Parametric layout design and simulation of flexible manufacturing system

As business environments are rapidly changing, the manufacturing system must be reconfigured to adapt to various customer needs. FMS (Flexible manufacturing System) is regarded as one of the most efficient methods in reducing or eliminating today's problems in manufacturing industries. In order to cope with current dynamic change of manufacturing system, it is quintessential to design and verify the layout of FMS rapidly and easily during the design stage. And it is also necessary that the existing 3D layout components for simulation-based verification should reused for other FMS layout verification tasks to shorten the design time of FMS. The purpose of this paper is to propose the tool of rapid parametric layout determination and construction of 3D discrete event simulation model for FMS design. To be a parameter-driven solution, FMS is modularized by 'station' concept and resources within FMS are standardized in this paper. This approach can serve as a rapid prototyping tool of layout configuration for FMS design engineers as well as a communication tool for managers and other personnel involved.