flexible manufacturing systems

The cost of flexible manufacturing systems today range from several hundred thousand dollars to $50 million or more.

Now the company may be able to leapfrog the others by investing in the second generation of robotics and flexible manufacturing systems.

Trevor Johnson, the company's founder, says that focused laser beams have many applications in flexible manufacturing systems.

They are also useful in - flexible manufacturing systems'- robots that can be programmed to do a variety of jobs.

During that time they have built a growing market for increasingly sophisticated clusters of computer-controlled machinery known as flexible manufacturing systems.

But the plant itself is an older one, and Ford is trying to catch up to the so-called flexible manufacturing systems prevalent among Asian automakers.

Flexible manufacturing systems (FMS) provide the economics of mass production to small batch manufacture.

Dr. Jaikumar focused on the study of flexible manufacturing systems, mainly using robots that can be adapted to perform different tasks.

The project examines the experience of a number of early users of flexible manufacturing systems to identify problems and possible responses in computer integrated manufacturing.

Mr. Fife hired several top managers and developed flexible manufacturing systems which can readily handle parts of different sizes and quick tool changes.

Reich's phrase refers to the adaptability of the 'human capital' employed in production, not to the technology of 'flexible manufacturing systems'.

Like other auto companies, G.M. is trying to equip its factories with more flexible manufacturing systems capable of switching rapidly to produce new models.

'Putting all this new plant and equipment into operation will provide much more flexible manufacturing systems and thereby bring about significantly reduced stock-holding,' explained Phil.

Flexible manufacturing systems (production lines - combining microelectronics and mechanical engineering - that can make small batches of components cheaply) are not yet economic in this country.

He said that flexible manufacturing systems like SCAMP meant jobs for his workers and for any company that installed the technology.

Flexible manufacturing systems, just-in-time inventory management, and other highly agile and adaptable systems of workflow are products of this era.

FLEXIBLE manufacturing systems - where one factory line produces several different products - have been presented as achieving significant cost savings over stand-alone machines.

It is acknowledged that Britain and the USA have been slower in evolving decentralized, flexible manufacturing systems than have Japan or Italy.

To cope better with such demands, Japanese companies invested heavily in so-called flexible manufacturing systems, which allow more than one type of product to be manufactured on the same assembly line.

Browne, J. et al. "Classification of flexible manufacturing systems", The FMS Magazine 1984 April, 114-117.

Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems and Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMS) have different goals.

Giddings is known principally for its development of flexible manufacturing systems, while the larger Cross & Trecker is now the nation's third-largest maker of machine tools.

Flexible manufacturing systems containing more than one AGV may require it to have traffic control so the AGV's will not run into one another.

This characteristic drastically distinguishes RMS from flexible manufacturing systems (FMS), and allows a reduction in investment cost.

'The most successful manufacturing regions have been ones which have linked flexible manufacturing systems with innovative organization and an emphasis on 'customization', design and quality'(Murray, 1988, 11).