Managerial Factors Critical To Cim Implementation

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in the implementation of computer integrated manufacturing (CIM). Since many manufacturing organisations compete in international markets, a company strategy should be justified before making any major advanced technology-related investment decisions. The bottleneck for realising CIM systems in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is often the lack of inhouse knowledge about how to design a CIM system and how to implement the existing technological components to improve the manufacturing performance. It is necessary to develop a framework for the design and implementation of CIM in SMEs. The literature on the design and implementation of CIM is reviewed, a framework for the design and implementation of CIM in SMEs is developed, and a case study is conducted which involves collecting and analysing data from a small company * , Company A, to develop a practical framework for the implementation of CIM in SMEs.

The economic justification of the sequential adoption of a new manufacturing system

Developing computer integrated manufacturing: Major issues and problem areas

Network technology plays a vital role in integrating manufacturing facilities and controlling production information flows. A computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM) system with different production characteristics, e.g., production throughput rate and the amount of process infonnation, should be facilitated with a network protocol that meets the individual CIM system's requirements. PEO-NET, a Production-Efficiency-Oriented Network Evaluation Tool, is developed in this paper which adopts network efficiency (Esys), an improved practical perfonnance evaluation index, as the decision criteria while determining the installation suitability of the tentative network protocol. In order to achieve greater portability and flexibility, PEO-NET is designed with three replaceable modules: 1) the CIM system configuration module for defining the configuration of a CIM system as well as its production requirements, 2) the industrial network protocol simulation module for predicting the production communication behavior under different network protocols, and 3) the network perfonnance analysis module for generating the network efficiency significance decision table. Simulations are also perfonned to demonstrate how PEO-NET is facilitated as a decision support tool for selecting a feasible network protocol for both job shop and flow shop production environment with two major LAN (Local Area Network) protocols: Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Detection (CSMA/CD) and Token Passing Bus, respectively.

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) play an increasingly important role in all aspects of competitiveness e.g. for both products and production techniques, but also management methods, the organisation of the firm and human resource training. Obtaining and, just as importantly, mastering scientific and technological information is therefore essential to competitiveness of all SMEs. During the last two decades, several factors have forced global manufacturers to make dramatic changes in their products, markets, and manufacturing strategies. One of the ways by which SMEs can achieve a competitive advantage in manufacturing is through the implementation of computer integrated manufacturing (CIM). Realising the importance of SMEs, an attempt has been made in this paper to study the implementation of CIM in SMEs. First, the characteristics of CIM have been studied with reference to the application and infrastructure of SMEs. Secondly, a framework has been presented for the implementation of CIM in SMEs with the help of a conceptual model. Finally, future research directions on CIM in SMEs are indicated.

The authors concentrate on integrating the data stored in various databases, i.e. the problems of data distribution and data actualization. A detailed discussion of a sample CIM (computer integrated manufacturing) application is given. This sample application shows that data distribution in CIM systems is necessary and that a synchronous update of replicated data is not always sufficient. A mechanism to describe the distribution of various data partitions and their relationship in the sense of the exchange of data modifications (data actualizations) is presented. Additionally, the sample application shows that CIM systems not only have to manage data but also the processes or programs which use the data. >

This paper presents the results of a survey of successful U.S. manufacturers on their methods of strategic planning for Computer-integrated Manufacturing (CIM). The foundation for the survey was a literature search of relevant journals, trade publications, books, and industry and government documentation in the area of CIM. In addition, community-of-interest interviews were conducted to help determine successful companies with regard to CIM strategic planning. Those companies identified were interviewed to gather detailed information concerning their CIM strategic planning processes and the impacts of CIM on their companies. Information on CIM project justification, training, and organizational impacts was also obtained. This information is analyzed, and conclusions are offered by the authors as to what factors are important in CIM strategic planning.

A small or local computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM) system that makes products in a shorter time and with small inventory was implemented. With this experience, a local CIM software package was developed for OMRON factories, and there are now 21 local CIM systems in the OMRON group. The hardware and software of local CIM systems are described.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

Incorporating CIM optimization in manufacturing management strategy

On the formal specification and verification of CIM architectures using LOTOS

New jobs regeneration methods for computer integrated manufacturing environment

This work is geared toward a real-world manufacturing planning (MP) task, whose two objectives are to maximize the order fulfillment rate and minimize the total cost. More important, the requirements and constraints in real manufacturing make the MP task very challenging in several aspects. For example, the MP needs to cover many production components of multiple plants over a 30-day horizon, which means that it involves a large number of decision variables. Furthermore, the MP task's two objectives have extremely different magnitudes, and some constraints are difficult to handle. Facing these uncompromising practical requirements, we introduce an interactive multiobjective optimization-based MP system in this article. It can help the decision maker reach a satisfactory tradeoff between the two objectives without consuming massive calculations. In the MP system, the submitted MP task is modeled as a multiobjective integer programming (MOIP) problem. Then, the MOIP problem is addressed via a two-stage multiobjective optimization algorithm (TSMOA). To alleviate the heavy calculation burden, TSMOA transforms the optimization of the MOIP problem into the optimization of a series of single-objective problems (SOPs). Meanwhile, a new SOP solving strategy is used in the MP system to further reduce the computational cost. It utilizes two sequential easier SOPs as the approximator of the original complex SOP for optimization. As part of the MP system, TSMOA and the SOP solving strategy are demonstrated to be efficient in real-world MP applications. In addition, the effectiveness of TSMOA is also validated on benchmark problems. The results indicate that TSMOA as well as the MP system are promising.

1 - CIM — the scope

The growth of the Japanese steel industry has been supported by three factors: operation, equipment, and management technology. Computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM) is the core of management technology. CIM's purpose is to improve production efficiency through computer integration of data covering the staff (design and production control) and management department as well as the production line process department (order entry, manufacturing, and shipment). In this paper, an overview of the Japanese steel industry's system development process is given and the steps taken in order to establish the CIM system are described. The organization, operation, and improvement of operational capability, along with marketing and production-related systems, are integrated. Furthermore, an integrated system model is given as a CIM conceptual model. In closing, reference is also made to the challenges facing CIM in the Japanese steel industry as well as future directions to be taken.

A significant effort in recent computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM) development was carried out by SEMATECH who had laid out and created an open framework for the integration of manufacturing execution system applications running in semiconductor industries at the factory operation level. This paper presents the feasibility to incorporate basic manufacturing applications at the factory engineering level, which include product design, process planning, and material requirement planning, into the SEMATECH CIM framework to form a generic framework across both factory operation level and factory engineering level. The CIM framework established in this paper was aimed to provide a reusable integrated system framework that clearly specifies the functional interface boundaries and standard information model of the required components, in general, manufacturing systems at both factory operation and factory engineering levels. Standard unified modeling language (UML) diagrams and Petri nets have been utilized to model and analyze the specifications and dynamic behaviors of this generic CIM framework. The goal is to build a framework by creating a common, modular, flexible, and integrated object model that unifies an advanced object-oriented architecture concept and heterogeneous manufacturing application development in an open and multisupplier CIM system environment.