Development of a factory level CIM model

There is a critical need for establishing CIM at the factory level. This would complement the research already done in manufacturing automation-which, thus far, has concentrated on flexible manufacturing cells, robotics, and other material handling devices at the shop floor level. In a generic fashion, this paper identifies the application modules that clearly lend themselves to an integrated information flow in a controlled manner: computer aided design, computer aided process planning, and manufacturing resource planning. The first two consist of the product and process design centres of the proposed system, respectively. Manufacturing resource planning involves the management of production plans to satisfy the market demand. The functional design of the system is derived from expertise in manufacturing management. It can be based on any given company policy, expressed in a series of rules that control the information flow between these application modules. The modelling of the rule base and the analysis of the system are formalized with the use of generalized Petri nets. Extensions of this work include the incorporation of a shop floor control module, to interface with the factory level.