The Virtual Manufacturing Cell

Published

October 1, 1982

Author(s)

Charles R. McLean, Howard Bloom, Ted Hopp

Abstract

A virtual manufacturing cell is being developed at the National Bureau of Standards as part of the control software for the Automated Manufacturing Research Facility (AMRF) project. The traditional group technology (GT) cell has evolved from the need to maintain the flexibility to manufacture a family of parts while gaining some of the efficiency associated with a single process flow line. GT cells are normally defined by a fixed physical grouping of machining workstations that produce a particular class of parts. A shop based upon virtual manufacturing cells provides greater flexibility than existing GT shop configurations by time sharing machining workstations. Virtual GT cells are not identifiable as fixed physical grouping of machining, but as data files and processes in a control computer. Functions performed by these processes include analysis, reporting, routing, scheduling, dispatching, and monitoring. At a higher level, the shop control system schedules cell activation and allocates workstations and other resources to these cells. Workstations are at all times under the control of either a particular virtual cell or a pool cell composed of idle workstations.

Proceedings Title

Proceedings of the IFAC/IFIP Conference on Information Control Problems in Manufacturing Technology

Conference Dates

October 26-28, 1982

Conference Location

Gaithersburg, MD, USA

Pub Type

Conferences

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Keywords

AMRF, group technology, GT, manufacturing, virtual manufacturing cell

Citation

McLean, C. , Bloom, H. and Hopp, T. (1982), The Virtual Manufacturing Cell, Proceedings of the IFAC/IFIP Conference on Information Control Problems in Manufacturing Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, USA, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=821359 (Accessed October 31, 2024)