TECHNICAL REPORT

1 II1I33 Iand B5~ 0K ' RE A! U 0,: '',TikTECHNICAL REPORTNO. 12703 II I III Il lllI FLEXIBLE MANUFACTURING SYSTEM HANDBOOKVOLUME II: DESCRIPTION OF THE TECHNOLOGYCONTRACT NUMBER: DAAE07-82-C-4040 FEBRUARY Stark Draper Lab., Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139 Approved for Public ReleaseDistribution Unlimited ARMY TANK-AUTOMOTIVE COMMANDRESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT CENTERW arren, Michigan 480909~oo) gi&6@O02 SECURITY CLASSIFICATION OF THIS PAGE (When Data Entered) REPORT DOCUMENTATION PAGE READ INSTRUCTIONSBEFORE COMPLETING FORMI. REPORT NUMBER 2. GOVT ACCESSION NO. 3. RECIPIENT'S CATALOG NUMBER127034. TITLE (and Subtitle) S. TYPE OF REPORT & PERIOD COVEREDF lexible Manufacturing System HandbookVolume II:. Description of the Technology Final TECHNICAL Report6. PERFORMING ORG. REPORT NUMBER___CSDR-R- 15997. AUTHOR(a) S. CONTRACT OR GRANT NUMBER(a)DAAE07-82-C-40409. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION NAME AND ADDRESS 10. PROGRAM ELEMENT, PROJECT, TASKAREA & WORK UNIT NUMBERSC harles Stark Draper Lab.

2 , , Massachusetts11. CONTROLLING OFFICE NAME AND ADDRESS 12. REPORT DATEUS Army Tank-Automotive Command February 1983 Warren, MI 48090 I1. NUMBER OF PAGESATTN: DRSTA-RCKM 5114. MONITORING AGENCY NAME & ADDRESS(if different from Controlling Office) 15. SECURITY CLASS. (of this REPORT )Unclassified"ISa. DECLASSI FICATION/DOWNGRADINGSCHEDULE16. DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT (of this REPORT )Approved for public release; distribution unlimited.'1. DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT (of the abstract entered In Block 20, if different from REPORT )1S. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTESThe five volume handbook has four volumes of general information and areavailable for public release. The fifth contains specific computer programsand has a limited KEY WORDS (Continue on reverse side if necessary and Identify by block number)"2Q. ABSTRACT' (Cus h kf Itwcwy ad deotify by block number)Flexible Manufacturing Technology is a means to increase productivity for environments in the middle ranges of production volume. It is ef- __fective for "one of a kind" and true "mass production" quantities.

3 Volumes Ithrough IV of this handbook help determine if a flexible machining system (FMSwill be cost effective for a given application. These volumes explain theconfiguration and procurement of a FMS, and its impact on the existing organ-ization. The fifth volume of the handbook details the computer programs forthe FORM 1473 EDITo OF, NOV 65IS OBSOLETESECURTY OF T"hS PAGE (When Dat* Entered)FMS18762-380(II)CSDL-R-1599 FLEXIBLE MANUFACTURING SYSTEM HANDBOOKVOLUME II: DESCRIPTION OF THE TECHN*OLOGYF ebruary, 1983 Prepared Army Tank Automotive CommandWarren, Michigan 48090 Under Contract No. DAAEO7-82-C-4040 The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, , Massachusetts 02139ii FMS Handbook, Volume IIPREFACEThis is the second volume in a five-volume series designed to answer thefollowing questions concerning Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMS):* Why an FMS?* Will an FMS best serve your application?0 What problems might be encountered?* How do you design an appropriate system?W What is required to operate a system?)

4 In the series, Volume I is intended to help answer broad policy questionsat corporate levels. This volume contains detailed descriptions of thesubsystems that make up a typical FMS as well as descriptions of severaloperational FMSs. Volume III is designed to serve as a detailed guide toplanners at corporate and plant levels. Volume IV contains a samplerequest-for-proposal, a proposal, a glossary of FMS terms, abibliography, and other TECHNICAL material. Volume V contains user's man-uals for various software FromBest Available CopyCopies Furnished to DTICR eproduced FromBound OriginalsPreface iiiiv FMS Handbook, Volume DESCRIPTION OF FLEXIBLE MANUFACTURING SYSTEM ELEMENTS .. Description of a Flexible Manufacturing System .. Work Stations .. Machining Stations .. Load/Unload Stations .. Control Station .. Cleaning Stations .. Material Handling System .. Part Transport .. Buffer Storage .. Control System Software .. Control System Architecture .. Software Description.

5 FMS Level-1 Operations .. FMS Level-2 Operations .. FMS Level-3 Operations .. Other Significant Elements .. Fixtures and Pallets .. Tooling .. Coolant and Chip Handling Systems .. People .. Inspection Systems .. FMS Off-Line Components .. THREE EXAMPLE FLEXIBLE MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS .. Kearney and Trecker FMS at AVCO-Lycoming, Stratford,Connecticut .. Overview .. System Elements .. Detroit Diesel Allison, Indianapolis, Indiana .. Overview .. System Elements .. Giddings and Lewis FMS at Caterpillar Tractor Company,Aurora, Illinois .. Overview .. System Elements .. PROJECTED TRENDS ZN FMS TECHNOLOGY .. MACHINE CHARACTERISTICS DATA BASE .. 37 Contents vvi FMS Handbook, Volume IILIST OF ILLUSTRATIONSF igure 1. Conceptual Drawing of an FMS .. 2 Figure 2. Manual Production Environment .. 12 Figure 3. FMS Control System Architecture .. 14 Figure 4. FMS Installations .. 24 Figure 5. Kearney and Trecker FMS .. 25 Figure 6. White-Sundstrand FMS.

6 27 Figure 7. Giddings and Lewis FMS .. 30 List of Illustrations viiviii FMS Handbook, Volume DESCRIPTION OF FLEXIBLE MANUFACTURING SYSTEM ELEMENTSThis section describes the major elements of an FMS. It begins with adiscussion of the principal physical characteristics of a system, includ-ing the central elements, the machining stations, the load/unload sta-tions, control station, and cleaning stations. The material handlingsystems are next considered, followed by a detailed description of thecontrol system. The multitude of software functions are then explored indepth. Finally, the remaining significant elements of an FMS areaddressed. These include fixtures and pallets, tooling, chip handling,deburring, inspection, and requirements for line personnel. To establisha frame of reference, a description of the operation of an entire systemis presented in the following DESCRIPTION OF A FLEXIBLE MANUFACTURING SYSTEMA Flexible Manufacturing System (FMS) can be defined as a"computer-controlled configuration of semi-independent work stations anda material handling system designed to efficiently manufacture more thanone kind of part at low to medium volumes".

7 Figure 1 on page 2 shows aconceptual drawing of an FMS. The definition and the illustration high-light the three essential physical components of an FMS.* Potentially-independent NC machine A conveyance network to move parts and sometimes tools betweenmachines and fixturing stations.* An overall control network that coordinates the machine tools, theparts-moving elements, and the most FMS installations, incoming raw workpieces are fixtured onto pal-lets at a station or group of stations set apart from the machine then move via the material handling system to queues at the pro-duction machines where they will be processed. In properly designed sys-tems, the holding queues are seldom empty, , there is usually aworkpiece waiting to be processed when a machine becomes idle. When pal-let exchange times are short, machine idle times are quite small. Thenumber of machines in a system typically ranges from 2 to 20 or more. Theconveyance syst-em may consist of carousels, conveyors, carts, robots, or acombination of these.

8 But the important aspect of these systems is thatthe machine, conveyance, and control elements combine to achieve enhancedproductivity without sacrificing the easiest approach to understanding an FMS is to trace the flowof parts through the system. A typical FMS is capable of randompiece-part production within a given part mix. In other words, using sim-ulation and other production analysis techniques, a production part set isdetermined which utilizes the system capacity. At any given time, any orall of those parts might be found somewhere in the system. If the partsDESCRIPTION OF FLEXIBLE MANUFACTURING SYSTEM ELEMENTS 1cS-4-o0'IM/1 'UL-4' FM adok oueIrequire many tools, it may not be possible to have all of them in the sys-tem at one time because of limited in-system tool storage capacity. Inthis case, the part set will be divided into groups, called batches, therequired tooling for each of which will fit in the FMS. For each batch,each machine will be tooled to process specific parts.

9 Thus, not allparts will go to all machines -each part will be allocated to one or morespecific machines to process it. Where possible, alternate machines arespecified to perform each operation on each part type. For example, ifthere are three part types, A, B, and C, each of which must go to two dif-ferent machine groups, M1 and M2, and there are two machines in each groupMll, M12 and M21, M22, the allocation and routing might look like the fol-lowing:Part A and Part B go to Mll, then C goes to M12 and this situation, machines M12 and M21 will machine only Part C, unlesssomething is wrong with M11 or extra time is available on M12, in whichcase Part A might also be machined on machine M12. When Part A and Part Care both competing for machine M12, the FMS computer will determine whichpart is further behind schedule and allow that part to use M12. (Note, itis assumed that machines within each group are tooled identically.)Part flow begins at the load/unload station, where the raw castings andfixtures are kept.

10 The FMS control computer keeps track of the status ofevery part and machine in the system. It continually tries to achieve theproduction targets for each part type and in doing so tries to keep allthe machines busy. In selecting parts to be sent into the system, itchooses part types which are the most behind in their production goals,and for which there are currently empty fixture/pallets or load an appropriate pallet/fixture combination and a workpiece are avail-able at the load station, the loader will get a message at his computerterminal to load that part on its pallet. He will then enter the part num-ber and pallet code into the terminal, and the computer will send atransporter ( , a cart) to the load station to move the pallet. Thetransporter is next sent to the at the queue in front of the machine, the computer actuates thetransfer mechanism in the queue (usually called a shuttle) and the palletis shifted from the transporter onto the shuttle. The transporter is thenfree and will leave when a new move request is assigned.