Date of Award

2021

Document Type

Master Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Engineering (Research)

Department

IMaR

First Advisor

Professor Joseph Walsh

Second Advisor

Anshul Awasthi

Third Advisor

Andrew Conway

Abstract

A Flexible Manufacturing System (FMS) is a method of production that is designed to easily adapt to changes in the type and quantity of the product being manufactured. Machines and computerised systems can be configured to manufacture a variety of parts and to handle the changing levels of production that is required. The aim of this project was to investigate the current manufacturing processes of Kostal Ireland GmbH with the aim of developing a bespoke prototype material handling system to achieve flexible manufacturing. Kostal Ireland GmbH currently do not have the ability to change their manufacturing operations easily when a customer requests a design change. Furthermore, they do not have the ability to adapt easily to ramp-up or ramp-down production. Any change to manufacturing operations affects their traditional linear manufacturing, where cells are connected with fixed conveyor systems. In any commercial manufacturing environment customer design changes are inevitable and are disruptive to production, they increase manufacturing costs and can make some machines redundant. This research project proposed the design and development of a low cost material handling system that will operate autonomous in a flexible manufacturing environment. The solution was to develop a bespoke material handling system that can be integrated to an Autonomous Intelligent Vehicle (AIV). The complete system will be capable of seamless transportation of a product in a manufacturing environment. The main areas of research were (1) Flexible Manufacturing Systems using Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), (2) AIV Technologies and (3) Automatic Material Handling Systems. The design, development, integration and test of the complete system are presented in this thesis. The results show how a substantial improvement in productivity can be achieved over standard linear methods of manufacture using this solution particularly when one considers the increased flexibility, deployability and maintainability of the system.

Access Level

info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

Project Identifier

info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/SFI/Research Centre Supplement/13/RC/2094/IE///

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