities throughout the semester that would not have been possible any other way. These tools are not a cure all for problems, but the student response to this “first try” of integrating the use of the Internet into a course did get a good overall response. Table 1: Results of Student Surveys Undergrad Grad Comb The use of the WWW and e-mail are a positive addition 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% Find course specific material on web helpful 95.2% 56.3% 78.4% Found relevant and interesting info about CIM on the web 57.1% 93.8% 73.0% Think this is an important addition to traditional class handouts 100.0% 75.0% 89.2% Check course web site weekly 71.4% 25.0% 51.4% Usually print copies of posted lecture notes 85.7% 6.3% 51.4% The benefits to the students and the instructor do not come free. There was a start-up cost related to learning how to make it work, and associated ongoing maintenance time required from the

Manufacturing Engineering in a Changing World: Issues, Challenges, and Strategies

Abstract: This paper presents the author's perspectives on manufacturing engineering systems in a changing world. A brief historical review of manufacturing is discussed. The process of making manufacturing engineering a science is presented. In addition, perspective on research focuses on "effectiveness" and "service" in manufacturing is discussed. Finally, the future challenges of manufacturing engineering systems in a globalized enterprise are summarized.

Development of a manufacturing engineering system for the motor industry : executive summary

Abstract: Manufacturing Engineering is concerned with converting a product specification into the most appropriate method of manufacture to produce the product to the correct cost and quality. Lack of integration and 'over the wall' engineering between design and manufacturing engineering adds to the time and cost of product development, and has significant effects on the subsequent cost and quality of the product. Because of the size and complexity of manufacturing engineering within the motor industry, the task is often divided between disparate, isolated, departments that traditionally have their own goals and objectives, supported by different business processes and systems. The adverse effects of the lack of integration between design and manufacturing engineering re-emerge within manufacturing engineering itself. As a part of this research, the author analysed the existing information flows through manufacturing engineering within Rover Group, and showed that the business processes and systems generated a high duplication of effort and data, and reinforced functional demarcation between the departments. The new Rover Integrated Manufacturing Engineering System (RIMES) has been developed to address these issues. RIMES has been developed using TQM techniques and evolutionary delivery, new to Rover, to involve the manufacturing engineering customer in all aspects of business analysis and system development. The resultant system deliverables have therefore more closely met the customer requirements and have consequently been implemented with greater customer support. The subsequent changes to manufacturing engineering culture have been promoted from within manufacturing engineering, with the RIMES system acting as a lever for the change. The research has been primarily concerned with the analysis and development of appropriate solutions in three main areas: integration of design and manufacturing engineering, change control procedures to maintain data integrity, and business processes to improve efficiency of manufacturing engineering and the quality of its output. These are all issues that are important for supporting concurrent engineering but were found not to have been adequately addressed, either in the research literature or in commercial systems, for applications involving large, complex products. The new system provides support for the electronic integration of design and manufacturing engineering information, which is based on a technique developed that combines data 'push' and 'pull' principles, and enables the efficient communication of product specification to manufacturing engineering. It provides a single system and repository of manufacturing engineering knowledge, a common fundamental business process, and a common and consistent way of presenting manufacturing engineering information and reports. Concurrent engineering is promoted through early availability of information for downstream processes and strict change control procedures have been developed to maintain data integrity. The previously disparate departments of process engineering and industrial engineering are now working concurrently from the same data which has improved the accuracy, consistency and understanding of information both internally and in external reporting. The time to market has been reduced because product specification information is provided earlier and simultaneously to all manufacturing engineering functions. The manufacturing engineering process and its output have been redesigned. New working methods introduced through the RIMES system have promoted reorganisation and the elimination of demarcation within manufacturing engineering to further facilitate concurrent engineering. Newly designed multi media forms for communication of process information to manufacturing, developed in consultation with the RIMES user community, has promoted team working on the shop-floor.

A group technology knowledge-based system for a rapid response manufacturing environment

Abstract: The emergence of global markets for engineered products, and the resulting increase in competition in markets traditionally dominated by US manufacturers, has led to calls for increased productivity. Attention is particularly focused on understanding engineering design and developing new methodologies to increase the efficiency of the design process. One such method is concurrent engineering (CE). CE has focused on developing the tools and techniques for designing products. However, design in many industries is evolutionary, consisting primarily of incremental changes to existing products. This is known as the variant design engineering approach. Although concurrent engineering is concerned with integrating people with traditional engineering skills, the variant design engineering approach is concerned with empowering people with new skills by giving direct access to complete knowledge about design and manufacture of parts, with the philosophy that ‘the knowledge is not generated at design time, but is retrieved from an engineering database which completely documents existing designs’.

Perspectives on the Future of Manufacturing Engineering

Abstract: Good afternoon. Thanks for inviting me to speak today. It’s a pleasure to be here with this group of internationally respected scientists and engineers. I recognize some of you from my involvement in the Intelligent Manufacturing Systems Program.