Intelligent Manufacturing € December € 1996 € Vol. 2 € No. 12
Intelligent Manufacturing € December € 1996 € Vol. 2
€ No. 12
If you've been sitting on the fence for the past year wondering if
all this talk about the World Wide Web was just a load of fertilizer,
it's time to hop off the fence. As we've said here before, the
Internet isn't going to go away, and based on the evidence on hand at
AUTOFACT '96, an annual conference and exhibition dedicated to rapid
design and manufacturing technology, intranets (internal corporate
networks) are at the center of a new strategy for the manufacturing
industry.
This strategy -- known as collaborative computing -- links every
department, and potentially every employee, in a manner designed to
increase productivity and communication, while not weighing down the
users with arcane technology. As the Web becomes increasingly
familiar and user-friendly to manufacturers (after all, how hard can
it be if their 8-year-old kids can surf the Web with ease?), and as
the price/performance curve makes personal teleconferencing an
affordable option, collaborative computing is not just an idea off in
the horizon: it's already here.
"The new global economic order in today's information age compels
international manufacturing enterprises to seek new means of
optimizing their worldwide communication," explained David Liu with
California University of Los Angeles. "Effective global communication
can be achieved via the ubiquitous Web."
According to David Rosenlund of Process Software Corp. (Framingham,
Mass.), a provider of multi-platform Web solutions, the
implementation of collaborative computing at such organizations as
Tyson Foods and Glaxo-Wellcome produced a number of tangible
benefits. For instance, this strategy can:
One sure sign that a technology solution has ascended from being
just "a good idea" to an actual marketable commodity is when
off-the-shelf tool vendors begin touting its benefits. Engineering
Animation's new VisMockUp product, for instance, "supports a
collaborative product design process by making [its] capabilities
accessible to the entire design team through the corporate intranet."
Enterprise Planning Systems' webPLAN software, meanwhile, is
"designed to enhance any MRPII system through Collaborative Planning,
[which] enables multiple users to generate 'what if' simulations,
review plans, edit and publish in real time."
In short, prepare yourself for an onslaught of products and solutions
that emphasize that key buzzword for 1997: collaborative
computing.
Simulation and Modeling
A number of other technological trends were also discussed and
displayed at AUTOFACT '96. Simulation and modeling of products and
manufacturing processes, for instance, have become quite popular
lately due to the reduction and sometimes even elimination of costly
trial and error, observed George Appley of Concurrent Technologies
Corp. (Johnstown, Pa.), a developer of metalworking products. Under a
grant from the U.S. Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), Appley
is currently investigating the application of object-oriented
technology to enable the development of customized simulations.
"The overall advantage of the manufacturing simulation architecture
is the ability to produce customized simulation applications tailored
to a specific process and user," he explained. "Design reuse and
enhanced maintenance due to improved abstractions and data structures
are also important benefits."
Appley listed some of the key benefits expected from such an
architecture:
At a panel session on simulation in the automotive industry, Bill
Colwell of Ford Motor Co. (Dearborn, Mich.) said, "When we are most
effective, modeling is done early, when it is of greatest strategic
advantage. As our focus changes from fundamental approach (conceptual
design) to refinement (detailed design), and as data becomes more
plentiful, the modeling gets progressively more detailed."
John Black with Giddings & Lewis (Fond du Lac, Wis.), a
manufacturer of machine tools, expects to see more formal case
studies generated from simulation studies in the coming years.
"Companies are shifting their business operations toward more quality
operating systems and it will be important to capture their process
knowledge contained within these studies into the corporate knowledge
base," Black said.
Referring to the maintenance of simulation models, Randy Combs of
General Motors Corp. (Detroit, Mich.) said, "Duration of models
should be based on the philosophy of being 'living' representations
of each manufacturing system. Current practices of maintaining plant
and equipment layouts, product and process changes do not provide a
stable database of information." He sees a need for improved
technology and practices to allow more stability in the future.
Agile Manufacturing
One of the big buzzwords from last year -- agility -- continues to
win proponents. For instance, Knight & Packer Inc. (Naperville,
Ill.), a manufacturer of metal cast products, has implemented an
agile manufacturing system (AMS) in its new product design,
development and manufacturing processes. The AMS, according to Jiten
Shah, vice president at Knight & Packer, "allows a rapid response
to continuously changing customer requirements; reduces product cycle
time; increases quality; and allows rapid changes in design." The use
of such an agile system, Shah explained, allows the company to
design, analyze, evaluate and manufacture new cast products quickly
using intelligent, flexible manufacturing systems.
Agility tends to mean different things at different companies. At
Knight & Packer, according to Shah, "the agility is brought by
the application of virtual enterprise, concurrent engineering,
computer-integrated manufacturing, and information-intensive casting
design, development and manufacturing systems. Agile manufacturing is
a reprogrammable, reconfigurable, dynamic design, development and
production system, integrated by a real-time network and supported by
intensive information and knowledge-based systems."
Meanwhile, at Octant (Acton, Mass.), a manufacturing consulting firm,
agile manufacturing is known as customer-focused manufacturing, with
such goals as organizing manufacturing processes in supplier-customer
relationships; eliminating procedures that do not provide value to
customers; applying production resources to meeting actual customer
demand for each process; and simplifying the flow of material and
information.
According to Octant's Deepak Agrawal and James Clancy, manufacturers
too often are focusing their efforts in the wrong areas (e.g.,
reengineering, continuous improvement, automation). Focusing on the
customer, however, will help a manufacturer identify and implement
changes and systems that will have a significant impact on
profitability. Such a solution needs to be approached in the right
way, which they describe as identifying target results, leveraging
existing investments, and selecting the right technology and systems
based on targets.
Virtual Manufacturing
Virtual reality continues to grow in popularity and importance in
numerous manufacturing environments; in fact, this year's LEAD award
winner at AUTOFACT '96 -- Boeing -- relied heavily on virtual
manufacturing techniques in the design of its 777 aircraft (see
sidebar). According to Bob Voiers of the EDS Detroit Virtual Reality
Center, virtual manufacturing is revolutionizing the way
manufacturing plants and processes are set up,. It enables
manufacturing engineers to design, test and modify their processes
without physical prototypes or line stoppages. "Already available is
the ability to simulate robot motion, and then download the
programming from the simulation to the actual robots," Voiers noted.
"This eliminates the need to actually program robots using expensive
prototype parts and production equipment."
Virtual reality also allows a manufacturer to validate assembly
processes prior to the actual manufacture of any product, Voiers
added. "With virtual reality, manufacturing engineers can analyze the
assembly process and eliminate potential problems before production
even starts."
At McDonnell Douglas Aerospace (St. Louis, Mo.), virtual
manufacturing is described as no less than the "key to achieving
affordability," according to Jeff Webb, senior principal specialist
in manufacturing engineering. Benefits include more effective
manufacturing plans; leaner and more efficient schedules; validated
resource requirements; improved facility/capacity planning; and a
low-risk plan to transition into production.
What is CABE?
Finally, we would be remiss in our editorial duties if we didn't trot
out at least one new acronym that we encountered at AUTOFACT '96.
Thanks to Jay Ramanathan of UES Inc. (Dublin, Ohio), a manufacturer
of hand-held and laptop computers, we can now include computer-aided
business engineering, or CABE, which represents the integration of
product data management (PDM), project management and workflow
technologies. The goal of a CABE environment, according to
Ramanathan, is to be able to relate specific PDM, project management
and workflow services to specific tasks without programming being
required. CABE research is funded in part by the US National
Industrial Information Infrastructure Protocols (NIIIP)
consortium.
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Manufacturing December issue.