APPLICATION OF ARTIFICIAL-INTELLIGENCE TO PROBLEMS IN ADVANCED MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS

Flexible manufacturing systems (FMS) are used worldwide for the produc tion of parts in CIM systems. The design and operation of an FMS can b e achieved only by the teamwork of several experts using different com puter programs. Because of the complexity and diversity of the problem s to be solved, traditional programming can be used only if combined w ith artificial intelligence techniques, such as expert and knowledge-b ased systems. This paper deals with the application of expert systems to assist in quality control and the simulation and control of FMSs. w ell known traditional simulation (Cinema/SIMAN) and networking (MAP) p ackages are combined with high performance expert systems (ALL-EX, G2) to provide acceptable solutions. This paper reports on recent work wh ere rapid prototype programs are under test, with the ultimate goal of providing industrially applicable programs.