Interactive design of a virtual factory using cellular manufacturing system

Author

Ernzer, M. ; Kesavadas, T.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Mech. & Aerosp. Eng., State Univ. of New York, Buffalo, NY, USA

Volume

3

fYear

1999

fDate

1999

Firstpage

2428

Abstract

An interactive virtual factory testbed was developed as a part of a research to explore the applications of virtual environments in the area of manufacturing automation. This fully immersive factory built with special attention to details consists of a set of modular machines that a designer can drag and place in the factory to study issues such as plant layout, clusters and part flow analysis. The paper further discusses several cell formation and visualization techniques developed especially for the design of the virtual factory. A modified Boolean matrix approach algorithm was improved as an example of applying traditional factory design methods in developing virtual factories of the future. Finally a novel interactive part-machine matrix visualization interface was developed to provide a more intuitive view of the mathematical results

Keywords

Boolean algebra; CAD; computational complexity; manufacture; matrix algebra; virtual reality; cell formation; cellular manufacturing system; clusters; fully immersive factory; interactive design; manufacturing automation; modified Boolean matrix approach; modular machines; part flow analysis; plant layout; traditional factory design methods; virtual environments; virtual factory; visualization techniques; Cellular manufacturing; Computer interfaces; Manufacturing automation; Manufacturing processes; Production facilities; Pulp manufacturing; Virtual environment; Virtual manufacturing; Virtual reality; Visualization;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Robotics and Automation, 1999. Proceedings. 1999 IEEE International Conference on

Conference_Location

Detroit, MI

ISSN

1050-4729

Print_ISBN

0-7803-5180-0

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ROBOT.1999.770469

Filename

770469