Linking graphical simulation to the control of flexible manufacturing systems

The objective is the production of a software package to aid the design and operation of flexible manufacturing systems. The software tools provide a basis for standardisation in the control software for these systems and overcome the present limitations and expense of one-off solutions. To this end a generic workstation incorporating operating procedures for handling information and material flow has been developed. The generic workstation is used as a basic node to build computer models of a variety of manufacturing systems. These include both conventional job-shops and flexible manufacturing systems operated according to just-in-time principles. Methods of linking the simulation to the shop-floor routing implementation are proposed and discussed. The SIMAN simulation language and its associated graphics package CINEMA was used as the modelling tool