Process-oriented assembly system concepts: the Mark IV approach

The assembly systems unit at the Royal Institute of Technology-IVF has developed several flexible automatic assembly (FAA) cell solutions over the years. Current industrial trends, however, clearly point out that the basic notions of flexibility must be extended and be enhanced without increasing the complexity. The key lies in the creation of modular assembly systems with interfaces based on open standards. It must be possible to adopt equipment from different suppliers to the system. To reach these objectives, the research group has established a development project of both suppliers, users and universities on a European level, called SHARC (standardised hybrid assembly with reactive capacity). This project runs parallel to, and in conjunction with, the national hyper FAA project. These projects will attempt to create a system concept which can be easily adapted to a very large range of products, variants, and their associated volume fluctuations. The paper also describes and discusses our engineering platform, the Mark IV application