Advanced Manufacturing Technologies Steve Goddard

Investigate the function and purpose of existing Advanced Manufacturing

Technology (AMT) Installations

Assignment 3

Contents

Introduction 1

AMT Installations 2

CNC Turning Centers 2

Gantry Loading Machines 3

Industrial Robots for Material Handling and Assembly Operations 4

CNC Mill Turn Centres 5

Probe Systems for Work and Tool Setting 5

Adaptive Control System 6

Manufacturing Stratagies 7

Prototype 7

FMS 7

One Off 7

Mass Production 8

Bibliography 9

Introduction

In this report I am going to begin by looking a range of different types of AMT installations and explaining the
use and specific applications of each installation by analyzing the technical requirements, benefits and
disadvantages of each one.

After this I will go on to look at manufacturing strategies and talk about their advantages and disadvantages
and I will justify their use for some specific applications.

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AMT Installations

CNC Turning Centres

CNC turning produces parts by "turning" rod material and feeding a cutting tool into the turning material. In
CNC turning the cutter can be fed into the rotating work piece at a variety of angles and many tool shapes can
be used

CNC lathes are rapidly replacing the older production lathes (multispindle, etc) due to their ease of setting and
operation. They are designed to use modern carbide tooling and fully utilize modern processes. The part may
be designed and the tool paths programmed by the CAD/CAM process, and the resulting file uploaded to the
machine, and once set and trialed the machine will continue to turn out parts under the occasional supervision
of an operator.

CNC turning provides an economical way to make parts that are commonly symmetrical about an axis of
revolution (e.g. a chess pawn). Shapes that can be made using CNC turning include a variety of plain, taper,
contour, fillet and radius profiles plus threaded surfaces. Although many turned parts use a single axis of
revolution, there can be multiple axiis to allow more flexibility (e.g. camshafts). CNC turning can be combined
with CNC milling and other processes to make more diverse shapes.

The setter/operator needs a high level of skill to perform the process, however the knowledge base is broader
compared to the older production machines where intimate knowledge of each machine was considered
essential. These machines are often set and operated by the same person, where the operator will supervise a
small number of machines (cell).
The machines are often totally enclosed, due in large part to Health and safety (H&S) issues.
.
CNC turning can shape most rigid materials such as:

Aluminium Steel Acrylic Sterling Silver

Copper Acetal Brass Bronze
Nylon Polycarbonate Teflon PVC
Titanium ABS Wood

Normally the tooling types needed for a job are stock items.

Cost optimization options for CNC turning include:

• Reducing complexity
• Minimizing the amount of material removed
• Avoiding difficult shapes such as very long thin structures.

CNC Turning Design Considerations

• As the turning process applies pressure to the material, weak shapes that may flex can be difficult to
machine, such as long thin structures.
• CNC turning generates a cut surface with fine helical feed marks resulting from the rotation of the part
and movement of the cutter - consider specifying a desired surface roughness.
• Bored holes become difficult when the ratio of the depth to diameter is high

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Gantry Loading Machines

Gantry loading machines require access to the machine bed from above, and must straddle to machine. The
gantry carriage must travel at least the length and breadth of the machine bed to perform the required
operations.
Movements on this machine are generally linear.

This type of loading machine uses automatic tool changing systems. Because the system is mounted above the
machine on a separate gantry the machine bed is left free for movement of finished components.

Being an automated system this allows the machine to constantly run without breaks for tool or fixture
changes, and this system is ideally suited for large batches of components with long run times.
Short run times on machinery would be quicker to have a human interface to collect the finished component
and deposit the raw material into the machine work head. This is because it would take too long for the gantry
machine to unload the work head and if it were carrying the raw materials in a secondary position, put the new
material into the machine.
If the machine wasn’t holding the material in a secondary position then it would have to withdraw the finished
part, move to an offload point, return to a collection point for the material and then put it into the machine.

Modern day machinery are designed with automated tool change hatches that allow access to the gantry
loading machine without the machine doors needing to be operated manually.

Advantages
• Can be located to a maintenance position that doe not interfere with the operation of the machine.
• Used in conjunction with a combination of other AMT installation this can allow the machine to run 24/7
• Does not have to be a permanent installation
• Does not restrict work areas as the are mounted above or away from the machine
• Can be easily combined with other areas
• Does not block access to the front of the machine

Disadvantages
• Not suitable for small, short run production items or one off items
• Moving parts on the shop floor or workshops
• Runways are needed to guide the gantry system, this results in a loss of floor space around the
machine depending on gantry configuration.

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Industrial Robots for Material Handling and Assembly Operations

Modern industrial robots are true marvels of engineering. A robot the size of a person can easily carry a load
over one hundred pounds and move it very quickly with a repeatability of +/-0.006 inches. Furthermore these
robots can do that 24 hours a day for years on end with no failures whatsoever. Though they are
reprogrammable, in many applications (particularly those in the auto industry) they are programmed once and
then repeat that exact same task for years.

A six-axis robot like the yellow one below costs about $60,000. What I find interesting is that deploying the
robot costs another $200,000. Thus, the cost of the robot itself is just a fraction of the cost of the total system.
The tools the robot uses combined with the cost of programming the robot form the major percentage of the
cost. That's why robots in the auto industry are rarely reprogrammed. If they are going to go to the expense of
deploying a robot for another task, then they may as well use a new
robot.

This is pretty much the typical machine people think of when they think of
industrial robots. Fanuc makes this particular robot. Fanuc is the largest
maker of these type of robots in the world and they are almost always
yellow. This robot has six independent joints, also called six degrees of
freedom. The reason for this is that arbitrarily placing a solid body in
space requires six parameters; three to specify the location (x, y, z for
example) and three to specify the orientation (roll, yaw, pitch for
example).

If you look closely you will see two cylindrical pistons on the side of the
robot. These cylinders contain "anti-gravity" springs that are a big part of
the reason robots like these can carry such heavy loads. These springs
counter-balance against gravity similar to the way the springs on the
garage door make it much easier for a person to lift.

You will see robots like these welding, painting and handling materials.

The robot shown at right is made by an

American company, Adept Technology. Adept is America's largest robot company
and the world's leading producer of SCARA robots. This is actually the most
common industrial robot. SCARA stands for Selective Compliance Articulated
(though some folks use Assembly here) Robot Arm. The robot has three joints in
the horizontal plane that give it x-y positioning and orientation parallel to the
plane. There is one linear joint that supplies the z positioning. This is the typical
"pick and place" robot. When combined with a vision system it can move product
from conveyor belt to package at a very high rate of speed (think "Lucy and the
candies" but way faster).

The robot's joint structure allows it to be

compliant (or soft) to forces in the horizontal
plane. This is important for "peg in hole" type applications where the robot will
actually flex to make up for inaccuracies and allow very tight part fits.

The machine at left can be called a Cartesian robot, though calling this
machine a robot is really stretching the definition of a robot. It is Cartesian
because it allows x-y-z positioning. Three linear joints provide the three axes of
motion and define the x, y and z planes. This robot is suited for pick and place
applications where either there are no orientation requirements or the parts
can be pre-oriented before the robot picks them up (such as surface mounted
circuit board assembly).

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CNC Mill-turn centres

These machining centres have the ability to compound turn shapes, this allows the turning of concentric
external and internal profiles, and hexagonal sections. This may also be used to produce off centre operations.

The combination of a milling machine and lathe on the same machine makes this a highly flexible machine, but
also capable of producing specialised parts.

CNC ADVANTAGES
• CNC machines can be programmed by advanced design software such as Catia and Solidworks enabling
the manufacture of products that cannot be made by manual machines.
• Modern design software also allows the designer to simulate the manufacture of their idea. There is no
need to make a prototype or a model. This saves time and reduced cost.
• One person can supervise a “cell” of CNC machines as once they are programmed they can usually be
left to work by themselves. Only the cutting tools need replacing occasionally.
• A CNC machine will manufacture each component with a smaller variation in dimensions to that of even
the most skilled worker.
• CNC machines can be used continuously 24 hours a day, all year round and only need to be switched
off for occasional maintenance and restock.
• Less skilled/trained people can operate CNC unlike manual lathes / milling machines etc. that need
skilled engineers.
• CNC machines can be updated by improving the software used to drive the machines
• Training in the use of CNC is available through the use of ‘virtual software’. This is software that allows
the operator to practice using the CNC machine on the screen of a computer. The software is similar to
a computer game.

CNC DISADVANTAGES
• Fewer workers are required to operate CNC machines compared to manually operated machines.
Investment in CNC machines can lead to unemployment.
• With an increase in CNC machinery, fewer skills are being developed within engineering industries.
• CNC machines are more expensive than manually operated machines, although costs are slowly coming
down.
• The CNC machine operator only needs basic training and skills, enough to supervise several machines.
In years gone by, engineers needed years of training to operate centre lathes, milling machines and
other manually operated machines. This means many of the old skills are been lost.

Probe Systems for Work and Tool Setting

These systems use ruby styluses for the location of tooling and work pieces referenced against a set point, this
is often the front face of the machine work head. These can be used to locate new tooling in a new program,
or to measure the produced work piece and allocate offsets to produce to the required dimension, or alert the
operator to a tool tip requiring changing. Laser systems are used in the same way.

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Adaptive Control System

Adaptive control involves modifying the control law used by a controller to cope with the fact that the
parameters of the system being controlled are slowly time-varying or uncertain. For example, as a Helicopter
flies, its mass will slowly decrease as a result of fuel consumption. A control law is needed so that the
helicopter adapts itself to such changing conditions.
Adaptive control is different from robust control in the sense that it does not need a priori information about
the bounds on these uncertain or time-varying parameters; robust control guarantees that if the changes are
within given bounds the control law need not be changed, while adaptive control is precisely concerned with
control law changes.

The construction of the adaptive controller contains the following steps:

• Characterize the desired behavior of the closed loop system.

• Determine the suitable control law with adjustable parameters.
• Find the mechanism for adjusting the parameters.
• Implement the control law

When designing adaptive control systems, special consideration is necessary of convergence and robustness
issues.

Typical applications of adaptive control are:

• Self-tuning of subsequently fixed linear controllers during the implementation phase for one operating
point
• Self-tuning of subsequently fixed robust controllers during the implementation phase for whole range of
operating points
• Self-tuning of fixed controllers on request if the process behavior changes due to ageing, drift, wear etc
• Adaptive control of linear controllers for nonlinear or time-varying processes
• Adaptive control or self-tuning control of nonlinear controllers for nonlinear processes
• Adaptive control or self-tuning control of multivariable controllers for multivariable processes (MIMO
systems)

Usually these methods adapt the controllers to both the process statics and dynamics. In special cases the
adaptation can be limited to the static behavior alone, leading to adaptive control based on characteristic
curves for the steady-states or to extremum value control, optimizing the steady state. Hence, there are several
ways to apply adaptive control algorithms.

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Manufacturing Strategies

Prototype

Rapid Prototyping (RP) can be defined as a group of techniques used to quickly fabricate a scale model of a
part or assembly using three-dimensional computer aided design (CAD) data. What is commonly considered to
be the first RP technique, Stereo lithography, was developed by 3D Systems of Valencia, CA, USA.

The reasons of Rapid Prototyping are

• To increase effective communication.

• To decrease development time.
• To decrease costly mistakes.
• To minimize sustaining engineering changes.
• To extend product lifetime by adding necessary features and eliminating redundant features early in
the design.

Rapid Prototyping decreases development time by allowing corrections to a product to be made early in the
process. By giving engineering, manufacturing, marketing, and purchasing a look at the product early in the
design process, mistakes can be corrected and changes can be made while they are still inexpensive. The
trends in manufacturing industries continue to emphasize the following:

• Increasing number of variants of products.

• Increasing product complexity.
• Decreasing product lifetime before obsolescence.
• Decreasing delivery time

Rapid Prototyping improves product development by enabling better communication in a concurrent

engineering environment.

FMS

Is a manufacturing system in which there is some amount of flexibility that allows the system to react in the
case of changes, whether predicted or unpredicted. This flexibility is generally considered to fall into two
categories, which both contain numerous subcategories. The first category, machine flexibility, covers the
system's ability to be changed to produce new product types, and ability to change the order of operations
executed on a part. The second category is called routing flexibility, which consists of the ability to use multiple
machines to perform the same operation on a part, as well as the system's ability to absorb large-scale
changes, such as in volume, capacity, or capability. Most FMS systems comprise of three main systems. The
work machines which are often automated CNC machines are connected by a material handling system to
optimize parts flow and the central control computer which controls material movements and machine flow.
The main advantages of an FMS are its high flexibility in managing manufacturing resources like time and effort
in order to manufacture a new product. The best application of an FMS is found in the production of small sets
of products like those from a mass production

One-Off Production

For this type of production only one product is built, for example a specialized guitar would probably be built by
one person and would require a lot more time and expertise when compared to batch or mass production. This
form of production is very expensive as the extra time required to produce the one part costs the company.
The product that is being produced can be specified to meet a customer’s requirements that might be different
from the usual specification required thus leading to a more expensive product. The manufacturer may even
have to use different materials for each individual product. All this adds to the production costs for the
company. We say that each one of these one-off products has a high unit cost.

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Mass Production

Mass Production is a system of manufacturing based on principles such as the use of interchangeable parts,
large-scale production, and the high-volume Assembly Line. Although ideas analogous to mass production
existed in many industrialized nations dating back to the eighteenth century, the concept was not fully utilized
until refined by Henry Ford in the early twentieth century and then developed over the next several decades.
Ford's success in producing the Model T automobile set the early standard for what mass production could
achieve. As a result, mass production quickly became the dominant form of manufacturing around the world,
also exerting a profound impact on popular culture.

Modern mass-production methods have led to such improvements in the cost, quality, quantity, and variety of
goods available that the largest global population in history is now sustained at the highest general standard of
living ever. The requirements for mass production of a particular product include the existence of a market
large enough to justify a large investment, a product design that can use standardized parts and processes, a
physical layout that minimizes materials handling, division of labour into simple, short, repetitive steps,
continuous flow of work, and tools designed specifically for the tasks to be performed.

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References & Bibliography

Internet

www.theiet.org + virtual libraries

www.wikipedia.com
www.books24x7.com
www.efunda.com
www.answers.com

Books

Karl j.Astrom, Bjorn Wittenmark second edition - Adaptive Control

Other

AgustaWestland – Rapid Prototypes

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