Presents the findings of experts and practitioners from the major soft-computing themes Provides an overview of the theory and applications of IMS systems The Area of Intelligence in manufacturing has generated a considerable amount of interest occasionally verging on controversy, both in the research community and in the industrial sector. This proceedings looks at the broad manufacturing domain dealing with both technical and organizational issues, intelligent control is only part, albeit important, of optimal integration and control of intelligent techniques. The importance of creating a synergy of efforts aiming at efficient employment of intelligence in global technological development for manufacturing was recognized by the international IMS (intelligent manufacturing Systems) Initiative and is discussed in this proceedings volume.

This volume contains the papers presented at the 6th IFAC Workshop on Intelligent Manufacturing Systems, held in Poznan, Poland in April 2001. The workshop followed the well-established tradition of such meetings organised under the sponsorship of the IFAC Technical Committee on the Intelligent Manufacturing Systems (TC MIT), addressing key areas of scientific research and industrial applications in intelligent manufacturing systems. manufacturing processes; rapid prototyping; new concepts for the technical support of intelligent manufacturing and methodological aspects of distributed and discrete-event systems. A number of contributions reflect the truly international character of the research in this area. in the IMS community: multi-agents systems, which originate with the distributed artificial intelligence community as a software technology and holonic manufacturing systems, which have emerged directly from the IMS community as a manufacturing technology. This volume shoudl be indispensable for anyone with an interest in the latest developments in intelligent manufacturing systems.

The 2005 Virtual International Conference on IPROMS took place on the Internet between 4 and 15 July 2005. IPROMS 2005 was an outstanding success. During the Conference, some 4168 registered delegates and guests from 71 countries participated in the Conference, making it a truly global phenomenon. This book contains the Proceedings of IPROMS 2005. The 107 peer-reviewed technical papers presented at the Conference have been grouped into twelve sections, the last three featuring contributions selected for IPROMS 2005 by Special Sessions chairmen: - Collaborative and Responsive Manufacturing Systems- Concurrent Engineering- E-manufacturing, E-business and Virtual Enterprises- Intelligent Automation Systems- Intelligent Decision Support Systems- Intelligent Design Systems- Intelligent Planning and Scheduling Systems- Mechatronics- Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems- Tangible Acoustic Interfaces (Tai Chi)- Innovative Production Machines and Systems- Intelligent and Competitive Manufacturing Engineering

The book develops manufacturing concepts and applications beyond physical production and towards a wider manufacturing value chain incorporating external stakeholders that include suppliers of raw materials and parts, customers, collaborating manufacturing companies, manufacturing service providers, and environmental organisations. The focal point of the value chain remains as a manufacturing system and its operations whiles flows of parts/materials and information and services across the supply/value chain tiers are taken into account. The book emphasises on the two innovative paradigms of Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems (RMS) and the 4th industrial revolution (Industry 4.0) along with their incorporated development. RMS, as a relatively new paradigm, has been introduced to meet the requirements of ‘the factories of the future’, which is aimed by Industry 4.0, though introducing greater responsiveness and customised flexibility into production systems, in which changes in product volumes and types occur regularly. Manufacturing responsiveness can be achieved by RMS through reconfiguring the production facilities according to changing demands of products and new market conditions. The book addresses challenges of mass-customisation and dynamic changes in the supply-chain environment by focusing on developing new techniques related to integrability, scalability and re-configurability at a system level and manufacturing readiness in terms of financial and technical feasibility of RMS. It demonstrate the expected impacts of an RMS design on operational performance and its supply/value chain in the current/future manufacturing environment facing dynamic changes in the internal/external circumstances. In order to establish a circular economy through the RMS value chain, an integrated data-based reconfiguration link is introduced to incorporate information sharing amongst the value chain stakeholders and facilitate grouping products into families with allocation of the product families to the corresponding system configurations with optimal product-process allocation. Decision support systems such as multi criteria decision making tools are developed and applied for the selection of product families and optimising product-process configuration. The proposed models are illustrated through real case studies in applicable manufacturing firms.

Containing case studies and research findings, this book deals with methods and tools suitable for designing, managing, and controlling processes within the supply chain. The authors are leading experts within the international community in the field of production management.

One critical barrier leading to successful implementation of flexible manufacturing and related automated systems is the ever-increasing complexity of their modeling, analysis, simulation, and control. Research and development over the last three decades has provided new theory and graphical tools based on Petri nets and related concepts for the design of such systems. The purpose of this book is to introduce a set of Petri-net-based tools and methods to address a variety of problems associated with the design and implementation of flexible manufacturing systems (FMSs), with several implementation examples.There are three ways this book will directly benefit readers. First, the book will allow engineers and managers who are responsible for the design and implementation of modern manufacturing systems to evaluate Petri nets for applications in their work. Second, it will provide sufficient breadth and depth to allow development of Petri-net-based industrial applications. Third, it will allow the basic Petri net material to be taught to industrial practitioners, students, and academic researchers much more efficiently. This will foster further research and applications of Petri nets in aiding the successful implementation of advanced manufacturing systems.

This unique book provides a guide to the selection of appropriate production and manufacturing methods for postgraduate and professional manufacturing engineers. It starts by helping the reader to identify the required objectives of industrial management for their particular situation. Having identified the objectives an analytical assessment of the available production and management methods is made. The analytical system presents an objective method of production selection. For example, this practical book will help the reader to decide whether or not a local Just-in-Time process is needed or a full chain JIT method is needed. Alternatively the problem may be deciding between set-up time reduction or changeover time reduction. Should TQM be ceded to PCIs? This book covers nearly all methods of production and manufacturing and will prove the most comprehensive guide to choosing and using these methods. - Only book of its kind available - Widest coverage of methods available - Analytical approach to decision making