Zero-point fixture systems as a reconfiguration enabler in flexible manufacturing systems

ABSTRACT

Today's manufacturing systems need to be able to quickly adapt to customer demands, ranging from high volumes of mass production to high volumes of mass customization. Flexible Manufacturing Systems provide a high degree of flexibility to cope with these challenges. They consist of machine tools capable of executing a wide range of machining operations while the use of pallets to reference and block the parts allows the decoupling of the setup operations from the machining centers activity. This paper presents an ontology-based framework to support the design and management of flexible manufacturing systems, aimed at integrating the various involved activities including the pallet configuration and process planning, the management policies for short-term production planning and the pallet checking to verify the correct configuration of the physical pallet.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS:

• Zero-Point pallet
• Process planning
• Pallet inspection
• ontology-based data model

Acknowledgements

The research has been partially funded by the Italian Flagship project FdF-SP2-T2.1 ‘Pro2Evo: Product and Process Co-Evolution Management via Modular Pallet configuration’.

ORCID

Marcello Urgo http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0341-9208

Walter Terkaj http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8902-361X

Claudio Cenati http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2507-6381

Franca Giannini http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3608-6737

Marina Monti http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1627-3551

Stefania Pellegrinelli http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0439-0988