Engineering Faculty Internship: Improved Lead Time and Adaptability of Automated Assembly Systems

工程学院实习为首席研究员提供了一个研究大批量机器人自动化系统的机会，并与该系统的设计师和用户进行互动。该系统是打印机组装系统，设计用于每月组装10万台打印机。大批量（每月数十万件）机械装配的关键问题之一是设计和实施自动化系统所需的交货时间，以及为新产品或重新设计的产品将自动化生产提升到满负荷生产所需的额外时间。这项研究关注的是了解导致这些长交货时间和缺乏灵活性的自动化装配系统的因素。在大学和工业界合作的基础上，结合对现有系统的研究，将确定导致交付时间长和缺乏灵活性的主要因素，提出替代设计，并进行概念验证实验。

The Engineering Faculty Internship provides the Principal Investigator an opportunity to study a high-volume robotic automation system and interact with the designers and users of such a system. This system is the printer assembly system designed to assemble on the order of 100,000 printers per month. One of the key problems in high volume (hundreds of thousands of units per month) mechanical assembly is the lead time required to design and implement automation systems and the additional time required to ramp automated production to full volume for a new or redesigned product. The research is concerned with understanding the factors contributing to these long lead times and lack of flexibility for automated assembly systems. On the basis of the collaboration of the university and industrial in conjunction with study of the system at hand, the major factors contributing to long lead times and lack of flexibility will be determined, alternative designs proposed, and proof-of-concept experiments conducted.