Modular Fixture Assembly Model for Virtual Assembly Design

To support modular fixture assembly design in virtual environment, a multi-view based modular fixture virtual assembly model is proposed. Instead of squeezing all assembly related information into a single model, three complementary views of assembly model, element information, function and structure, and assembly relationship are proposed to be used. The first view contains the detailed element information, while the other two explicitly capture the hierarchical function relationships and mating relationships respectively. These views are complementary in the sense that each view only contains a specific aspect of assembly related information while together they include required assembly related information. The proposed assembly model is specialized to accommodate the features of modular fixture virtual assembly design and applied in our developed prototype system.     

A PSL Ontology-based Shop Floor Dynamical Scheduler Design

Due to the complex, uncertainty and dynamics in the modern manufacturing environment, a flexible and robust shop floor scheduler is essential to achieve the production goals. A design framework of a shop floor dynamical scheduler is presented in this paper. The workflow and function modules of the scheduler are discussed in detail. A multi-step adaptive scheduling strategy and a process specification language, which is an ontology-based representation of process plan, are utilized in the proposed scheduler. The scheduler acquires the dispatching rule from the knowledge base and uses the buildin on-line simulator to evaluate the obtained rule. These technologies enable the scheduler to improve its fine-tune ability and effectively transfer process information into other heterogeneous information systems in a shop floor. The effectiveness of the suggested structure will be demonstrated via its application in the scheduling system of a manufacturing enterprise.