Recent Advances in Flexible Automation

Flexible Automation as a topic of research has been around for at least a half century. In the late 70’s, flexible manufacturing cell/systems (MFC/MFS) started playing pivotal roles in modern industry, in particular automobile industry. However, the journey of going from a theory or vision to an art or reality did not end there and then. In the last two decades, flexible automation has taken on many new concepts, technologies and practices. This evolution process has resulted in numerous new terminology in replacement (or sometimes in favor) of flexible automation. Nonetheless, the ultimate goal remains empowering the modern industry with different “versions” of automation technologies in order to meet the ever-diverse and ever-changing market. It is the time that we go back to the “basics”, i.e. flexible automation by embracing a raft of new technologies that are evolved from the basic concept of flexible automation. This is the main aim of this special issue, which is made possible due to a timely international conference named “International Symposium on Flexible Automation (ISFA 2006)”, held in July 10-12, 2006, in Osaka, Japan. Most of the articles are selected from, and expanded based on, the presentations at the conference. There are twelve articles included in this special issue. They can be grouped into four categories, (1) New Advances at the CNC Front, (2) Advancement in Automation Hardware, (3) Intelligent Scheduling in FMS, and (4) IT Issues in a Manufacturing System. 1. New Advances at the CNC Front. Over the years, most of the flexible automation systems have Computer Numerically Controlled (CNC) machine tools as the principal manufacturing equipment. G-codes (ISO 6983, RS 274 as known in the USA, or DIN 66025 as known in part of Europe) have been extensively used by the CNC machine tools for part programming and are now considered as a bottleneck for developing next generation CNC machines. A new standard for STEP-compliant Computer Numerical Controllers, informally known as STEP-NC, is being developed as the data model for a new breed of CNCs. This data model represents a common standard specifically aimed at the intelligent CNC manufacturing workstation, making the goal of a standardized CNC controller and NC data generation facility a reality.