Manufacturing Cells

Book excerpt: Manufacturing Cells: Control, Programming and Integration presents the issues surrounding the integration of manufacturing cells and small manufacturing systems. This book provides a variety of topics, including generally applicable cell controllers, cell management, and cell control. Organized into eight chapters, this book begins with an overview of the methods that allow the effective and fast integration of manufacturing devices into automated manufacturing cells. This text then describes the cell controller as being one element of a computer-integrated management system. Other chapters consider the innovative approach to the design, implementation, and integration of cell controllers in a manufacturing system. This book discusses as well the cell management language, which is a powerful computing environment for building complex manufacturing systems. The final chapter deals with the methods for describing the real-time, decision-making logic that is needed to control manufacturing cells. This book is a valuable resource for manufacturing engineers, managers, and supervisors.