DESIGN AND REAL-TIME RECONFIGURATION OF ROBUST MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS BY USING DESIGN OF EXPERIMENTS AND ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORKS

A methodology for design and real-time reconfiguration of robust manuf acturing systems is described which combines design of experimental te chnology, Taguchi method and knowledge-based simulation techniques. Ar tificial neural networks are proposed for mapping between design facto rs and system performance. The applicability of the approach is analys ed through experiments for the estimation of the throughput time, and the determination of Automated Guided Vehicle (AGV) speed in a given s ystem. In contrast to the simulation-based approach, the solution usin g artificial neural networks can also be used in real-time circumstanc es. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.