ANALYSIS METHODOLOGY AND ASSEMBLY RULES FOR THE RAPID AND FLEXIBLE DESIGN OF COMPOSITE SYSTEMS

In order to meet diverse customer requirements and to maintain manufacturing competitiveness, next generation manufacturing systems must exhibit such features as rapid development and deployment, flexibility with respect to product quantity and variety, and reusability of equipment. The Holonic Manufacturing Systems (HMS) represent one of the most recent approaches in this context. An HMS makes innovative use of technical advances in computers, software, sensors and distributed autonomous systems technology to realize the required features of next generation manufacturing systems and can be regarded as a complementary technology to CIM. The holonic assembly approach is utilized in this article as a basis for the development of a composite construction and a paradigm to show the major steps in the implementation of a large variety of similar systems. An actual prototype was constructed using LEGO blocks; this system is composed of specific subsystems / subassemblies, which were developed by using both electrical and pneumatic motors, interconnected in a manner that permits the motion of more than one subsystem with a single motor’s motion. The combined structure is able to handle the assembly of different products; at the same time, the construction process results to the accumulation of significant expertise in the development and knowledge of the functionalities and properties of each subsystem, thus enabling their efficient use in other more complex structures