IE 486 Flexible Manufacturing Systems

This course focuses on modeling and simulation of flexible manufacturing systems and aims to introduce the students to the research conducted in BUFAIM- Flexible Automation and Intelligent Manufacturing Laboratory. After providing an understanding of the nature and context of flexible manufacturing systems, their components and the real-time operational decisions required for controlling such systems, the focus is set on the FMS simulator software developed and used in BUFAIM together with potential research areas. Using object oriented (OO) methodology the software is analyzed using reverse engineering approach and students are asked to design and implement some new features and enhancements that will give the software new directions for potential research.