READY CONFIGURATION OF MACHINES INTO AN EXISTING MANUFACTURING SYSTEM

This paper focuses on simplifying and easing the integration of a new machine into an existing conventional hierarchical manufacturing system. Based on a distributed manufacturing paradigm, it proposes the functions and interfaces that a new machine and an existing manufacturing system should possess so that ready and simple configuration of additional machines can be achieved. The configuration process is intended to include not only mechanical and electrical interfaces but also decision system interfaces too (such as planning, scheduling and shop floor control). The preliminary experiments to compare the reconfigurability resulting from a conventional integration method and the proposed distributed method are presented. The results are then discussed.