The impact of disruptive technology on the manufacturing process, and productivity, in an advanced manufacturing environment.

Abstract

Disruptive technology plays a critical role in the performance of mechatronic systems in an advanced manufacturing environment. Robots were used to perform pick and place task in a virtual manufacturing environment. Newton-Raphson model, renewal theorem and queuing theory were used to model the disruptive technology and develop decision-making algorithms in an advanced process. The motion of the conveyor belt system starved modeled and simulated to determine suitable design parameters that were compatible with the tasks of the pick and place robot. MATLAB and Engineering Equation Solver (EES) were used to determine static solutions and simulated solutions to the pick and place problem in the advanced manufacturing process. The results from the simulations were used to develop suitable task-dependent operational conditions in the advanced manufacturing environment. The simulation results were used to determine the optimal conveyor speeds required for the robotic tasks. Comparing the throughput rate of the developed system with the simulated system indicated that optimal productivity was achieved when the decision-making algorithms were implemented at the early stages of the manufacturing process.