Modular, didactic flexible manufacturing system — Case study

This paper presents a model of Modular, Didactic Flexible Manufacturing System. The presented manufacturing system is an example of a system intended for multiassortment and multiversion production. The article describes the laboratory stand structure, stages of production process conducted in different workstations and individual product types. The system is equipped with elements used to simulate real processes and events of production facilities, such as planning of repetitive or rhythmic production and supplying components, performance mismatch of production sections, bottlenecks, setups, assembly and quality control. Furthermore, in this paper the problems of Material Requirements Planning and order sequencing are examined. The processes of planning and production scheduling executed in the modular, didactic, flexible stand are shown. In order to demonstrate the relevance of planning process two experiments were conducted, but only one of them assumed proper planning process. The purpose of proposed research was to present for selected cases the impact of production planning and sequencing process on total production time.