Overview to Modular Manufacturing Research

Since the Industrial Revolution manufacturing methods have been characterised by process centred work organisation in which material and components are transferred from machine to machine. However, manufacturing requirements have changed enormously in the last few decades and today the emphasis is on greater responsiveness, cost effectiveness, improved production quality and shorter product life-cycles. Moreover, it is increasingly becoming evident that 'traditional' process centred production methods and work structures are proving inappropriate to meet the new demands. Put simply, there is now pressure to restructure manufacturing along new lines. Indeed, this change is so fundamental in nature that many belief we are at the start of yet another industrial revolution.

To meet these changing demands current research at CUT is concerned with progressing a radically new Modular Production Systems (MPS) manufacturing concept. In particular, MPS represents a major departure form 'traditional' manufacturing methods since the objective is to standardise both the methods of production system design and the machine units for production system construction. The belief is that ultimately entire fully integrated component production and assembly systems will be able to be rapidly configured for producing a wide range of low to medium technology consumer goods.

Normally building product oriented production systems using 'conventional' units ( ie. manufacturing machinery) is not feasible - largely because of the time and work involved in designing, constructing and de-bugging. However, MPS production system design and construction is greatly simplified as a result of the 'complex' sub-systems of 'traditional' production machinery being replaced by a set of standardised 'primitive' elements. In particular, production system design becomes a systematic process and should ultimately enable tools to be produced to automate the design process.

There are two principal categories of MPS machine elements:

  1. Process Machine 'Primitives' (PMPs): These are the principal processing sub-systems which operate upon and change the state of materials. For many processes such as pressing, injection moulding and drilling the modules are functionally similar to existing process machinery. However they now conform to precise, pre-defined performance, dimensional and control standards.
  2. Modular Actuator Elements (MAEs): These are for the provision of motion tasks and perform two central roles:
  3. In association with Modular Tooling and Jigging, MAEs are used to build material and component manipulation systems.
  4. When appropriate PMPs do not exist MAEs are used with modular tooling and jigging to form the basis of new special-purpose process machinery (eg. material cutting, glue laying, etc.).

It is envisaged that the MPS methods will have a revolutionary impact on the effectiveness on a large sector of consumer related manufacturing industry. In particular, it is anticipated that MPS will provide the framework for a major epoch in consumer manufacturing industry which is characterised by:

  1. a standard and 'universal' model for production system design and operation suitable for a wide variety of low to medium technology consumer products
  2. product design and production system design are united into one overall design process in which product features have a 'one-to-one' correspondence with 'process modules'.
  3. the ability to accurately predict production parameters, such as operating costs, at the product design stage,
  4. reductions in machinery costs resulting from competition to supply machinery conforming to an 'open' MPS module standard,
  5. high re-utilisation of machine modules once production of a particular product is finished,
  6. reductions in specially designed fixturing, tooling and software when a new production system is required,
  7. much smaller production systems since only machinery specific to the product requirements is installed on the shop floor.
  8. flexible production by module configuration, possibly enabling production systems to be designed and built in a matter of weeks or even days,

Furthermore, MPS manufacturing will result in a major change in manufacturing business operation. In particular, the construction of an MPS will probably best be undertaken by specialist system builders who are solely responsible for the leasing of module hardware and the building of such production systems. 'Manufacturers' will then be more concerned with product design, marketing and sales. Ultimately this could give rise to geographically distributed 'generic' factories which are leased to 'manufacturers' who seek their production capabilities.

MPS will enable goods to be produced on a more local basis to the markets in which they are required, thereby making savings on transportation costs and associated environmental effects, reduced inventory stocks and a decreased 'production-to-market' lead time.

For information regarding current research opportunities in this area see Postgraduate Research Projects

This page maintained by Toni Lush

tonilush@macros.cage.curtin.edu.au