APPLICATION OF ARTIFICIAL-INTELLIGENCE TO PROBLEMS IN ADVANCED MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS

Flexible manufacturing systems (FMS) are used worldwide for the production of parts in CIM systems. The design and operation of an FMS can be achieved only by the teamwork of several experts using different computer programs. Because of the complexity and diversity of the problems to be solved, traditional programming can be used only if combined with artificial intelligence techniques, such as expert and knowledge-based systems. This paper deals with the application of expert systems to assist in quality control and the simulation and control of FMSs. well known traditional simulation (Cinema/SIMAN) and networking (MAP) packages are combined with high performance expert systems (ALL-EX, G2) to provide acceptable solutions. This paper reports on recent work where rapid prototype programs are under test, with the ultimate goal of providing industrially applicable programs.