Research on a simulation system for process capacity of Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems

Presented in the paper is a review of the development course of manufacturing system, and analysis on its features and applicable scope at different stages. By researching the essential features of Reconfigurable Manufacturing System (RMS), a discussion about the reconfiguring mechanism and realizing way for RMS is presented. A new supplementary array type manufacturing system is introduced, this has changed the concept for traditional cluster layout. It has established a comprehensive evaluation system for layout and process capacity of a production line based on a hierarchy analysis way, and divided a manufacturing system into equipment level, layout level and process capacity level and evaluated them in a weighted way, then weighted second time the evaluation results of each level, so as to evaluate in an overall way. A simulation system for process capacity of RMS with self-owned copyright has been researched and developed, which can effectively address such issues as manual material flow, hybrid-flow production, multi-operations for one machine, one operation for multiple machines and dynamic scheduling, etc. By taking the production line for key components of a machine tool factory as the engineering background, simulation has been applied in the typical process of two main shafts, and beneficial reference recommendations have been presented.