UniSet: A flexible manufacturing cell programming, simulation, control and management environment.

Abstract

The concept of Flexible Manufacturing Cells (FMCs) proves to be one of the major productivity enhancement tools for batch processing. The cost and expertise required to setup a cell, and subsequently to operate it, negates the many advantages of implementing FMCs. This problem hampers the introduction of the concept in many industries. At present, combining machines from different manufacturers to form an FMC is cumbersome. Incompatibility due to unique characteristics and varying programming and control languages among machines present the largest difficulties. This thesis demonstrates that it is possible to create a manufacturing instruction set and environment labelled UniSet (the acronym for $\rm\underline{Uni}$fied instruction $\rm\underline{Set}$) that enables programming and controlling a flexible manufacturing cell with a set of common instructions. UniSet is a software environment designed to provide the FMC user with a consistent platform in which to configure, program, simulate and control an FMC irrespective of the constituent machines. The environment is coded in an Object Oriented Programming (OOP) language; Smalltalk. This thesis describes UniSet as an instruction set, the concept behind the UniSet programming environment and the initial developments of the environment. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)