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A generic FMS consists of the following components:
— a set of work stations which contain machine tools that do not require
significant set-up time or change-over between successive jobs; typically, these
machines
perform operations of milling, boring, drilling, etc.;
— a material-handling system allowing to move between any pair of ma-
chines so that any job routing can be followed;
— a network of supervisory computers and microprocessors which are ca-
pable of performing some or all of the following tasks: directing the routing of
jobs
through the system; tracking the status of all jobs in progress so it is known
where each job is to go next; passing instructions for the processing of the op-
eration to the station; ensuring that the right tools
are available for the job; and
providing the monitoring of correct performance of operations and signaling
problems requiring attention;
— a storage,
locally at the work stations, and (or) centrally at the system
level.
Generic FMS
Exercise 11. Agree or disagree with the following statements.
1. FMS is both a manufacturing process and a philosophy. 2. Early FMSs
were small with several CNC machines. 3. Today two or more CNC machines
are thought of being a flexible cell and two or more
cells make up a flexible
manufacturing system. 4. FMS is a group of numerically-controlled machine
tools interconnected by a central control system. 5. The main components of
FMS are: a set of workstations with machine tools,
a material-handling sys-
tem, a network of supervisory computers and storage.
