Search results

MANY who realise the implications of White's book on The Organisation Man have probably closed it with the self‐satisfied reflection that ‘it can't happen here.’ That is the anodyne we generally swallow to protect us from disagreeable fears.

This paper reviews bowl feeders with optical sensors, used in industrial automation and assembly, describing their advantages over mechanically tooled bowl feeders, their underlying technology and development trends.

Vision guided robotics (VGR) is a fast growing technology and a way to reduce manpower and retain production, especially in countries with high manufacturing overheads and labour costs. This paper aims to provide information on a new VGR system.

The paper describes the new automation system of the Swedish company SVIA.

Shows that the need to position components to a set pick‐up position is eliminated – the vision system determining the position of randomly fed products by a recycling conveyor system. The vision system and control software gives the robot exact coordinates of the components, which are spread out randomly beneath the camera field of vision, enabling the robot arm to move to a selected component and pick from the conveyor belt.

Describes how the modules are easy to utilise when products or production lines change.

The development of a generic flexible assembly system involves the design, selection and integration of a number of different mechanical systems in order to develop an assembly system, which is capable of assembling a wide variety of products having an unknown specification. A specific system configuration being dependent on a variety of factors such as, product size, weight, component insertion direction, and manipulator geometry. This paper examines each of the factors that should be considered when designing a generic flexible assembly system and presents a novel generic flexible assembly system design.

THROUGHOUT history certain decades emerge which are of cardinal import to mankind, like the one beginning in 1781, when the inventions of fifty years reached their apogee and through general application transformed the prevailing cottage industry into what we now call the factory system. That vast accretion of resources changed the human environment.

THIS country is suffering from a serious shortage of skilled workers. This fact was brought into sharp focus when John Brown, the famous shipbuilders, announced two weeks ago that it had been necessary for them to decline a £5 million order because of a lack of labour in the steel and allied trades. The firm and the size of the potential order ensured national attention, but it cannot be accepted as an isolated instance. When the Ministry of Labour tells us that although 3,124 mostly skilled men entered shipbuilding and marine engineering during the last five weeks for which figures are available, but that there remained 2,860 unfilled jobs, or that 3,264 taken into metal manufacturing left 4,637 vacancies, there is need for concern and investigation.

Looks at short‐run production, frequent product modifications, and pressures to reduce product time to market make flexible manufacturing increasingly desirable. Despite advances in flexible systems, the problem of feeding parts to an assembly line is not fully addressed by conventional methods such as bowl feeders. New technologies such as Intelligent Automation Systems’ FPF2000 Flexible Feeder for Small Parts offer additional versatility for short production cycles with frequent changes, and multiple simultaneous assembly lines.

The purpose of this paper is to detail an innovative new equipment enhancement for use in the horizontal processing of printed circuit boards (PCBs).

The paper describes a non‐contact laminar or streamline flow process chamber. It also describes a transport and guiding method suitable for both thick and thin materials and expands on the mechanics and fluid dynamics that further reduce equipment length and operating cost.

The new process chamber and its related enhancements result in a faster and more uniform chemical reaction than is obtainable with conventional flood chambers. This enables the equipment to have reduced length and to offer reduced operating costs.

The paper presents a new approach to horizontal processing that can offer reduced equipment footprints and reductions in operating costs.

FEW visitors to the Business Efficiency Exhibition held in London a few weeks ago can be in any doubt that electronic “brains” and other electro‐mechanical developments will be used more widely in business in future for preparing up‐to‐date records of production and sales and for doing such laborious, time‐consuming tasks as the bookkeeping necessary in the banks.