The Development of a Strategy for Integrated Manufacturing Systems
In considering the wide range of issues which arise for any Manufacturing company embarking on the intergration of manufacturing systems, the Working Party decided to take a staged approach and this guide represents the first of several on topics relating to Intergrated Manufacturing Systems. Such topics which arose A Strategic Approach, The Organisational Implications, Hardware and Software Communications.
Inspec keywords: strategic planning; organisational aspects; integrated manufacturing systems; hardware-software codesign
Other keywords: strategic approach; software communications; organisational implications; hardware communications; integrated manufacturing systems
Subjects: Manufacturing systems; Project and production engineering; Industrial applications of IT; Manufacturing and industrial administration; Organisational aspects; Digital circuit design, modelling and testing; Software engineering techniques; Planning; Planning; Hardware-software codesign; Production engineering computing
- Book DOI: 10.1049/PBME012E
- Chapter DOI: 10.1049/PBME012E
- ISBN: 9780855100353
- e-ISBN: 9781849194174
- Page count: 108
- Format: PDF
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Front Matter
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1 Introduction
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Integrated Manufacturing Systems (IMS) can involve the application of a huge range of techniques and technologies. These can embrace all aspects of an organisation from product concept to product launch, and from customer order to after sales support. Within the organisation, every department is likely to be affected by IMS as shown opposite. The concept of IMS is particularly concerned with the smooth flow of information throughout the organisation and hence every functional group is likely to be linked into a company-wide network over a period of time.
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2 Understanding the key issues
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Before embarking on the development of a strategy for Integrated Manufacturing Systems (IMS) it is vital to undertake a systematic audit of current conditions. The purpose of this audit is twofold: to assess the status of current systems; and to collect 'baseline' information on business performance and costs for later use in planning, justification and review. The initial step is to define the current organisation, in order to understand who needs to be interviewed and as a basis for a model of the organisation and its activities.
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3 Assessing the practicalities
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When the long term plan is being developed for the introduction of IMS, optional methods should be considered for achieving the objectives and of managing the transition from the existing systems environment to the new integrated arrangements. Options need to be generated to reflect a number of different characteristics and requirements. In generating options, it is important to ensure that all potentially viable possibilities are investigated whether they represent high, low or medium technology solutions. The earlier exercise to understand best practice will be useful in generating and assessing IMS opportunities in every area. The options developed must also be in tune with the local business objectives and the capability of the company to handle any radical solutions that may be devised. Once options are in place a variety of techniques can be brought to bear on those options to select the best approach. Techniques such as financial modelling and data flow analysis are commonly used. It is normal practice to generate a long list of options and use this to develop a short list of possibilities for more serious analysis and examination in later stages.
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4 Making it happen
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IMS projects can be of very different types. A broad classification is as follows: 1) The implementation of a specific tool primarily impacting a single functional area of the company. Examples of this are Computer-Aided Design, Production Control Systems and Flexible Manufacturing Systems. 2) Tools which, by their nature, span a number of functions. Examples of these are Office Automation systems and the Product Engineering Database. 3) Techniques, which do not necessarily involve computer systems nor automation, and which are essentially concerned with attitudes, motivation and organisation. Examples of these are Just In Time and Total Quality Management.
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5 Case studies
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The objective was to improve the company's competitive position in the market-place by improving key business criteria such as time to tender, design lead time, order preparation time, manufacturing lead time and product quality. The company was already operating the Sopic order processing and inventory control system and the Promis production control and scheduling system, both running on an IBM 4300 series computer. Further systems were required, including Medusa for Computer Aided Design, Locam for Computer Aided Process Planning and GNC computer aided part programming. All of these ran on Prime hardware. An integrated manufacturing system was required to transfer data as necessary between these packages, which entailed linking the IBM and Prime computers.
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Back Matter
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