Flexibility of assembly and handling equipment with the help of agent systems (FlexA)

• Applicants: Professor Dr.-Ing. Alexander Fay; Professor Dr.-Ing. Michael Weyrich
• Subject Area: Production Systems, Operations Management, Quality Management and Factory Planning
• Term: from 2015 to 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 278883740

Today's requirements of automated handling and assembly machinery encompass flexible adaptations, such as changes in production volume or the manufacturing of new products or product variants. For this purpose, existing systems which are often tailor-made and dedicated to a single purpose have to be retrofitted resulting in considerable effort.This research project aims towards the development of a planning methodology for handling and assembly machinery. This methodology is based on the idea of cyber-physical production systems which enables a high level of flexibility. Existing Systems utilizing this methodology support the extension and retrofit as design proposals are generated to modify them in a simple, transparent and quick manner. Systems which are empowered based on this methodology would easier accommodate new requirements towards manufacturing.For this purpose, two automated handling and assembly machines which are available at the applying institutes, will be analyzed with respect to their soft- and hardware. The resulting insights will be systematized and made available as design patterns in the sense of templates.The process for the specification and requirement definition for flexibility shall be modelled, formally described and transferred onto a multi agent system. The planning process, especially the identification of modifications will be carried out interactively with the user. Once a new manufacturing requirement emerges, it will be passed on to an agent system which evaluates the manufacturing possibilities and estimated retrofitting efforts based on the available design templates.The concept will be prototypically implemented, evaluated on the basis of other automated machinery and generalized in order to migrate towards a more universal planning system based on cyber- physical production systems.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants