Ù This work was supported by Sandia Corporation under Contract No. DE-AC04-94-AL85000 with the U.S. Department of Energy. Abstract A CORBA-based distributed object software system was developed for Sandia’s Agile Manufacturing Testbed (SAMT). This information architecture supports the goals of agile manufacturing: rapid response to changing requirements; reduction in both time and cost of the p...

Existing knowledge about agile manufacturing (AM) and an agile workforce was reviewed in order to extend the concept of agility to the whole enterprise. The frameworks that describe other elements of the enterprise besides manufacturing, or contain attributes that could be applied to all enterprise structures were also included into the review. The review identified a large number of papers rel...

Agile Manufacturing (AM) is a new concept in manufacturing intended to improve the competitiveness of firms. In 21 st century, businesses in order to overcome their competitors, should be able to handle challenges of demanding customers seeking high quality, low cost products and also become more flexible with their specific and rapid changing needs. One of the recent concepts in support of fle...

Lean software development Lean software development (LSD) is a translation of lean manufacturing and lean IT principles and practices to the software development domain. Adapted from the Toyota Production System, a pro-lean subculture is emerging from within the Agile community. Origin The term lean software development originated in a book by the same name, written by Mary Poppendieck and Tom ...

An Object-Oriented Timed Petri-net (OOTPN) is proposed for modeling agile manufacturing cell (AMC). It consists of four phases: (1) grouping manufacturing resources into classes; (2) constructing general OOTPN block for each manufacturing resource class; (3) defining joint transitions and suitable control decision rules; (4) generating complete OOTPN model for agile manufacturing cell. This OOT...

An agile workcell has been developed for light mechanical assembly in collaboration with industrial sponsors. The workcell includes multiple Adept robots, a Bosch conveyor system, multiple flexible parts feeders at each robot’s workstation, CCD cameras for parts feeding and hardware registration, and a dual VMEbus control system. Our flexible parts feeder design uses multiple conveyors to singu...

<p class="comp"><em>Inventory management is a systematic approach to sourcing, storing, and selling inventory both raw materials (components) finished goods (products). In business terms, means the right stock, at levels, in place, time, cost as well price. Inventory </em><em>refers process of ordering, storing using company's inventory. This includes materials, componen...

Turmoil in the business environment is driving manufacturing companies to become agile. Agility means the capability of operating profitably in a competitive environment of continuous and unpredictable changes with information systems regarded as one of its main enablers. The research presented in this work focuses on the assessment of information systems to support agile manufacturing. The ass...