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The Assembly Systems Unit at the Royal Institute of Technology and IVF Stockholm has developed several Flexible Automatic Assembly (FAA) cell solutions over the years (Mark I, Mark II, Mark IIF and Mark III). The industrial reality, however, clearly points out that the basic notions of flexibility must be extended and be enhanced without increasing the complexity. This has led our research team to revise the ideas and solutions available for manual and automatic assembly, resulting in the Hyper Flexible Automatic Assembly (HFAA) project. The paper describes the driving factors behind the needs and objectives for the HFAA project, as well as how it will present a standardised set of assembly process‐oriented system components. The paper also describes the new Mark IV application. This industrial HFAA system is being developed in order to test the concept’s industrial viability. The HFAA concept will allow the user to start from a manual assembly station and gradually add assembly equipment. The basic concepts of stepwise automation, standard assembly machine and sub‐batch principle emanate from our previous research.

This paper introduces a schema for the product assembly feature data in an object-oriented and module-based format using Unified Modeling Language (UML). To link production with product design, it is essential to determine at an early stage which entities of product design and development are involved and used at the automated assembly planning and operations. To this end, it is absolutely reasonable to assign meaningful attributes to the parts’ design entities (assembly features) in a systematic and structured way. As such, this approach empowers processes such as motion planning and sequence planning in assembly design.

The assembly feature data requirements are studied and definitions are analyzed and redefined. Using object-oriented techniques, the assembly feature data structure and relationships are modeled based on the identified requirements as five UML packages (Part, three-dimensional (3D) models, Mating, Joint and Handling). All geometric and non-geometric design data entities endorsed with assembly design perspective are extracted or assigned from 3D models and realized through the featured entity interface class. The featured entities are then associated (used) with the mating, handling and joints features. The AssemblyFeature interface is realized through mating, handling and joint packages related to the assembly and part classes. Each package contains all relevant classes which further classify the important attributes of the main class.

This paper sets out to provide an explanatory approach using object-oriented techniques to model the schema of assembly features association and artifacts at the product design level, all of which are essential in several subsequent and parallel steps of the assembly planning process, as well as assembly feature entity assignments in design improvement cycle.

The practical implication based on the identified advantages can be classified in three main features: module-based design, comprehensive classification, integration. These features help the automation and solution development processes based on the proposed models much easier and systematic.

The proposed schema’s comprehensiveness and reliability are verified through comparisons with other works and the advantages are discussed in detail.

This paper aims to provide a method and decision support tool to enhance swift reconfiguration of Plug&Produce (P&P) systems in the presence of continuously changing production orders.

The paper reviews different production scenarios and system design and configuration methods and more particularly specifies the need of decision support tools for P&P systems that integrate configuration and planning activities. This problem is then addressed by proposing a method that helps reduce the solution space of the reconfiguration problem and allows the timely selection of the most promising reconfiguration alternative.

The proposed method was found to be helpful in reducing the reconfiguration alternatives that need to be considered and in selecting the most promising one for different orders. The advantages and limitations of this method are identified, and an illustrative test case of the approach is presented, corroborating the method applicability in the absence of large queues in the system.

This paper addresses a less explored domain within the P&P systems research field, which is the system reconfiguration. It proposed a method to support system validation and reconfiguration jointly with an illustrative test case. This represents an original contribution to the P&P research field, and it can have impact in improving agility and decreasing the complexity of reconfiguration activities to cope with constantly changing production orders.

This roadmap is primarily concerned with the adaptive assembly technology situation in Europe, a topic of particular interest as assembly is often the final process within manufacturing operations. Being the final set of operations on the product, and being traditionally labour‐intensive, assembly has been considerably affected by globalisation. Therefore, unlike most technology roadmaps, this report will not focus solely on particular technologies, but will strive to form a broader perspective on the conditions that may come to influence the opportunities, including political aspects and scientific paradigms. The purpose of this paper is to convey a complete view of the global mechanisms that may come to affect technological breakthroughs, and also present strategies that may better prepare for such a forecast.

The paper describes a technological roadmap.

This paper provides a complete overview of all aspects that may come to affect assembly in Europe within the next 20 years.

The paper gives an original Evolvable Ultra Precision Assembly Systems FP6 project result which will be of general interest for strategic R&D.

Evolvable production systems enable fully reconfiguration capabilities on the shop floor through process‐oriented modularity and multi‐agent‐based distributed control. To be able to benefit architectural and operational characteristics of evolvable systems, there is a need of a new planning approach which links shop floor characteristics and planning operations. This paper seeks to address these issues.

Evolvable production system has a structured methodology in itself. Consistent to this, a reference planning architecture is developed aiming to achieve agility on planning activities. Besides a workload control method is proposed and implemented as a part of the planning architecture.

First applications of evolvable systems have been implemented through European research projects. Shop floor working principles and architectural characteristics are consistent to facilitate more agility on planning activities which are framed at a planning reference architecture called demand responsive planning. As an implementation case, an agent‐based workload control method is proposed and implemented. The characteristics of EPS and proposed planning architecture enable continuous and dynamic workload control of the shop floor to be implemented.

This paper presents a new planning model compatible with evolvable production systems targeting to agility to demand on planning and control activities benefiting shop floor enhancements of a fully reconfigurable system which enables to relax constraints imposed from production systems to planning. In addition, a continuous and dynamic workload control method is proposed and implemented.

The main features of evolvable systems include distributed control, a modularized, intelligent and open architecture, a comprehensive and multi‐dimensional methodological support that comprises the reference architecture. Furthermore, integration of legacy subsystems and modules has been addressed in the methodology. This paper aims to present the latest developments, applications and conclusions drawn to date.

Evolvable assembly system is a new methodology in itself, and is currently being applied within several European projects. Evolvable assembly goes beyond reconfigurability and offers continuous evolution of the system.

The work has been, and is being, implemented through large European research projects. Evolvability, being a system concept, is envisaged addressing every aspect of an assembly system throughout its life cycle, i.e. design and development, operation and evolution.

This paper presents the latest developments, applications and conclusions drawn to date.

The paper presents the methodology and the latest application of it, which is industrial. This is the first application that offers self‐configuration of the equipment.

Current major roadmapping efforts have all clearly underlined that true industrial sustainability will require far higher levels of systems' autonomy and adaptability. In accordance with these recommendations, the Evolvable Assembly Systems (EAS) has aimed at developing such technological solutions and support mechanisms. Since its inception in 2002 as a next generation of production systems, the concept is being further developed and tested to emerge as a production system paradigm. The essence of evolvability resides not only in the ability of system components to adapt to the changing conditions of operation, but also to assist in the evolution of these components in time. Characteristically, Evolvable systems have distributed control, and are composed of intelligent modules with embedded control. To assist the development and life cycle, a methodological framework is being developed. After validating the process‐oriented approach (EC FP6 EUPASS project), EAS now tackles its current major challenge (FP7 IDEAS project) in proving that factory responsiveness can be improved using lighter multi‐agent technology running on EAS modules (modules with embedded control). The purpose of this paper is to detail the particular developments within the IDEAS project, which include the first self re‐configuring system demonstration and a new mechatronic architecture.

The paper covers the development of a plug & produce system for FESTO AG. The work covers the background methodology and details its constituents: control system, architecture, design methodology, and modularity. Specific detail is reserved for the configuration approach which integrates several tools, and the commercially available control boards. The latter have been specifically developed for distributed control applications.

The paper details probably the first self‐configuring assembly system at shop‐floor level. This is one of the very first industrial plug & produce systems, in which equipment may be added/removed with no programming effort at all.

The paper reports the findings and development carried out within the framework of a single project. It also clarifies that the solution is not a general panacea for all the issues within assembly.

The implications are quite large as the work proves the validity of an approach that could change our way of designing and building assembly systems. In the words of an industrial partner, this is “a new way of engineering assembly systems”.

Should this approach be used in industry then the implications could be huge. It would, for example, mean that new services are created, whereby assembly system modules are leased to users through a network of depots, rather than bought at a high cost. The system modules also have a far longer lifespan, implying very good ecological solutions.

The highly original paper describes what is probably one of the very first projects to show that distributed control at shop‐floor level is viable and technologically feasible.

Reports on the findings of an International Workshop on (Flexible) Assembly Automation held at Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands in May 2000. This workshop was organised to discuss immediate and future problems associated with precision assembly. This resulted in the creation of a new European initiative: Assembly Net. Discusses the emerging needs for precision assembly and considers associated technologies.