Engineering modular automation systems

R. Harrison, A.A. West, S.M. Lee

Automation systems often fail adequately to support required business objectives. Whilst they may offer adequate real-time performance, they are often difficult and complex to support, configure, integrate, and optimise, particularly in the face of rapid and often unforeseen change. Research conducted at Loughborough University into the development of concepts and tools to support the global engineering of component-based reconfigurable manufacturing automation systems in the automotive production domain is described in this paper. A collaborative framework to integrate and coordinate the various engineering activities of globally distributed engineering teams involved in the design, implementation, operation and diagnosis of production machinery is also described.

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Submitted by Robert Harrison on Thu, 29/06/2006 - 4:12pm.
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STEP

Submitted by Lagos on Fri, 30/06/2006 - 8:19pm.

Does your framework also support product data exchange in STEP?

PDE versus commercial softwares

Submitted by Juhani Heilala on Wed, 05/07/2006 - 8:59am.

Dear Authors. PDE, Process Definition Environment, is a prototype done at research organisation. Do you have plans to make it commercial ? How to you compare PDE to existing commercial solutions, even as far as I know, in a single desing platform there are not all features as shown here.
Juhani

Data exchange in STEP

Submitted by Robert Harrison on Thu, 03/08/2006 - 9:35am.

The current implimentation of the system does not support data exhange in STEP. We have an interface via XML currently and a new project is now looking at what data formats should be supported in the future in order to work with product information from a number of sources including UGS and Delmia applications.

PDE versus commercial software products

Submitted by Robert Harrison on Thu, 03/08/2006 - 9:53am.

Yes, the PDE is a prototype to show what is possible from a single design platform. We are currently doing some evaluations of vendors products; Tecnomatix and Delmia Automation are similar in some respects. We are interested in and exploring routes to commercialisation. We are working closely with a number of end-users.

Modular automation

Submitted by Mr Olivier Dent on Thu, 03/08/2006 - 1:40pm.

In addition to modularity, what are the other key characteristics of reconfigurable manufacturing systems?

Would you say that reconfigurable manufacturing systems are also agile systems?

Engineering modular automation systems

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