Literature- production process preparation for automation

Your question is far too generic to answer properly.

What is it that you are trying to automate the assembly of?

There is no "book" that tells you how to do your job. If only it were that simple.

If you are designing a robotic workcell, the task has to lend itself to being done by a robot. The robot has to be selected to be big enough and reach far enough to do what it needs to do. The tooling has to be designed to be capable of picking up the parts in question. Fixtures have to be designed to hold all the relevant parts in the correct orientations. Somehow those parts have to get loaded into the cell. The workcell itself has to be designed to conform to the applicable safety standards. Presumably there is a target production rate that has to be met. And so on.

So, again, what is it that you are trying to do?

Presumably, the opposite of automation is human intervention. Given that, you would look at what it takes to replace what the human operator does in each operation. As a secondary rule, you would revisit the entire step to see whether it can be done differently that might lend itself better to automation.

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Of course I can. I can do anything. I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

One might start with something called "process mapping"

BrianPetersen/IRstuff/mcgyvr,
Thank you for your replies to my question.
The work I have completed (as the postgraduate research student) was done for one of the European companies. Because of the intricate operations, processes involves primarily manual manoeuvres that are greatly affected by the skill and dexterity of the operator. The task was to stabilise, standardise, improve and document the process before planned automation.
I am looking for the literature for my thesis. I realise that there is no 'real handbook' of how to stabilise any process. The task may differ depending on the actual process state, customer expectations, etc.

This what I am looking for are basically two things:
1. The literature where there would be given some best practices (most popular) employed for the process stabilisation before automation- i.e. books, websites, etc. Usually, those practices are: learning the process/observing, review of the existing documentation, process mapping, based on gained knowledge- determine the stabilisation strategy and means of doing it, stabilisation/improvement/simplification, documenting simplified process, possibly development of alternative better technologies for the specific operations (especially those from process bottlenecks, unstable processes, operations with very high rejects, etc.).

2. I am also looking for the publications describing some case studies of the manufacturing process stabilisation before automation.
I know that this type of work- stabilising of the specific process, is done in confidence with the customer. Nevertheless, I hope to find some publications which would describe such a task in sort of anonymous way and more generally.

hi i guess you are asking about a control system for your manufacturing process .different kind of Process automation controllers are available.first develop a scope then make logic in controller either you can use Programmable logic controllers or DCS

hubihubi2 "I am looking for the literature for my thesis"

Nothing wrong with your asking practicing engineers. But you should do most of the research yourself. Visit factories, interview designers, operators, managers etcetera. It will be very difficult for you to present your thesis (and defend it) if you haven't done also the dirty work and can refer to real situations and real knowledge.


Gunnar Englund
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Half full - Half empty? I don't mind. It's what in it that counts.

If I understand this correctly you are looking to implement PID loop to control a process . National Instruments has a few white papers that may be able to help . They also have some information on how they solve PID in Labview programs.

I've been doing manufacturing / assembly / process automation in a variety of industries for too long of a time. I have never seen a "handbook" or "cookbook" approach to this task. It occurs all of the time, though. I suspect he truth is that the manufacturing world is so diverse and so dynamic that it is impractical to try to quantify the steps required in a "handbook" format. There a lot of battle-scarred veterans who I'm sure could offer advice from their respective experiences.

Off the top of my head I offer a rough outline of how I have approached the problem multiple times over the years of taking a manual process (e.g., an "assembly line") to an automated process. This method also worked for me when I needed to automate a single station of some sort.

1. Completely map & fully define the manual process steps.
2. Apply any of the modern techniques to simplify the process. Material handling improvements, robust fixturing, poka-yoke methods, etc.
3. Monitor process robustness with statistical data.
4. Apply improvements & refinements.
5. Verify 4 with statistical data.
6. Repeat 2-5 until satisfied (what defines "satisfied"? many things).
7. Evaluate the product design using Define For Assembly / Design For Automation methodologies.
8. Implement DFA improvements in the manual stage.
9. Verify process robustness with statistical data.
10. Repeat etc.
11. Analyze the manufacturing process to determine what portions to automate, and in what sequence. Automation deployment may be piece-meal step-by-step, or all-in-one. I have not had much good success with "all-in-one", but there are situations that require this.
12. Prototype each portion and prove that it works through statistical data.
13. When satisfied, document fully the automated process (so machine builders can know how you want equipment built via your written specification).
14. Develop a workable plan for deployment to replace the manual process. This may be piece-meal substitution or all-in-one deployment of a parallel process. Lots of different factors involved here, mainly dealing with business / operations issues, not technical. Your workforce skills will require upgrading.
15. After startup, slowly ramp up to full production rate over time (weeks or months typically). Verify success with statistical data.

It can be a lot of fun, technically. Business needs and office politics sometimes make it a messy, painful, brutal experience.

TygerDawg
Blue Technik LLC
Virtuoso Robotics Engineering

FYI, the OP is AWOL.

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.