Development of a Virtual Simulator for Agile Manufacturing System

In this paper to cope with the reduction of products life-cycle as the variety of products along with the various demands of consumers, a virtual simulator is developed to make the changeover of manufacturing line efficient to embody a virtual simulation similar to a real manufacturing line. The developed virtual simulator can design a layout of a factory and make the time scheduling. Every factory has one simulator so that one product can be manufactured in the factories to use them as virtual factories. We suggest a scheme that heightens the agility to the diversity of manufacturing models by making the information of manufacturing lines and products models to be shared. The developed unit simulator can construct a proper virtual manufacturing line along with the required process of products using several kinds of operator and work cell. A user with the simulator can utilize an interface that makes one to manage the separate task process for each manu(acturing module, change operator components and work cells, and easily teach tasks of each task module. The developed simulator was made for users convenience by Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 that can develop a program supplying graphic user interface environment and by OpenGL of the Silicon Graphics as a graphic library to embody 3D graphic environment. Also, we show that the simulator can be used efficiently for the agile manufacturing by the communication among the factories being linked by TCP/IP and a hybrid database system made by a hierarchical model and a relational model being developed to standardize the data information.