AN AGILE MANUFACTURING WORKCELL DESIGN

This paper introduces a design for agile manufacturing workcells inten ded for light mechanical assembly of products made from similar compon ents (i.e., parts families). We define agile manufacturing as the abil ity to accomplish rapid changeover from the assembly of one product to the assembly of a different product. sapid hardware changeover is mad e possible through the use of robots, flexible part feeders, modular g rippers, and modular assembly hardware. The division of assembly, feed ing? and unloading tasks between multiple robots is examined with prio ritization based upon assembly time. Rapid software changeover will be facilitated by the use of a real-time, object-oriented software envir onment utilizing graphical simulations for off-line software developme nt. An innovative dual VMEbus controller architecture permits an open software environment while accommodating the closed nature of most com mercial robot controllers. These agile features permit new products to be introduced with minimal downtime and system reconfiguration.