Masters Abstracts (1990)

FAN, MENG-CHAN
(July 1990)

Email: Not Available

An Expert Systems Approach to Simulation in Flexible Manufacturing Systems

The introduction and use of Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMS) has created new problems for designers and engineers who are responsible for their specification, design, and operation. With the advent of FMSs, manufacturing technology is becoming more complex to control. The human is now faced with ever increasing volumes of data and information, and concomitantly a greater number of decisions to be made in shorter time spans. This research sought to address this problem.

The objective of this thesis was to design and demonstrate an integrated expert system and simulation based approach for FMS control. Combining digital and graphical simulation technology with ESs can help solve problems that demand heuristic knowledge, do not require exact solutions,and are cumbersome to solve using traditional analyses tools.