Search results

Market turbulence forces assembly plants to constantly adjust their production volume of products, variants and quantities. At the same time, assembly plant managers must protect long‐term investments in the flexible assembly system. For reconfigurability and agility the best solution is the modular semi‐automatic approach by combining flexible automation and human skills. It gives managers possibility to adjust volume by adding new modules or to automate the manual tasks step by step. The control of material handling and information flow in the agile assembly system is important. To keep flexibility, the combination of an intelligent pallet, i.e. use of escort memory, carrying a single product together with other hardware providing paperless production even supports a lot size of one. The article shows how to create flexible capability and capacity in the final assembly systems.

Describes the latest robot, the IRB 340 FlexPicker, from ABB Flexible Automation that is designed for high speed picking and placing operations found in the food and beverage industry. The new gantry mounted robot is based on a triple arm configuration licensed from a Swiss company. The robot is available with a vision system developed by Cognex utilising the patented PatMax image analysis system that is able to tolerate a high degree of image degradation and is ideal for industrial applications where ambient conditions may vary. A variety of possible layouts for picking, collating and mixing products are described.

VINE is produced at least four times a year with the object of providing up‐to‐date news of work being done in the automation of library housekeeping processes, principally in the UK. It is edited and substantially written by the Information Officer for Library Automation based in Southampton University Library and supported by a grant from the British Library Research and Development Department. Copyright for VINE articles rests with the British Library Board, but opinions expressed in VINE do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the British Library. The subscription for VINE is £17 per annum and the period runs from January to December.

This article aims to provide details of recent research into image sensing technologies.

Following an introduction, this article discusses image sensing research involving a range of new materials, novel designs and signal processing schemes. It concludes with a brief discussion of a potentially game-changing technology, the quanta image sensor.

This shows that image sensing is the topic of a major academic and corporate research effort. It involves a diversity of technologies and seeks to yield devices with enhanced or unique characteristics.

This article provides a timely review of recently reported research into image sensing.

THERE IS NO LACK of pundits who are ready to tell the government how their plan will reduce the massive figure of people who cannot find work. Our own contributor, Angus Downie, elsewhere in this issue provides his own plan — to force job sharing and make up the sum then earned by each of the ‘partners’ by a contribution from oil revenues.

MORE cheering news about work study. In the Daily Express the following appeared: ‘Inflation has hit the State‐aided Remploy factories manned by wore than 6,000 disabled workers. But the workers of the 91 factories have wiped out—by increased efficiency—£124,000 of £271,000 rise in costs in the financial year up to the end of March.’

The Nature of Business Policy Business policy — or general management — is concerned with the following six major functions: