INTEGRATED MANUFACTURING LABORATORY AND

SOFTWARE TOOLS APPLIED TO AN INDUSTRIAL

ENGINEERING UNDERGRADUATE COURSE

Fábio Lima, Álvaro Camargo Prado, Alexandre Augusto Massote and Fabrizio Leonardi

Centro Universitário da FEI, Av. Humberto de Alencar Castelo Branco, 3972, São Bernardo do Campo-SP, Brasil

Keywords: Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMS), Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM), Simulation, Software

tools, Learning enhancement, e-Learning.

Abstract: This paper describes the experience of using software tools associated with an integrated manufacturing

laboratory in an industrial engineering undergraduate course at FEI (Fundação Educacional Inaciana,

Brazil). The integrated manufacturing laboratory has got three complete manufacturing cells integrated by

computer. The aim of the laboratory is to provide to the industrial engineering student a powerful analysis

capability of how to use these kinds of systems to improve product quality and production performance. To

do that, computational models are implemented using software tools like Visual Object Net++, Promodel

and WEB support. Finally, the models are validated in laboratory experiments. It was observed that such

strategy has been given excellent learning results.

1 INTRODUCTION

In the recent years the production systems has

become more and more important inside the

industries. The old non flexible manufacturing

systems which reduced the productivity and quality

of the products have been discarded (Sanchez, L.

M., Nagi, R., 2001).

Several new philosophies have emerged in an

effort of improving the product quality at low cost.

Among these new philosophies are the FMS

concept, the computer integrated manufacturing and

the management systems associated with production

(Groover, M.P., 1980). The FMS concept provides

flexibility, cost reduction and fast production

(Heizer, J., Render, B., 1996). Nevertheless,

teaching these new philosophies to undergraduate

students is still a challenge. This task involves a

good laboratory structure as theoretical methods of

teaching as well. Moreover to make these theoretical

methods efficient, software tools have been used

successfully.

We have been testing such a strategy in the

Integrated Manufacturing Laboratory in our

organization (Fundação Educacional Inaciana, FEI –

Brazil). The Manufacturing Laboratory is composed

by three manufacturing cells each one containing

three articulated robots, three CNC machines and

three conveyors. Though equipments have didactic

characteristics they work much close as industrial

equipments. The aim of the laboratory is not

teaching industrial automation or robotics but

mainly performance evaluation of production

systems. The impact of layout changes and setup

time reduction are some of studies carried out in the

laboratory.

To the modelling of production systems and its

performance evaluation Petri nets theory were

introduced into the undergraduate course allied to

analytical performance analysis. Completing the

scenario, numeral performance analysis is performed

using the simulation software Promodel

Finally, a WEB support was provided to students

from Moodle platform. It provides a fast

communication channel with the students through

forum discussion sessions, material publishing and

online evaluations.

2 THE MANUFACTURING

LABORATORY

As previously mentioned the integrated

127

Lima F., Camargo Prado Á., Augusto Massote A. and Leonardi F. (2009).

INTEGRATED MANUFACTURING LABORATORY AND SOFTWARE TOOLS APPLIED TO AN INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING UNDERGRADUATE

COURSE.

In Proceedings of the First International Conference on Computer Supported Education, pages 127-130

DOI: 10.5220/0001978401270130

 SciTePress

manufacturing laboratory is well equipped for its

purpose. Figure 1 below shows a partial view of the

laboratory.

Figure 1: The integrated manufacturing laboratory.

Considering the characteristics of the equipments

the actual stage of the laboratory allows several

studies into the automation systems, manufacturing

problems, times and methods and production

management. Some subjects actually bearing by the

laboratory are: evaluation of layout changing in

production systems performance; times and methods

researches; product project and development;

production planning and program.

The next session presents the software tools

which are used either in direct or indirect form with

the integrated manufacturing laboratory to provide

high level of excellence in learning industrial

engineering.

3 SOFTWARE TOOLS

DESCRIPTIONS

To develop the industrial automation subject to the

industrial engineering students several software tools

are used together.

These software tools may be divided in three

groups: the equipments software of the integrated

manufacturing laboratory; the modeling software

applied to performance and evaluation of the

manufacturing and web support. These software

tools are described in details below.

3.1 Software of the CNC Machines

The integrated manufacturing laboratory has got

three CNC machines: two CNC mills and one CNC

lathe. The software tools applied to mills and lathe

are similar in functionality. Both of them have got a

friendly user interface and allow fast programming

and evaluation results. The programming language is

the well known M and G codes.

3.2 Articulated Robot Software

The articulated robot has got five degrees of

freedom and each articulation is driven by a

servomotor. Programming the points of the robot

trajectory is often made through a programming

terminal. On the other hand, program optimization,

visualization and management are easily done by a

friendly software interface.

3.3 Petri Net Software

To guarantee a powerful analysis of the

manufacturing systems some modelling software

tools were introduced into the undergraduate course.

The first one is the Visual Object Net ++ which is a

Petri net simulator. Petri nets are a very efficient tool

when dealing with discrete event systems (Zurawski,

R., 1994), (Zurawski, R.; Zhou, M., 1994), (Sun, T.-

H., Cheng, C., Fu, L., 1994), (Girault, C., Valk, R.,

2003).

A dynamic simulation of the discrete

manufacturing is a fast and simple task when using

Visual Object Net ++. Moreover, Visual Object Net

++ is a free of charge software.

3.4 Promodel

Software

The Promodel

software provides a full analysis of

the manufacturing performance concerning time

machine utilization, movement times, and statistic

analysis, among others (Harrell, 2003).

3.5 Moodle

e-Learning Software

To improve the communication between students

and professor such as material publishing and online

evaluation as well an e-learning software is

extensively used into the course. The practical

experience reveals that this strategy is very efficient

and well received by the students. The Moodle e-

learning software still has a lot of additional tools

like discussion forums and video publishing (Cole,

2006).

4 CASE STUDY

This section presents a case study in using the

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integrated manufacturing laboratory and the

software tools early presented in successful

manufacturing experiments.

4.1 Problem Description

The proposal of the experiment implemented into

the laboratory is to integrate all hardware and

software tools available to solve manufacturing

problems like productivity increases based in

different layout possibilities using virtual and

physical simulations.

The students investigate two different layouts,

in line and flexible, with focus in non operational

times, like movement times (Groover, 1980). The

solution is (i) modelling the layouts using Petri, (ii)

distribute the equipments based on the models and

(iii) measure times involved. Finally, (iv) they

calculate lead time and others important results to

conclude what is the best layout.

All stages are closely accompanied by the tutors

via personal attendance of the students and e-

learning software. Concerning the e-learning

software, the utilization of the discussion forums

and the file exchanges are strongly suggested by the

tutors.

Figure 2 shows the Petri net models which

represents the discrete events mentioned above.

Figures 3 and 4 present the Promodel

models of

line and flexible manufacturing layout.

After analyzing the computational models

generated by Visual Object Net++ and Promodel

some procedures are taken into account by the

students. First of them is to compare the

computational results with the previous analytical

results generated. The second procedure is to apply

production manufacturing concepts to change the

initial purpose into a new one. Again, the first model

is compared to the old one and conclusions about the

performance emerge.

100

BASE STOCK

MILL1 ON

MILL1 OFF

MILL2 OFF

MILL2 ON

CONVEYOR ON

COVEYOR OFF

ROB OT1 ROBOT2

ROBOT3

LATHEOFF

LATHE ON

100

PIN S TOCK

BASE FINISHED

PIN FINISHED

ASSEMBLY

Figure 2: The Petri net line manufacturing model.

Figure 3: The Promodel

line manufacturing model.

Figure 4: The Promode l

flexible manufacturing model..

4.2 Future Trends: Kyatera Net, ERP

and MES

The WebLabs are labs were experiments,

equipments and real systems can be controlled

remotely trough the Internet. They are built to allow

sheering of ideas and equipments among researchers

from different Labs, thus they are a way for new

corroborative researches (e-collaboration) and e-

learning. The scenario is as follow. The WebLab

user access the Lab URL and by clicking out virtual

buttons he/she controls the equipments, shows the

results on screen and get the real time images from

Lab.

We intent join this WebLab to Kyatera. Kyatera

is a network of researchers, interconnected through

a fiber-to-the-lab optical network dedicated to

research, working remotely from their institutions in

a cooperative way, created by Fapesp (the São Paulo

State foundation for research funding). Its mission is

mobilizing firms, institutes of research, universities,

and funding agencies to develop technological

innovations and to generate scientific knowledge.

We intent also to introduce the Enterprise

Resource Planning (ERP) and the Manufacturing

Enterprise Systems (MES) into the laboratory. These

two subjects are perfectly applied to the integrated

manufacturing laboratory and consist in an

important step to make the laboratory a complete

industrial system.

The production planning and control will be

introduced so after all the analytical studies early

mentioned. At the end of this implementation we

will have a complete Information Technology

INTEGRATED MANUFACTURING LABORATORY AND SOFTWARE TOOLS APPLIED TO AN INDUSTRIAL

ENGINEERING UNDERGRADUATE COURSE

129

supported laboratory.

5 CONCLUSIONS

This paper presented a successfully experience of

integrating hardware through software technologies

in an integrated manufacturing laboratory. The aim

is to provide a full industrial environment to

industrial engineering undergraduate course.

The experience shows that this concept has

improved learning and student’s motivation as

scientific researches as well.

The web bearing provided by Moodle

learning tool stressed the contact between students

and professors and also improved the discussion and

information exchange.

It was observed that several proposals has been

emerged from the students towards using

continuously the laboratory structure for research

purpose proofing one more time the efficiency of the

strategies inserted into the course.

The Kyatera net which is a fast net connecting

research laboratories consists in future trends to the

integrated manufacturing laboratory. It is an

ambitious task that together ERP and MES will

launch the course into a high level stage.

Finally it is clear that a good laboratory structure

bearing by all sorts of software tools has made

students join professors to construct an excellence

industrial engineering course.

REFERENCES

Cassandras, C. Lafortune, S., 1999. Introduction do

Discrete Event Systems – Kluwer.

Cole, J. Foster, H., 2005. Using Moodle: Teaching with

the Popular Open Source Course Management System

- O’Reilly Community Press, 2

edition.

Harrell, R. GHOSH, R. BOWDEN, R., 2003. Simulation

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Heizer, J. Render, B. 1996 - Operations Management,

Prentice Hall, New Jersey.

Girault, C., Valk, R., 2003, Petri Nets for Systems

Engineering : a Guide to Modeling, Verification, and

Applications, Berlin, Springer Verlag.

Goover, M P., 1980. Automation, Production Systems and

Computer-Integrated Manufacturing - Prentice-Hall,

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Sanchez, L. M., Nagi, R. 2001, A Review of Agile

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