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Work on robotic assembly is advancing on a broad front at the University of Salford, which has been involved in aspects of assembly for the past 20 years. For a review of progress Jack Hollingum went to see Dr Alan Redford, who has been involved with the work from its beginning.

Salford University's Mechanical Engineering Department has been studying and teaching assembly for two decades. Its latest research is pointing toward a newtype of linear feeder suitable for robotic assembly.

For many types of automated manufacturing equipment there is a requirement to supply the equipment with parts which invariably need to be presented in a single orientation. For metal cutting and forming work there is limited applicability and invariably the parts to be presented are simple shapes. For assembly, many different and sometimes complex shapes need to be presented and it is in this activity that small parts feeding has its biggest application.

Product design for robot assembly is assisted by a new software package developed at the University of Salford

The continuous need for agility coupled with increasing labour costs and improvements in reliability and capability of automation has meant a renewed interest in the application of robots to many manufacturing activities. Research at the University of the West of England, Bristol has focused on the design of an integrated, modular system for the assembly of large products. The work under the ALASCA project has resulted in a number of technologies that will significantly affect assembly automation. The paper discusses the latest results from this work and presents the experimental conclusions thus far.

Some of you may be surprised to learn of some of the inventions originating from Australian endeavours — the black box flight recorder, atomic absorption spectrophotometer, over‐the‐horizon radar, combine harvester and the all important ‘esky’ cooler, to name but a few. However, in the 1980s the Australian electronics industry found itself in somewhat of a knowledge vacuum when it came to surface mount technology. The introduction of this technology and its advancement were happening overseas and it was taking some time for the information to get down under for Australian designers and manufacturers to apply this new enabling technology.

Launched in May, the 10‐member IN FACT project intends to install two flexible assembly machine prototypes by the end of 1990. Jack Hollingum went to investigate.

In this issue design‐for‐assembly is highlighted. Methods of designing parts to ease assembly, whether manual or automatic, have been around for 30 years. Brian Rooks thinks that some innovations in this area are now required and suggests computer graphics as a possibility.

OTHER FILMS, it is true, were more talked about in '74, notably The Exorcist and Last Tango, each arguably depicting a gadarene trend of our times. But The Sting, Gatsby, and The Way We Were probably tell us more about middle‐class, and perhaps middle‐aged, opinion, British and American, in that year of inflation and confusion; indeed, as New Society almost noticed wordily in November, about middle‐class reaction from just those trends Bertolucci and Friekdin exhibit. They deserve thus a clinical, although they ask insistently a roseate, retrospect.