Integrating Manufacturing Equipments Using a Shop Floor Control System

A generic manufacturing system must interact with an environment characterized by a strong competition and by continuous technological changes. For this reason there is the necessity to make the system easily and economically modifiable in its hardware and software configuration. One of the main problems in making a manufacturing system re-configurable concerns its control system which has to be accordingly scalable and object oriented. This paper presents a methodology for making a manufacturing control system actually reconfigurable and adaptable to hardware changes in the manufacturing systems components. In particular, a PC-based shop-floor control system has been realized. Such system allows easy integration of new robotic systems in a generic manufacturing system